(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

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

“Shab-Shab” Japanese dish the Korean way

Donglim Knot Workshop Seoul

I had to laugh.Twice. I told my daughter that the Shabu dish we were having in Korea is truly a Korean dish which I would love to have again and she said: “Yes, only it is not Korean but Japanese”. Then Fae posted the Shabu-Shabu with Spicy Soy Milk Broth out of the blue and she had to help me decide whether the dish I had was the traditional version or not because due to language problems I transferred and plonked the cooked part of it into the “sauce bowl” on the table only to realise that as Fae explained, the sauce was meant to be a “dipping” sauce. What the hell, I was was having a ball with this experience, dipping or not!

Sides with Shabu-Shabu dish

The experience is what counts and the Shabu Salad Bar was a family type of buffet establishment in Ulsan City where you paid a price per head for the full spread and the only choice you had to make on ordering was the type of beef you wanted, the rest was on display to eat as much as you like, including all sorts of random sides and condiments.

Australian beef

We chose Australian beef and the sides of battered sweet potatoes and root type vegetables with salads from the buffet were great. The pot of stock is brought to the table, cooking away on an induction plate on the table and you go choose fresh ingredients to make your own broth.The beef is extremely thinly sliced and immediately cooks when it hits the boiling stock and from there on you eat it by dipping it into sauces on the table. That is where I went wrong-the dipping part for me was transferring whole portions into the dipping bowl and and eating it from there-delicious anyway.Language problems, what can I say! Fae has a comprehensive explanation of the dish and ways to prepare it at home. Other thing I just loved over there were pickled peanuts-soft and sweet with a honey like consistency and pickled cucumber, will I have to read up about more as I never had that before.

Sweet Pickeled Peanuts

Since I came back from cold Korea, a short weekend trip away and a week’s business trip thereafter brought me right into February and I still need to remove the last remnants of Christmas from my home while I have a summer feeling of note!

Die Hoekie Paternoster

Anything nautical is catching my drift at the moment. The weekend trip was to Paternoster in the Western Cape and the laid back town where “dressing up” means putting on shoes, is what I craved Polianthus-you are so right again. Eating fish and seafood for breakfast, lunch and dinner and that’s how we rolled!

Clever art: Die Hoekie Paternoster

Random Photo:

My motto for 2015:

Courtesy The Noisy Oyster Paternoster-my new motto for 2015

Turkish Delight Fridge Cake

Jingle Bells!

Open Sesame! The ark is open here in Cape Town. If you exit a door you fall over a tourist, or their cameras, whichever. There is defenitely a sense of expectation in the air and I like it! My sister over at nowathome and I are so giddy with excitement, awaiting the Christmas visit of our other sister(the real baker) that we ourselves started baking in a big way. We had to get the Chrismas cakes going you see, so that it can be topped up with brandy in the month to come to be ready for the event(s) planned. At this stage all of the events include either eating or wine tasting or cheese and chocolate tasting on the farms and I still do not know how it happened but we ended up baking 11 Christmas cakes and 3 cheese- chocolate fridge cake doodah thingies all on the same day. The recipes for the two types of fruit cake ( one dark and full of spices and the other light and buttery) are both posted on nowathome as she is much better with weighing and measuring things than me, so she wrote it all out for us.

Fruit cake jewels

Talk about overkill, but I figured this amount of cakes would do for the family birthdays and other visitors comming and going before THE VISIT of my other sis on the 24th of December. A cake gift here and there to others won’t hurt either (guilty concience perhaps). So a lot of messing and testing going on inbetween.

Oops….

I made the chocolate- cheese fridge cake as a birthday cake for my husband and followed my mother’s recipe, which used to be my birthday cake-wish every year.

Turkish Delight Fridge Cake

I made two of them the traditional way and the other one my way by adding Turkish Delight to the already unholy concoction of fattening stuff, but well, it was for his birthday and all that.

Layering

The old fashioned triangular shape I kept because it is just too precious to change and it will always remind me of my mother.

