Breakfast Ring

 

Cape Malay Pickled Fish

One of our very traditional South African Foods is Curried Pickled Fish, made either with battered Hake or Yellow Tail and pickled with the gentle and aromatic Cape Malay spices. There are loads of recipes on the internet for this and I will not post it as I bought mine this time around. Luckily we get this year round and we certainly do not only eat it as a starter or main, but also for breakfast as we did this Easter.

Ardmore Ceramics

It is usually served cold and has a sort of sweet, curried-pickled taste and goes well with anything savoury. I did not feel like the usual bacon, egg and toast so I rolled everything I liked into a phyllo pastry ring and we brunched to hearts content.

Preparations

Really not rocket science this one as you can use any filling you like, sweet or savoury.

I used:

left over spinach salad

camembert cheese

a tub of chunky cottage cheese

chopped walnuts

chopped gherkins

boiled eggs

brush each phyllo sheet with butter( I used 4 sheets as the filling was quite heavy)

bake at 180 C until golden

Breakfast Ring

Breakfast/ brunch on a long weekend is the best, it can go on forever and no reason not to have it in your pajamas I say!

Curried Fish

Our recent weekend road trip was to the Stellenbosch Winelands. These lavender fields are on the way to Jordan Wines.

Lavender on the way to Jordan Wines

And just look at this stunning, stunning table at De Morgenson wine tasting room, what I would give for a kitchen big enough to hold a table just like that….

Dream on

Random Photo:

Our wild animal (Jack) is really taking over our lives….

So wild

Very happy wild animal indeed.

Jack, wild, wild animal….

 

All things Red

Baked figs and Blue cheese

I am still in my red phase, or fig phase, don’t know which, which started with the red Afghan carpet I bought. I need very visually stimulating food and things around me and that is not a phase, it is just how it is.

I just put the blue cheese in the sliced figs with a sprig of thyme and baked at 180 until soft and gooyy. Green grapes and baked figs made a great salad in what is a hot summer in Cape Town.

Baked figs and ice cold green grapes

Red post or not, this blue fig one will go to the Cheese, Please! April challenge featuring the blues.

Cheese Please!Blog Challenge

We are doing short over-night road trips over weekends to the wine farms and surrounds to clear the brain and I always pick up fresh produce and cheeses along the way. I wish we had time for a longer break but alas, it will not happen now.

Ataraxia Wine Farm, Hemel&Aarde Valley

Figs will always remind me of the huge fig tree in front of our house when I started my school years in George, Eastern Cape. There was often a big juicy red fig in my packed lunch, which even then I could not wait to get my teeth into. Strange if you think that others had sweets or crisps and I wanted fruit, strange kid indeed. I am still strange, come to think of it.

Figs, Feta & Capers

This fig salad was made with baby spinach, sun-dried tomato feta and capers(my latest craze).

Baked Ricotta&Beetroot Pots

The funny red concoction happened when I adjusted my baked Ricotta Vegetable Pots Recipe to make baked beetroot and ricotta pots. Dark, deep red. Oh, and of course I added vintage cheddar to the beetroot mix. Great combination. Instead of pouring the ricotta mix over oven baked beetroot(drizzled with balsamic cream), I mixed the beetroot and ricotta mix with added vintage cheddar in a mixer to form a paste and then baked it in individual ramekins. Do NOT forget to put the lid on the mixer…ahem…uh, okay it took very long to clean the kitchen……

Random Photo:

Good night Cape Town

Lion’s Head Cape Town