South African Food Company

I am a very lucky kid - I was fortunate enough to be chosen as a gourmet taster for The South African Food Co. It is a new company based in the UK, that creates delicious home-cooked South African favourites.

When you leave your home country, you know that you will miss your family and friends, and that you'll miss some of your favourite places and sights, but you hardly ever realise just how much you will miss the local food.

This came as quite a shock to me, when we moved to Malta and I had NO South African ex-pat shops or any 'normal' products. I even got quite excited when I found randomly imported products from South Africa, like Sunlight's Green bar soap (for pre-washing clothes).

However since we have moved to the UK, I have been very fortunate in that I have quite an array of South African products to chose from. 

That said, the South African Food Co has now become a very firm favourite in our house. We received Tamatiebredie (pronounced Ta-ma-tee-brie-dee) which is somewhat like a stew, but a trillion times tastier! It has lamb, potatoes, spices, tomatoes and peppers, all infused in a rich creamy sauce. 

One thing I loved about this portion (great for two large plates), was how much lamb  there was in the meal. I could not believe it. Most of the time, a ready meal has loads of cream and a sprinkling of meat. It was quick and easy to prepare, and when I took it out of the oven I nearly melted into the oven dish, it smelled soooooo delicious. And tasted amazing too.

I definitely think that we will need a few of these yummy meals in our freezer, for when I am feeling a little homesick! Truly, an ex-pats dream...

Check them out at http://www.southafricanfoodcompany.co.uk/  or https://www.facebook.com/thesouthafricanfoodco

Food Revolution Day

I received an email from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution regarding the 19th of May - Food Revolution Day.

"Together we can change the way people eat by educating every child about food, giving families the skills and knowledge to cook again, and motivating people to stand up for their rights to better food. Add your voice to the conversation with your best cooking and food education tip, favorite ingredient, or tell us why you support the Food Revolution and what actions you are taking." - http://foodrevolutionday.com/

I showed my son the video of Jamie discussing his virtual dinner party (I think my son thinks Jamie is a part of our family, the amount of times he has seen his videos/ books/ pictures around our house) - he got all excited and said 'Mommy, it's Jamie.' and after asking if we should make dinner for Jamie, he agreed!

We love making dinner, cooking and baking as a family. With an Italian daddy and a South African mommy, and living in London - our little boy is so fortunate to have been exposed to so many lovely foods. We really enjoy trying new things, and prepare most of our meals from scratch - including pasta, pizza, soups, sushi, to name a few. Don't get me wrong, we do buy pasta and pizza too, but we enjoy the family vibe of making it from scratch every so often. 

One of our favourite recipes is a fillet of steak or pork (we used pork), potatoes and veggies. Hmmmm, yumminess!

Ingredients:

Pork or Steak Fillets, marinated*

500g potatoes, any kind

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

Rosemary, fresh

Fennel, half

Onion, half

Garlic clove

Carrots

Balsamic Glaze

Sugar


Marinate: Salt, Pepper, home-made dried Italian herbs, lemon juice, Mrs Balls Chutney (available at South African stores, and some supermarkets).





Cover the meat with the marinate, put in ziploc bag and put in the fridge for a few hours.


Directions:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C, place fillets into oven tray and cook. Put carrots neatly on a tray, sprinkle with sugar and a pinch of salt. Gently drizzle with balsamic glaze. Cook in the oven until soft.

Peel and slice potatoes. Toss with fresh rosemary, salt and pepper, and olive oil. Finely slice fennel, garlic and onion. Heat a pan, and cook potatoes until brown and crispy. Add fennel mix, and cook a bit more.

And voilà! A delicious family dinner. Serve with baby spinach, red peppers, and tomato salad.




We also made a delicious vanilla pud, for dessert.


Ingredients:

2 cups milk
6 Tbsp flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp butter

Directions:

Heat milk, on medium heat in a saucepan. In a separate bowl; sieve sugar, flour and salt. Pour flour mixture into hot milk, a little at a time, to avoid lumps. Continue to cook and stir until mixture thickens, do not allow mixture to boil. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla and butter. Pour into serving dishes, sprinkle with chocolate powder, and allow to set in fridge, until needed.

Buon appetito!
x

Easter celebrations!