Shaping

Ingredients: 

1 cup sugar, 2 x 500 gr full cream cottage cheese, 3/4 cup butter, 1 egg, 2 packets biscuits, 1 t vanilla, glazed cherries, chocolate flake( optional) 2 slabs milk chocolate, tin foil. I replaced the cherries with Turkish Delight and used dark chocolate as an alternative.

Cream butter and sugar, add egg and beat well. Add cottage cheese and vanilla. Place 4 biscuits in a row, 5 or more down on a well greased piece of tin foil. Spread cheese mix over the biscuits and repeat the biscuit layer this time 3 in a row and spread again. On top of the last cheese blanket place the cherries and flake( or Turkish Delight) and by placing your hands under the tin foil, form a triangle, close the tin foil and smooth the tin foil out with your hands to tidy and neaten the triangular shape. Freeze over night or at least 3 to 4 hours

The nice part:

Melt the chocolate over a double bouler and spread over the frozen cheese cake, thickness to your taste. Freeze open for  half and hour and then you can close the foil loosely to keep in the freezer. Thaw for about 10 minutes before you cut slices so that the chocolate does not break or flake.

Chocolate cover

Everyone swears it is the most heavenly creation they have ever tasted. I agree and I solemnly promise not to have it more than once a year. My sister ( the real baker) says her hand luggage is allready filled with her baked goods, ready to fly over for the festivities so I honestly do not know where on the scales we are all going to end up this summer…..

Fridge Cake

Random Photo:

I dreamed I could fly

Eating chilli con carne with sweet potato chips

Chilli Con Carne & Sweet Potato Chips

This post is not about a recipe at all, more about the way I like eating this dish. It all came about in South Korea last year when I had one of those days that I did not feel like eating authentic Korean food. I just booked my tickets to go there again and maybe that is what made me think of the chilli con carne I had there of all places. It is exceptionally cold over there in Dec/Jan and I was in the mood for a hearty, warm, filling something that day, very hungry as always.

Sweet potato chips

We were in a food court of a very big shopping centre and there were hundreds of Korean and Asian dishes to choose from which I normally did, but as I said, not really in the mood for it that day. I spotted an American Diner type place with burgers and of all things between all of the normal fast foods also a chilli con carne (originally a dish from Texas USA according to Wikepedia), served with freshly grated cheddar and crispy french fries. Chilli served in a bowl, topped with the cheese and dipping the chips in the sauce and melting cheese and there I just knew: I will forever remember that meal and will eat it like that forever more!

Dippin’ n scoopin’

Exactly like I made today, but I used sweet potatoes baked in the oven instead of french fries. Try it, fork in hand and dipping and scooping away.

Tex-mex!

I served it with guacamole as an extra and I mixed smashed avocado, lemon juice, white pepper, red spring onion and full cream cottage cheese to make a thick guacamole. Another thing I can eat by the bowl full. I would imagine if you combine the meal with tortilla chips or wraps it would not be half bad but it hit the mark, just as I served it.

Guacamole

Food memories. I wonder what my next trip there will bring me on that front, other than spending time with my one and only precious girl.

Hope you had a good Sunday.

Random Photo:

My African Violet is blooming!

African Violet

Circle of Friends

Blue Cheese Mousse & Balsamic Baked Pears

Blue Cheese Mousse, baby pear and walnut salad

Long name for a quick process. I am not really a gadget person but I love the basics and bought my nifty little food processor/blitzer in Turkey, which I now use as often as I can. Perfect for blitzing smaller quantities, sauces, pestos and things. We are getting glimpses of spring and I made the blue cheese mousse and balsamic baked pear salad as a starter for a dinner with friends.

Blue Cheese Mousse

Blue Cheese Mousse

100gr blue cheese, 125ml cream, 75 ml creme fraiche , 2 table spoons tangy mayonaise, salad herbs

Blitz all of the ingredients together. The quantities above are just an indication and you can add more to taste. I absolutely love the consistency of the mousse and can see a lot of potential here. It is soft and fluffy but dense enough to use in a piping bag and I am getting the idea that it will hold well if gelatine is used to form something….anything with blue cheese!

