Five Weekday Meals Experiment

I love receiving Food24’s Weekday Meals newsletter on a Monday morning. I pore over the options, and every ooh and aah is more vociferous than the one before.

But that’s usually where the excitement ends.

After a morbidly-hued Monday, I usually opt for an over-priced, under-spiced Woolies meal and survive on fridge anomalies and take-aways for the rest of the week.

Cook? Pah. I’m too stressed/lazy/hot/cold/overworked/single/scared of the dishes to tackle meal preparation on my own.

However, changing my bad habits takes more than a plastic bag (I know – I need to take my own shopper) full of groceries that will probably change colour, shape and smell in my fridge over the next few weeks.

Five days, five simple recipes. I’ve got this.

Here’s what I’m offering: A bad Blackberry photo of my creation, my additions/remarks on the recipe and various ratings.

Let’s go!

Pea Risotto

Dear Risotto,

You’re so versatile, easy-going and comforting. You’re like a best friend.

I’ve only just discovered that I’ve been doing you a disservice. I’ve treated you so ordinarily and not provided you with the tools to make you truly exceptional.

Well, it’s time to really stir things up. No longer will I dump you with chunky vegetables that you have to wade through. You deserve the finer things in life…

Pea Risotto

And that’s exactly what you’re going to get. Peas, butternut, cauliflower… before any of it touches your beautifully creamy grains it will first have to withstand a few minutes in the blender.

You deserve the rich colour and full taste of a pureed vegetable.

Pea Risotto

1 onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 cup of arborio rice
1 litre chicken stock
1 tbs butter
2 tbs olive oil
1-2 cups of frozen peas, thawed and blitzed in a food processor

Heat a pan or casserole pot.

Add butter and oil. Once butter is melted and foaming, add the onions and fry until translucent. Then add the garlic and fry for a minute. Add rice and fry on a medium heat until grains are glossy and slightly, ever so slightly browned.

Add a cup of stock. Stir continuously, almost massaging the grains of rice. Once all the liquid is absorbed, add another 1/2 cup of stock and stir again. Repeat the process until all the stock has been absorbed. Taste your pot. If the rice grains are still very chewy, add some more rice or white wine and repeat the process until the rice is soft and creamy.

Remove the pot from the heat. Add the pureed peas and stir in. The risotto will turn green.

Garnish with black pepper and salt/lemon juice and rind/parmesan or whatever takes your fancy.

I served my green rice with lemon chicken and cauliflower and cheese sauce.

French Toast for Dad

Today you’ve been gone for 18 years. Long time.

Surprisingly I remember quite a bit about our time together. Dinner on the porch. Bread with butter, salt and pepper, cut into four squares. I still do that. A constant supply of Worcestershire sauce and HP sauce in the cupboard. You were so particular.

One Saturday morning, I was nine, I burst in the front door, said “Hi Dad” and proceeded to watch K-TV, a Saturday ritual at your house.

You hadn’t come down the stairs yet. So I went up. You were very sick at that time, you were thin, your boep had totally disappeared.

The culinary genius Esther wasn’t in that day. Boy, could she ration things out expertly!  So I took over in the kitchen. I made you a heap of French toast (and no doubt a terrible mess too) for breakfast.

I carried it up to you in bed. When you didn’t finish even half a slice, my heart broke.

You were too sick to eat.

But it’s all cool now, Dad. I know it wasn’t the French toast. You know how? Because my French toast rocks. Looky here.

I’ve never missed you like I miss you today.

Autumn Cheese Sauce

Okay, cheese sauce is good any time of the year.

However, the change of season leaves me craving the lightness of summer as well as the warmth of winter. What to do, oh what to do…

Adaptation.

I’ve added a sprinkle of this, a dash of that and a little bit of hope and luck to my cheese sauce recipe.

It’s like lemony, fragrant velvet on your tongue. Fo’sho.

Autumn Cheese Sauce

1 tbs butter
1 tbs flour
1 cup of warm milk
1 cup of grated cheddar
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp white pepper
Juice of 1 lemon
rind of 1 lemon
A handful of fresh basil leaves

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Once its liquid, add flour and mix into a roux. When it forms a ball, cook for about a minute or so on a medium heat.

Remove the pot from the heat and add a bit of the liquid. Mix quickly to form a thick paste. Return the pot to a medium to low heat. Add the milk little by little until the sauce is the consistency you desire. Use a whisk to deal with any pesky lumps.

Add cheese and stir with a wooden spoon. One combined and melted, add cumin, pepper, juice and rind. Stir. Add basil leaves whole and leave to stand for a few minutes.

Remove basil leaves before serving with you meal… say a crumbed chicken breast, juicy steak or as I like to enjoy it – with a big piece of crusty bread!

Chocolate Pear Pudding

Rich, gooey goodness paired with soft, sweet freshness… sounds heavenly, huh?

