Walking with elephants

Memory come through in short snippets in my brain. Flashes of memory. Good ones. Maybe the brain battles with all the fog between my years. Sometimes it feels like walking through deep water. What actually comes through crystal and clear is the memory of walking with elephants on my birthday. So very, very special and an instant feeling of pure love for those amazing big animals. It is something I will never forget as long as I breathe.

The allow you to be near them (like some humans), and then they don’t (like some humans…) but they are quite playful and inquisitive. Those skins are soft, very surprisingly,  not at all how I imagined it. 

The way they stand has meaning, which I never knew. This pose means they are content, hind legs crossed. 

Absolutely amazing giant.

They are loved and so well taken care of at the Knysna Elephant Park .

Random photo’s:

Chinese New Year Singapore

RIP Gerrie

 

 

Korean Street Food

Incheon: Seoul

I visit South Korea always in winter, never in the hellish summer heat and humidity, which I avoid at all cost. This year I went in March (late winter) instead of January (deep winter) and I could deal with that type of cold much better. Our South African winter this year is colder than normal, or so it feels to me at least and today I miss the Korean street food which is fascinating and delicious. My favourite place in Ulsan is stricly speaking not on the street but rather a “hole in the wall”‘type of place with limited seating, so eating standing around huddled together in the cold is just the thing! The tempura fried vegetables are served with a rice vinegar dipping sauce.

Vegetable tempura and glass noodle roll.

Tempura Vegetables

In Seoul the street vendors are lined up one after the other and walking around, tasting and eating from one vendor to the next with a spot of shopping inbetween is a nightly pass time, which I embraced whole heartedly if my bank balance was anything to go by…

Vibrant candy floss!

Strawberries dipped in chocolate

Street food Seoul

I absolutely LOVE the traditional Bibimbab which is not street food but my favourite sit-down Korean meal. There are always a million and ten side dishes of all sorts of soups, pickles and kimchi of course. The main dish is served in a piping hot bowl and consists mainly of rice, root like “things” and vegetables, meat is optional. The raw egg comes on top and you then fry your own dish in the piping hot bowl with a mild chilly sauce. Oh the joy!

Vegetarian Bibimbab

Pickles&Kimchi

Street Scenes and goodbyes:

Seoul at night: photo Tara

Why do I always have to leave her behind…..

My Tara walking away

Random Photo:

Oops! Handbag shopping in Seoul. Just could not resist

Street Art Down Town Ulsan

 

Travel theme:Breathe

Yes, one must not forget to breathe….a farm stay reminds me how to do that.

https://wheresmybackpack.com/2016/05/14/travel-theme-breathe/   

A FURNITURE AND LIFE REVAMP

What with buying a new apartment, moving house, throwing out old and deciding about what to get new, coupled with moving another child across the oceans to a foreign country and throwing in a Christmas and a New Year in-between, all of that in the space of 3 months. Yes tired, but good, I think.

Jack the fat cat

I bought these chairs years ago and love the old rose fabric but it just would not go with the new space. Introducing the french stripe was the right decision.Jack the fat cat of course made a bee line for the newly upholstered chairs and it is now his space, whether he fits on it or not.

Old rose print

A great change I think.

French Stripe Chair

He just absolutely refuses to move…..half on half off, hanging on for dear life!

I had 2 round mirrors desperate for a change and the new deep coppery shade made old look good again. Various colours and coats of paint got it to this shade.

Random Photo:

The perfect colour contrast.I wish I knew what plant this is.

My sister in law (Suzette) painted this for her house recently.

 

 

Santorini, so ridiculously beautiful

White, blue and nature all around,  heart stoppingly beautiful, another window to the soul.

 Asian brides arriving with their wedding dresses on holiday to take wedding photo’s, even though the wedding did not take place there.

 In full dress regalia running in their flip flops/All Stars, wedding dress lifted to the knees over the cobble stones to the next perfect picture.

Then agian, almost impossible to take a bad photo any place in Santorini.

 

Random Photo:

Or not so random, when in Greece and all that…

Baklava of course!