Spring salad

Balsamic Glazed Pears 

Pears, olive oil and balsamic cream/reduction

Cut pears in thin slices, skin and all, no need to remove the skin. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic cream and bake in the oven at 180 C until soft

Balsamic glazed baked pears

I served the mousse and pears with baby leaves, rocket, walnuts and a herb vinaigrette.

My friend Ina introduced me to these gorgeous tinned baby pears. See the pepper pot in the back ground, that is how small they are! Small or not, they became the centre piece and conversation topic of the night.

Baby pears in petit colander

This mousse will become a spread or a topping for many a thing in future.

Blue cheese mousse starter

This one goes to Fromage Homage for the September Cheese Please! Challenge as hosted by The Garden Deli for the cheese and fruit combination for this month. Somehow I always end up sending some or other blue cheese for the challenge so let me not deviate this time then!

Cheese Please!Blog Challenge

Random Photo:

Yip, definitely a front rower …..

For sure right in front!

Tray Baked Chicken in Turkish Colors

Streets of Istanbul

I will always think in color, so imagine what a trip to Turkey does to me. It is just everywhere and all around, in the carpets, the jewellery and the food, which by the way taste like no other in the world as there is something in the earth there that just makes a tomato taste like a tomato and a brinjal taste like heaven.

Grand Bazaar

The Grand Bazaar is an onslaught to the senses and makes you feel giddy with excitement just to be there and experience it.

Jewels

Spice Market

I fell in love with their Biber spices. It is peppers, chile pepper, sweet peppers, hot peppers etc. and  made up a good part of the weight I carried back in those suitcases. Can never go without it, ever again. 

My jewels

Nowathome blogged the Jamie Oliver Tray Baked Chicken and I recreated the jewel-like colors of Turkey in the dish and added my Biber of course. I used the recipe with different colors peppers and added the Biber to the smoked paprika. Visit her post for exact measurements as my sister at Nowathome is better with that, I just shoot from the hip with cooking.  The basics are that you combine chicken pieces, tomatoes, onion( I used red) garlic and peppers in a baking tray. Sprinkle with smoked paprika, salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil? Bake at 180 Degrees Celsius until you are happy thar the chicken is cooked. Fantastic flavour and smell. 

Smoked Paprika Tray Baked Chicken

The Turkish Delight, also out of the suitcase was the desert after the meal. How I did not have to pay overweight on the suitcases at the airport I honestly still do no know? The 1,5 kg of Turkish Delight was brought all the way back home intending to be gifts, well it never got that far sorry……..

Like a kid in a sweet shop

Random Photo:

Cheers Istanbul

Is the girl in the background really there or see through?

Apple Tea

 

 

Roast carrot and ginger soup with coriander foam

Glass house/ Greenhouse

The colour of winter is orange. Well, that will of course all depend on where you are and what you are doing but today my winter’s colour was orange and it all started with a buchu tea/palate cleanser concoction with orange marigold flowers floating in it. It actually started before that with a spectacular rainbow after a early morning winter rain. Not bad to wake up to this. I do not see much daylight lately. Work is taking up all available and non- available time and we did one of our overnight trips just to get the soul back into the body again. Heading in the direction of Stellenbosch, we took a detour to Babylonstoren in Franschhoek for brunch. This has got to be one of my favourite places in the world.

Buchu palet cleanser

The Greenhouse is so atmospheric and the back drop is the daily weather! Clever people. I had the scone with cream and cheese and my husband the hot dog with golden fried chips which I ended up politely “helping” him to finish……

Scones&cream please!

A stroll through the gardens gave me this!

Typical detail Babylonstoren

Soul restored, we drove to the Stellenbosch wine farms and log fires, cheese (me), wine tasting (husband) followed by a very cheffy dinner and I am not complaining at all. Back into food heaven after I went through a bit of a food slump lately. My starter was a honey glazed, roast carrot and ginger soup that set my brain into a recreation obsession for the rest of the weekend and that is exactly what I made when I got home, even before I unpacked my overnight bag, handbag still slung over my shoulder (just kidding or did I…..?)