Chocolate Pear Pudding

Peas and carrots ain’t got nothing on chocolate and pears. They just go together.

A while back I received a copy of Willie Harcourt-Cooze’s recipe book Willie’s Chocolate Factory Cookbook. From cacao with your fried egg to cacao under the skin of your chicken, there’s no way not to enjoy the flavours of cacao and chocolate.

Excuse me for waxing lyrical there for a moment… It’s  the sugar high.

Not one for doing things by the book, I changed up Willie’s recipe for Gooey Chocolate Pudding. Mainly because all I can afford is the 70% stuff instead of his brand of cacao (available at R100 per 100g from Woolies).

How about some canned pears? Yep. What’s this – a leftover lime? In goes the zest.

Willie’s Goey Chocolate Pudding with Sam’s amendments

(3 large ramekins of pudding)

100g Lindt 70% Excellence (or 90g of Willie’s cacao)
100g unsalted butter
87.5g castor sugar
3 eggs
1ts vanilla extract
1 tin canned pears, halved
zest of 1 lime

Chocolate and Pears like... honey and bears?

I know a recipe for 3 servings is odd but this is just one of  those puddings.

Preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius with the fan. Grease or spray your pudding ramekins.
Melt the cacao or chocolate with the butter and 30g of castor sugar in a heatproof bowl set on top of a pot of simmering water.

Beat eggs, remaining sugar and vanilla together lightly. Until pale yellow.

Fold cacao mixture gently into egg mixture.

Place 1 canned pear half in bottom of each ramekin.

Divide the mixture between the ramekins.

Now, here’s the thing. The original recipe is for 6-8 pudding ramekins. Due to not having said amount of ramekins, we had to go with three. They were quite large. So while the recipe states bake for 12-15 minutes, I found it to only be ready in 20-25 minutes.
The trick is to wait for the tops to rise and crack, then you’ll know. That’s really the better indicator than a stupid kitchen timer shaped like egg.

Once done, serve with a dollop of creme fraiche and a sprinkling of lime zest.

Willie’s Chocolate Factory Cookbook (Hodder & Stoughton)

Malva Pudding

Mmm… Malva Pudding.

Drenched in sunshine...

It’s a miserable Easter Sunday here in Cape Town, but then again the weather’s perfect for spending with family. Miss you today, Mom.

To cheer me up, I drenched up old food photos and found this fantastic pic of Malva Pudding I baked on a beautifully sunny day.

I am not by a long shot a pro when it comes to this South African classic, so I turned to a pro for some help.

The November 2009 edition of Taste Magazine featured recipes from Shaun Schoeman, the exec chef at Fyndraai, the gorgeous restaurant at Solms-Delta wine estate. (Aside note: you must try the Springbok shank.)

His Malva pud looked amazing so I thought hey, this could make me look good.

My final product didn’t look anything like the picture, but it tasted real good so we won’t split hairs.

Fyndraai‘s Malva Pudding
Serves 4 to 6
220g castor sugar
140g white flour
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 free-range egg
1 cup of milk
2 tsp white vinegar
1 tbs melted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract

Sauce:
110g castor sugar
1 cup full-cream milk
2 tbs butter

Preheat oven to 160 degrees celsius. Sift all dry ingredients together. Whisk together the egg and milk, then add vinegar and melted butter. Add dry ingredients to egg mixture and whisk until smooth. Mix in the vanilla extract. then pour the mixture into a lightly greased tray and bake for 25 mins. Pierce the surface of the warm pudding with a fork. Pour the sauce over it and serve.

Sauce: Mix all ingredients in a saucepan over a low heat until butter is melted.

My result was so saucy I didn’t bother with ice-cream or Ideal milk, just a bit of lemon zest.

Postcards from the Veg: Pizza

Vegetarian pizza is a pretty obvious choice for us newbie veggies. We still get all the flavour without having to sacrifice much or work with foreign ingredients.

So NOT rabbit food.

But this pizza is special. I learnt the recipe when I joined WeightWatchers and I haven’t made a different pizza since. Although, I have become far more liberal with my toppings and serving sizes. Shh…

Instead of buying pizza bases or painstakingly making them yourself, you can make this pizza on a tortilla wrap. Fancy, neh?

It produces the most wonderful, light base and the flavours just tend to ‘pop’ that much more as a result.

Enough with the sales talk. Here’s the recipe, make it yourself and then report back.

Nomnomnom...

Vegetarian WeightWatchers Pizza
Serves 2
2 tortilla wraps, preferably wholewheat
2 tbs tomato paste
2 tsp crushed garlic
1 tomato, sliced
1 green pepper, sliced
1 onion, sliced
1 cup  of sliced mushrooms
1/2 avo, sliced
1 cup of grated cheeze, preferably mozzarella but I use whatever’s in the fridge
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 220ºC.

Smear the tomato paste and garlic on the tortillas. Add the rest of the toppings, cheese and avo last.