Happy Easter everyone - hope you all had a lovely day, and hope that you were spoilt by the Easter bunny! Easter brings fantastic family traditions, and this year it was our first 'no-family' family celebration, in which we made a few of our own traditions... With a toddler, I am forced to 'chill out' and relax my obsessive perfectionism. We made Easter cupcakes that I intended to look like nests, however they turned into messy cupcakes that tasted good and were tons of fun to make.

We then went on to dyeing and decorating boiled eggs. Everything was going well, until I walked into the kitchen and discovered that my over eager child had played 'musical dye' with the eggs, and had replaced them in other colours. Needless to say, the colours came out very different to what I expected. We then we drew on the eggs with crayons and special coloured pens. Again, not quite what I expected. However, it was a great bonding time, and we did have fun!


To end off our Easter weekend, we had a FANTASTIC Easter hunt - we were REALLY spoilt. Followed by a fantastic roast lamb lupper (lunch supper).

Roast lupper recipe:

For the roast:

Ingredients:
leg of lamb
garlic
rosemary
seasoning
olive oil

Directions:
Cut slits into the lamb, and insert slices of garlic and bits of rosemary.

Mix olive oil, salt and pepper. Spread the olive oil mix all over the roast, and place in a large roasting bag (Best things ever invented!) or in an oven proof dish and roast at 200 degrees celsius. 20 minutes for every 450g of roast.

For the potatoes:

Ingredients:
potatoes
seasonings
rosemary or chives
olive oil

Directions:
Peel potatoes and cut into chunks. Boil for about 10min, soft but only just. Drain and place in the fridge for about an hour. Warm up oil in an dish in the oven, season potatoes and toss in the warm oil. Cook in the oven for about 45 minutes or until cooked to your desired crispiness. Sprinkle with rosemary or chives when nearly ready.

Veggies:

We did asparagus and carrots.

Ingredients:
carrots
sugar
butter

asparagus
butter
seasonings

Directions:
For the carrots, slice thinly. Cut butter into little cubes and put about 5 small cubes over the top. Sprinkle with sugar, as much as you like. Place cling film over the bowl, poke a few holes into the film and cook in the mircowave for about 5 minutes.

For the asparagus. cut in half or leave whole. Place small chunks of butter on top of the asparagus and season. Cover with cling film, poke a few holes in the film and cook in the microwave within 5 minutes.

What a lovely feast!
HAPPY EASTER!
x

Chicken and Broccoli Bake

I absolutely love this recipe, it is healthy and yummy - and most people eat it, whether they like broccoli or not!

Ingredients:
pack of chicken fillets/ quorn 'chicken' pieces
head of broccoli
tin of chicken/ chicken and mushroom or mushroom soup
curry powder - mild or strong
cheddar/ parmigiana, to sprinkle on top
brown rice

Directions:
If using chicken, boil the chicken first. If using quorn/ vegetarian substitute - put directly into oven proof dish. Chop up broccoli, and mix with 'chicken'. Pour in tin of soup, and some curry powder, and mix it up until well blended. Sprinkle cheese on top. Bake in the oven for about 15-20 mins.

If you are using brown rice, be advised that it takes about 30 minutes to cook.
Serve with side salad!

Buon appetito!
x

Kale Pesto Pasta

I love making a good pesto, and I recently found a fantastic new recipe. For this special green pesto recipe, you can use any green leafy veg. I used Kale, but you could use Spinach or Cavelo Nero, etc. You can really be quite creative with pesto.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of almonds

about 4 handfuls of kale (only the green leaves)

about 1/4 cup of olive oil

75g parmigiana/ pecorino

2-3 garlic cloves

salt and pepper 

fresh chilli (optional)

Directions:

Blend everything in a food processor, it should be slightly lumpy. The pesto needs to be very moist, so add more olive oil, if it is too dry. Because pesto is in olive oil, it lasts quite well in the fridge. Just put in an airtight container, glass is best, and use within about 2-3 weeks.

For the rest of the dinner

Ingredients:

ham

a handful of cherry tomatoes

pasta

Directions:

Dice ham and cut tomatoes in half. Fry ham and tomatoes until slightly brown. Boil pasta. Drain and mix in the pesto (you only need about half of the pesto batch for 500g pasta). Mix in the ham mix, sprinkle with more parmesan and voilà! 

Buon appetito!

x

Cheesy Potatoes, Syrupy Carrots and Parsnips and Balsamic Oven-baked Tomatoes

Tonight, we had shop bought chicken kiev, but we had really fantastic sides. And they were really simple too. 

