I’ve hit the mother load again at the market today

WordPress is playing up again. Will try this post now for the last time with photo’s!

I love going to the Milnerton market very early in the morning when the traders are still unpacking. First pickings you see! The best is to go with my friend Ina who is really very knowledgeable about silver, porcelain and all things vintage. Apart from being knowledgeable she still enjoys hunting for pretty things, just because they are pretty and not merely for their value or name. Great fun indeed.

These two ladies below interested in the same piece? I left the table before it became bloody…..

I bought quite a lot of things I needed( read one) and a few(almost all) that I could not leave behind as it would have ripped a hole in my being (that bad yes).

A few of them:

Sugar bowl which I am not using for sugar. Ainsley English porcelain.

Look at the shape of the spoon! Denmark Silver.

The blue ceramic plate is Kendal Late Mayers and I could have bought the whole table full but didn’t, with inhuman self control.

 

And then the pure indulgence of the exquisite Royal Adderley English Porcelain Swans! Salt and Pepper beauties.

I don’t buy for display, I buy for use (as soon as possible clearly… ) and boy do I enjoy them!

This is of course not all I bought, but the rest is a story for another day.

Horseradish! The real thing

Great excitement when I found horseradish at my local supermarket today and of course I had to immediately use it.

It is the Cape Argus Cycle Race in Cape Town today and with 35 000 cyclists on the road, whipping by in front of our apartment and the television and helicopters blaring out the progress, I had a leg of lamb in the oven and a stick of horseradish in my hand to do something with, while running out to the balcony every 5 minutes not to miss out on the event.

That is how I got to making just a baby spinach and apple salad with horseradish, honey and mustard vinaigrette to accompany the meat. Thought I needed to explain that…..

The hoseradish is the stick- like item in the photo below in case you missed it!

I actually managed to peal it with a potato peeler ( not difficult at all) and then grated it finely.

The rest was even easier. Mix baby spinach, apple and walnuts on a plate.

The vinaigrette:

Mix olive oil, lemon juice, whole grain mustard and honey to taste. I added a good helping of horseradish as I like it strong.

The sweet of the apple and the bite of the horseradish really does it for me.

I would have added blue cheese to the salad but there was no way I was running out to the shop again.

Photo: Tara

The circle of friendship in the background was a very special gift from my sister Heleen and looks like they are doing a happy dance over there!

Let’s go Dutch! Hollandse Kroketten

Hollandse Kroketten bring out the inner Dutchman/girl in me. I always order and eat them wherever I can and they are really not easy to find on restaurant menus.

I started making them and filling them with whatever is available in the fridge. Rice and spinach make a nice change from the traditional potato mix I used below.

Ingredients I used:

Left over butternut

Mash potato- cooled down

Fried red pepper

Fried red onion

Chives

Grated cheddar cheese

Mix the ingredients together and spice to taste

Form sausage shapes and roll in flour and place in the fridge for 20 to 30 minutes.

Beat eggs( start with 2 and add if you need more)

Roll the kroketten in the egg and thereafter in breadcrumbs.

 Fry in vegetable oil.

Serve as a side dish or as a mains with green salad.

 My Dutch forefathers will approve, I hope…