I used:

a bunch of medium sized carrots

50 ml marmalade( you can also use honey and orange peal instead)

fresh ginger

cinnamon

1 liter liquid vegetable stock or more if you want a running consistency

125 ml cream

olive oil to drizzle

The secret is to first roast the vegetables, mixed with the ginger and marmalade and drizzled with olive oil to intensify the flavours at 180 C for about 45 minutes. When soft and gooey, add to the boiling stock for 5 minutes. Liquidize in the blender and add the cream.

Roast carrot, marmalade and ginger soup

and then came the foam……

Coriander spiced foam

At the crafty cheffy dinner everything had a foam or a jus or a bit and a bob and of course my soup needed foam! This is where I started getting very clever. I have a milk frother! I frothed the milk and added dried coriander spice and voi- la! Coriander foam!

Random Photo:

Still at BabylonstorenOn the way to Stellenbosch

Well, at last I did a Cheese Soufflé

I was always(still is) in awe of a soufflé. Any kind which rises straight up from the rim of the dish/ ramekin. All I did not want to hear was the pfffeouffffff! of the thing deflating (my imagination of course). Well I did not hear that sound but it still sort of deflated, just after I took the photo’s. I think my base sauce was a bit too heavy so I will try to aerate the batter better next time as I absolutely ADORE the taste. I can just keep on eating it.

Baked Cheese Souffle

I am in a bit of a food slump lately. Living precariously through my blogging friend’s creations and no inclination to be creatively involved. Well, that is why we have blogs and bloggers. To keep us entertained and reading and dreaming. Thank you to my two loyal friends in blogging Mrs. Choux and Ahila for nominating me for the Wonderful Team Member Readership and Liebster Awards. Much appreciated and as is my habit, I shall have to take up my tools and bake you a thank you cake, which seems to be the only time I bake unless it is baking for national safety like I did here. 

I followed the Cheese Soufflé of Pomegranate Days and will change nothing, just concentrate more with the process next time. I read that the step where you cover the base and sides of the ramekin with parmesan, after brushing it with butter is important as it helps the soufflé rising straight above the rim, upwards. That is the step I skipped and which I will not skip again next time as mine did not do the “straight up” thing.

You will need:

500 ml milk
80 g butter
5 ml Dijon Mustard
80 g cake flour
5 ml  nutmeg
65 ml grated parmesan cheese
500 ml grated cheddar cheese
30 ml parsley and basil leaves, chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 eggs, separated

Whip it up

Method:
Prepare 6 ramekins (soufflé dishes) by brushing them well with melted butter and thereafter sprinkling the bottom and the sides of each ramekin with the grated parmesan cheese.
Heat the milk.In a medium saucepan, melt the butter. Add the Dijon mustard and stir well. Add the flour and use a wooden spoon to stir the butter and flour together into a thick, smooth paste.
Using a whisk add 250 ml of the milk to the paste and continue whisking until the sauce is smooth and thick. Repeat with the remaining milk. Cook the sauce over a low heat for a 2-3 minutes to cook out the flour.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and whisk in the cheeses and the herbs. Once the cheeses are melted into the sauce, season the sauce to taste.Whisk in the egg yolks and set aside to cool.
In the meantime, in a clean dry bowl, whisk the egg whites until firm. Gently and lightly fold the egg whites, ⅓ at a time, into the base sauce. Take care to keep the mixture as light as possible.
Spoon the mixture evenly into the ramekins, filling them ¾ of the way up. Run your thumb around the edge of the ramekin.
Place the ramekins onto a baking tray and bake in a preheated oven at 190˚C for 25 – 30 minutes or until the soufflés are well risen and firm to the touch.
Serve immediately

Cheese Souffle

Seeing that I have herbs & cheese going on here, this recipe will go straight to the June’s Cheese Please! Blog Challenge on Fromage Homage, one of my favorite reads.

Cheese Please!Blog Challenge

Random Photo:

 

Artist unknown. I want to paint you…

Same color palate in my ” front yard”.

Floating buildings in the mist. Cape Town