Cheesy potatoes:

about 5 large potatoes

butter/ olive oil

cheese

Directions:

Peel and slice, boil (to soften). Mix some butter/ oil into the potatoes, and place in an oven dish. Put cheese on, and then grill in the oven.

Syrupy Carrots and Parsnips:

a handful of carrots

a handful of parsnips

some sugar

some butter

Directions:

Peel and chop/ slice/ julienne (cut into strips). Pour everything into a pan and cook until soft.

Oven-baked Tomatoes:

vine tomatoes

balsamic

Directions:

Pop the tomatoes on an some kitchen foil, and bake until they pop their skin... Serve with some balsamic glaze/ regular balsamic vinegar.

Buon appetito! 

x

Egg in an Avo

 Oh my heavens, so two of my FAVOURITE things in the world are avocado and poached eggs. So when I saw a picture of this recipe, I had to try it. I should have read the recipe, however as no doubt it would have told me to hollow the avo a little before pouring the egg in... But messes don't = catastrophe! :) It was still DELICIOUS!

Ingredients:
avocado (the bigger the better)
eggs
salt and pepper
grated cheese

Directions:

Preheat your oven to about 180 degrees C. Hollow out the avo, and crack the egg inside. Season. You could even add some chives, or any other herb you like. Pop in the oven for about 5-10 minutes. Put cheese on top and put it back in the oven for a little longer, until the cheese is melted and yummy!

Serve with some fresh bread - we had toasted olive bread! YUM! And some salad.

                                                
                                                                         Buon appetito!
                                                                                  x

Chicken, Lentil and Vegetable Curry

One of my talents, if I do say myself, is making a REALLY good curry. I make it mild so that my son can also eat it - and then spice it up for my husband and I.

Ingredients:
olive oil
garlic
1 onion, diced
about Tbsp mild - strong curry powder
salt
pepper
chicken breast fillets
about 2Tbsp lentils
cup of chicken stock
cup of chopped vegetables
3 chopped potatoes
tin of coconut milk
rice

Directions:
Fry the garlic and onions, add the chicken and potatoes. Put curry powder in the pan, and stir until everything is well coated. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add lentils and vegetables. Pour in the chicken stock and coconut milk. Cook to your satisfaction. Serve with rice/ salad.

Buon appetito!
x

Simple, delicious pasta!

My absolute favourite pasta in the world; is this simple cheese and avo pasta recipe, that most people love and there are also many variations.

Ingredients:
cheese
avo
pasta - I love linguine, but whatever you like

can add: ham, tomatoes, sliced chicken, bacon and the list goes on...

Directions:
Dice the avo, and grate the cheese. Boil the pasta. And voilà...

It's easy, tastes great, and is perfect for end of the month dinners!

Buon appetito!
x

Simple Potato Wedges

Tonight we had Chicken Kiev (a la supermarket) and so I decided to make home made potato wedges:

Ingredients:
potatoes (chopped into about 8 pieces)
olive oil - not too much!!
salt and pepper
fresh chopped chives

Directions:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Put potatoes into a bowl, toss with olive oil and seasonings. Spread them out evenly on a baking tray, and place in the oven. Turn after about 10- 15 min, sprinkle chives on top and continue to bake until crispy.

Chop up some baby tomatoes, avo, and cucumber - for a light side salad!

Buon appetito!
x

Sloppy Joe Lasagne

So my husband named this the Sloppy Joe Lasagne, he loved it (and he is Italian, born and raised)!

Ingredients:
250g mince
white beans
a tin of tomato passata (you can get the one with basil, or garlic, or onion if you like)
bescamel/ white sauce (flour, milk and butter)
lasagne sheets
grated cheddar/ feta
garlic and/or onion
olive oil

Directions:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Fry the garlic and/or onion - add mince and beans, and then add tomato passata. For the bescamel/ white sauce - you can either buy it or make it from scratch. For a simple bescamel sauce: put a blob of butter in a pot, add milk, sieve in flour and mix well - add more milk for runnier sauce, or add more flour to make it stiffer. Put a little olive oil in the bottom of an oven dish, cover the bottom of the oven dish in a light layer of bescamel sauce. Place lasagne sheets, layer with meaty sauce, then bescamel, then more lasagne, etc.. Put cheese on top. Bake!

Buon appetito!
x