(Nagmaalpampoen) Guava and Pumpkin Roast

Nagmaalpampoen

Nagmaalpampoen directly translated means communion pumpkin. In the olden days the chuch people had to travel from afar to get together for church. They specifically went “all out” for communion Sunday where they afterwards cooked and ate together. Later on, the Sunday meal still meant one almighty lunch, whether people had to travel or not to get together. I first had this pumpkin dish at a friend’s house (on a Sunday of course) when I was still a student. Years later when I still made my own recipe cards, I found the recipe in an Afrikaans magazine and it became one of my favourite special recipes. That collection of cards now got replaced by ipads and blogs😉 and somehow as we do, I stupidly forgot about this dish and haven’t made it in years. I still have my recipe box and will save it for my daughter.

My recipe cards!

I do not know what made me think of it again but a lightbulb moment later, I made it today for Sunday lunch (to which day and meal the recipe now belongs). The original recipe like they did in those days had tinned this, syrup and sugar that, so instead, I used fresh ingredients.

Use the following:

Pumpkin (unpeeled) in chunks

Peeled guavas cut in quarters

2 Cinnamon sticks

Sprinkle with olive oil and pumpkin spice. (I used a wonderful blood orange infused olive oil from Willow Creek and If you do not have pumpkin spice, use cinnamon and cloves)

250ml orange juice(I added apple juice with the orange because I had it)

125 ml butter

Bake in the oven until glistening, soft and the sauce is caramelised

If you like it sweeter, add sugar or Xylitol before baking.

Pumpkin and guava bake

I love cooking with fruit and the pumpkin I served it with roast leg of lamb baked with apple which a blogged about here.

Roast lamb with apple

Random Photo:

Art and sculptures at Delaire Graff Estate Stellenbosch Winelands

Those figures are my idea of tranquility.

Hands

My absolute favourite and what a joy to see the original unexpectedly!

Tretchikoff at Delaire Graff

Tretchikoff: Chinese Girl

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Open Topic

This photo was taken between Vredenburg and Port Owen in the Western Cape, South Africa. True colour of the light that day,  no black and white setting.

iPhone photo:Elmarie flippenblog.com

Curry Butternut Soup and Spanakopita

Isn’t she just lovely! Art at Tokara Wine Estate

Today I start and finish with a random photo because she is just too lovely to be last, and I like her shoes….

I recently ordered this curried soup and spanakopita combination in a restaurant in Hermanus (they did not even intend the two starters to be a combination and now it is my favourite pairing).Two dishes that has absolutely no relation or is not a known or even a usual pairing of dishes, but just the right two things to make it spectacular. For me at least.Of course since eating it, the usual obsession started about making it with my own changes.

Curry Butternut Soup

For the curry butternut soup-( without quantities as it is just so easy you can just wing it):

Fry onions and garlic with curry mix and powders of your choice in butter/oil. Add chili flakes and add butternut and fry to incorporate the flavours.I also added pumpkin spice and grated orange rind for sweetness. Add vegetable stock and boil until soft. Liquidise the soup and add a bit of cream to taste. I served it with a dollop of Greek Yogurt and added a slice of a filled jalapeño chili popper (left over form a previous meal) as garnish and drizzled with olive oil.

Curry Butternut Soup with Spanakopita

With that I served the spanakopita – a Greek spinach pie  (with my own take on the filling) which is something I used to make regularly and then sort of forgot about it for a while, until now.

400 gr Swiss Chard spinach boiled in salt water and drained very well-press with a wooden spoon in a colander until it is properly drained

I mixed the spinach with: 1 table spoon freshly grated ginger, 250 gr ricotta ( I proudly made mine previously and the method is here, but this time it was store bought ricotta), 150 gr cream cheese and 80 gr chopped pecans. Salt and white pepper to taste.  The ginger gives it a depth of flavour that worked so well with the curried soup.