Place your pizzas on a Spray ‘n Cooked oven tray.

Once the oven is smokin’ hot, put the pizzas in the oven for about 10 minutes or until it looks like you want it to look. Some like theirs crispier than others.

And don’t be shy to make yourself more than one serving. It’s too delicious not to.

Postcards from the Veg: Lentil Frikkadels

It’s the 9th day of  Lent.

Meatless Meatballs

It’s been nine days without meat or chicken.

While my choice to give up meat for Lent is on some level a spiritual and ethical one, I was really just curious to see if I could do it.

Sometimes you need the constructs of a tradition or ritual to help motivate you to try something that otherwise seems too difficult. It’s the same with New Year’s Resolutions:  Our little hupstootjie to make the transition easier.

I launched into my vegetarian diet with something that at least looked like meat. I took food24′s lentil burger recipe and adapted it for frikkadels.

I’d like to introduce you to meatless meatballs. Take that, Fry’s!

The Close Up

Lentil Frikkadels
Makes about 12

1 cup of brown, dry lentils
3 cups of water
1 stock cube/tbs stock powder

1 onion, chopped
1 baby marrow, grated
1 small green pepper, grated
2 tbs tomato paste
1 tbs garlic and ginger paste
1 tsp paprika
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup of raw oats/breadcrumbs
Extra stock/wine/water

Oil for frying

Right. Rinse the lentils and cook them in the water and stock for about 15-20 mins until soft. Puree or mash them until you’re left with a thick paste. It can be really thick. Like, so-thick-it-broke-my-blender kind of thick.

Fry the onion in the oil until translucent. Mix the lentil paste with the onions and the rest of the ingredients and incorporate. Use extra liquid – like wine:) – to make the paste more malleable so that you can form it into small balls.

Roll the “mince” into “meat”balls.

Heat about 30ml of oil in a pan. Place the meatballs slowly into the oil and fry. You don’t need to worry about them being done or not – no raw meat to worry about! So fry them just until they are golden brown.

Serve with a cucumber raita and a green salad.

And so the journey to the veg of the earth continues…

Roses are red, and cakes are too…

Valentine’s Day is schmucky, schmaltzy and OTT. But sometimes it provides the perfect inspiration to get my ass back in the kitchen.

Hearts and flowers for Valentine's Day

After a tear-inducing episode with a flopped milktart a few weeks back, I swore off the kitchen. We survived on take-aways, tins and toast. It was a dark time in our culinary lives…

But I finally made my return and decided to make it a grand one.

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

I used Colleen’s recipe because her recipes always turn out well (UNLIKE Beluga’s milktart recipe…).

However, the heart shape and the cute little icing clouds are all my own genius. And of course the pearls…

Thanks to our nice neighbours for planting the lovely nasturtiums and letting me steal one.

So take a bite and succumb to the wiles of Valentine’s Day.

Orange and Coriander Roast Chicken

I’m sitting on a farm in the Natal Midlands with seriously free-range chickens clucking around me. I’m surprised at how easily I can imagine what great dinners they’ll make. You may gasp,  but I’d rather eat these gorgeous, healthy birds than those manky white things called battery chickens.

But let’s get back to the bird that’s already been in my oven.

Orange Coriander Roast Chicken

Everybody eats roast chicken. It’s the floozy of meats; the go-to gourmet; the all-pleasing poultry.

We’re in the middle of a blazing hot summer and roast chicken with rys en artappels won’t go down that easily. Plus – isn’t it SOOO boring? The poor chicken is already so everyday, it deserves a bit of zhuzhing up.
So we’ll spice it up, clean it off with some citrus and cool it down with coriander.

Orange and Coriander Roast Chicken
Serves 4 or more

1 medium free range chicken
2-3 oranges
Generous sprinklings of chicken braai spice
Bunch of coriander
Maldon salt

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celcius. Place the hefty bird in a roasting pan. Squeeze orange juice all over your whole chicken, making sure to get it in all the nooks and crannies. Slice the squeezed half and insert it into the cavity. (I know that sounds awful, but just try not to think about it.

Sprinkle the chicken with the braai spice so that it almost forms a coating. Stick a handful of coriander in the cavity as well as some around the dish.

Pop it in the oven for an hour or so – prob an hour and 20 minutes depending on the size – and watch it turn the most glorious colour. Turn the chicken over half-way through the cooking time, and then back again for the last 10 minutes.
If your colouring is less than glorious, sprinkle some salt for shine and brush with a little bit of olive oil. I usually forego the oil as the chicken skin is fat aplenty.

Garnish with slices of orange, some zest and the rest of the coriander.

Serve with a green salad or a cold couscous and veg salad. Leftovers can be shredded for chicken mayo, a lovely chicken and corn broth should the weather suddenly turn, or simply take yourself a doggy bag to work. The flavours will intensify overnight.