Cut filo pastry in long strips and roll a big spoon full in triangular shapes or round cigar shapes (close the ends by folding the filo in) and brush with butter. Bake at 180 to 200 Degrees C for about 30 minutes. Do not use too little filo as the filling can make the parcel burst open and you will have the filling spilling out. Serve with the piping hot soup! Crispy and great-if you heat it up the next day, just put it back in the oven to revive the crispness. Nice for ‘dunkin’ in that soup!

Fae there on the other side of the world also made spanakopita and her recipe (filling) is slightly different from mine, and I am sure also delicious. It is always so intriguing that one does not see a dish for ages and then suddenly you see it all over. I am very much in a Greek food mood so will keep on trying more varieties of the same.

Random photo:

Thinking…..also at Tokara

Arty window display-Busan Korea:

Window display in Busan-art in itself! Photo by Tara

Bitter-sweet Flourless Orange Cake

There is a lot of things that is bitter-sweet at the moment as we go into winter.I love winter but do not feel entirely ready for it. My friend Ina is such a clever woman, not only with food. She cooks in a way that is familiar because it is traditional and exciting because there is always a new twist. Those are the things that inspire me.

Flourless Citrus Cake

She invented this cake and it is as clever as it is delicious.I particularly like the bitterness with just the right amount of sweetness to it and it is not a cake you quickly whip up(as if I ever do….) but rather one of those that you do over a weekend which will make your house smell like an orange orchard when you need to be reminded of that smell!.

Bitter-sweet Flourless Orange Cake

Use: 250 gr ground almonds/almond flour, 5ml baking powder, 6 eggs, 1 cup castor sugar and 2 oranges, cream.

Boil oranges for 2 hours in water-fill up with water as you go Liquidise/process the whole oranges to form a soft pulp Beat eggs and sugar Add oranges to egg mix, followed by ground almonds, baking powder and grated peel of one orange(optional)-mix through. Use a lined cake tin and bake at 160 degrees C for 1hour 30 minutes. Served with whipped cream.

Brandy Sauce optional:-but very nice! Equal quantities brandy, water and sugar-I used 125ml each Boil to a thin syrup and pour over the cake and serve with cream.

Orange Cake with brandy sauce

Random photo: Goodbye summer

St Helena Bay gems

Shell art.

Draaihoek Lodge West Coast between St Helena Bay and Elands Bay

Coconut Bread makes me think of Islands (of course)

Zanzibar 2005: photo by Tinus

Of course it would, what with coconut trees, white beaches and solitude in my head. All of the aforesaid in no particular order. I woke up thinking of Zanzibar which we visited a few years ago and where the chef in the villa (which a group of us shared) introduced me to a whole new way of thinking with the way theyliterally “perfume” the food with gentle spices, creating whiffs of gentle aromas and subtle tastes. Nothing bold and in your face but oh so memorable and tasty. Thinking of islands, led to thinking of food ,led to being hungry- nothing new then.

Gluten Free Coconut bread

My sister at nowathome posted the recipe for these gluten free and sugar free” breads”, but I really think it can be adapted to just about anything you want it to be. Savoury or sweet depending on the (hunger) mood. It is made with coconut flour and it leaves that same “perfumed” sense I was talking about because the coconut taste is just there in the background,the way I like it. Coconut Bread (the recipe is per small bread, about the size of a bread roll):

• 1 tablespoon salted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon coconut flour
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
  Instructions
  1. In a medium bowl, use a fork to mix the ingredients until very smooth.
  2. Using a spatula, transfer to small ramekin.
  3. Microwave on high for 90 seconds.

I toasted some cheese on top and had it with parsley, butter and Marmite for breakfast. A lot of things can come from this recipe. If you think of going the sweet way, I can just imagine how carrots, nuts and cinnamon would change this to a carrot type cake. Any sweet or savoury ideas are anyway endless. My sis brought the plain ones along to a picnic we had at the botanical gardens in Cape Town and we piled them high with pickles , cheese(of course) and avocado. Very delicious.

Random Photo: We had a great time at Klein Roosboom Wine Farm, Durbanville Area today and there are a lot of quirky things going on at the tasting room.

Classic!

Another use for the old silver teapot.

great lightfitting idea