Guess Who’s Back…Again

Wow, it has been a minute (more like a few years) since my last blog post and honestly, I really miss it. SO many things have changed in the time I have been absent from this side of my life. I got married, we bought a house (which is currently being painted as the photo shows) and I (okay we) have two more dogs and I have made several career shifts.

house covered in white paint can see garage kitchen window and drain

two dogs
Zoe beautiful brinjal puppy on the left and Zorba handsome brinjal puppy with white paws on the right

The special has changed slightly since January of this year (2023 in case you’re reading this in like 5 years or something), it costs R385 per couple for a three-course meal and a bottle of wine or a non-alcoholic drink.
When we went in January the menu consisted of a salad as a starter, the main course was either chicken schnitzel, steak, or hake and dessert was either homemade cheesecake or red velvet cake.
Now before I tell you about our experience and what our taste buds thought about everything there’s something you need to understand. My husband and I are not salad people (if you knew our weights you would have been able to guess that). Our favorite salad would be potato salad and lately, I make couscous salad although I’m not sure the way I make it really counts as salad. My point though is that the salad we had that night, a butternut, beetroot, and pumpkin seed salad still haunts me but in the absolute best way.

delicious salad with feta pumpkin seeds lettuce and beetroot

I intend to remake that salad as it is absolutely divine and inspired me to want to try out-of-the-ordinary salads (so please spam me with ideas). The salad we had that night made me realize it’s not that we’re not salad people, it’s that we’re not typical green salad people especially since neither of us can or should eat tomatoes.
The main course, we both had the steak and as I am writing this article I’m going through the photographs and wishing in my heart of hearts that time travel actually existed. I would love to be transported back in time through the photograph of that dish and eat it again… it was that good, my compliments to the chef, soft juicy steak, yum!

The dessert oh my goodness! I am not actually the biggest cake person; I would prefer a mousse or a tart as I find most cakes can be quite dry. I must admit 8 months is a long time ago to remember if the cake was moist enough for my liking. Still, since I don’t have a distinct memory of disdain for the cake and judging by the photographs, I am going to say that the cakes were divine, one of them had an edible flower on which I absolutely loved! It makes me feel adventurous and so la di da when I get to eat flowers.

gorgeous cheese cake smothered in a red sauce with a strawberry on top

lovely red velvet cake with a red edible flower on top

Jo’s Take Aways
If you’re in a relationship make date night a priority
Expand your taste bud’s horizons
If you enjoy something and it doesn’t harm anyone keep doing it no matter what others think or say.

Until next time

Jo XO

Baked Potato Boats

I think most of us are in lock down around the world. For me this is quite frustrating as I am 100% an extrovert. Don’t get me wrong, I understand and fully agree with our government’s decision to keep us inside, and I am very thankful to have some time to get back to my blogging again.

I decided to spend the 3 weeks of lock down at my boyfriend’s house- don’t think I would’ve survived three weeks without him. This being said, his kitchen is not without uhm challenges.

At my house I have a gas stove and oven, and at his place everything is electric. If you have ever used an electric stove you know that it takes time to build up heat whereas with a gas stove the heat is immediately there.

This presented quite the challenge for me with our dinner this past Friday, making baked potatoes in the oven.

In my gas oven it would take 20 – 25 minutes for baked potatoes to be completely cooked, in his electric oven after an hour the potatoes were only mostly cooked.

Since we are in lock down I have some extra time on my hands so I decided to try some new ideas out (well at least new to me- ideas I haven’t tried yet.)

Friday night baked potato boats had won the lucky “what’s for dinner” question.

What are baked potato boats you may ask? A mash up between baked potatoes and mash, excuse the pun.

Step 1: You cut the potatoes in half and bake them in the oven until the skin is nice and crispy and the inside is thoroughly cooked and soft;

Step 2: Scoop out the inside of the potato into a bowl that you have ready and try to keep the skin of the potato intact.;

Step 3: Mash the potato insides together, I use some baking powder and milk to make my mashed potatoes fluffy and creamy, and added some cream cheese to add some delicious flavour;

Step 4: Make bacon (if you want to add some awesomeness to your boats);

Step 5: Add the bacon to your mashed potato mix;

Step 6: Scoop the mash potato mix into the skins of the potatoes which are hopefully still intact (I did not succeed in all of mine being intact);

Step 7: Grate some cheese;

Step 8: Sprinkle cheese over the “boats”;

9: Microwave the boats for 30 seconds (till cheese melts);

10: Enjoy the deliciousness.

The baked potato boats were absolutely delicious and filling. I used two large potatoes per person, so we ended up leaving some in the microwave. Not the best idea when milk and cream cheese are involved. I think the baked potato boats would be better the next day if kept in the fridge and not the microwave.

Jo’s Take Away’s:

Use lock down wisely
Make sure that there is no dairy in the product before putting in the microwave over night
Familiarize yourself with the equipment beforehand

3 Ways to make baked beans bearable

If you are anything like me who does not enjoy dry foods, you would probably share my distaste for baked beans. Yes, they have sauce around them but bite down into one and they’re still dry!

Living in the day and age that we are in today, baked beans is something that pretty much everyone has in the cupboard. They’re cheap and filling, even if they don’t taste great!

So I set out on a mission to find ways to make baked beans taste better, to make them bearable for those last week of the month meals.

I chose 3 ways to tell you about:

Baked Bean Salad

This is quite easy and honestly really tastes good. A friend of mine introduced me to this recipe while we were still house mates and I have made it many times since then.

So what to do is to empty the can of baked beans- sauce and all- into a bowl. Add half a chopped onion and some sugar. Lastly, add some mayonnaise and stir. I don’t have exact measurements for this recipe, it’s a bit of a “to taste” recipe. It has never tasted bad, but whenever it seems to hit the sweet spot of perfection I can never remember what the ratio of ingredients were. Works well with meals like sausage and egg or steak and chips.

Curried Baked Beans on Toast

This is a dish that a friend’s mom made for us when we were still in high school. I really wasn’t fond of baked beans but as a courtesy to my friend’s mom I decided to eat the baked beans. I was pleasantly surprised! I tried to remake it. I threw the entire can of baked beans in a sauce pan, added half a diced onion, added tomato sauce and chutney as well as some curry powder. Heat up and stir well. My bread was frozen and I’m not fond of toast from frozen (although my mom is). Luckily we had those sandwich squares from Blue Ribbon in the freezer too, and I quite enjoy them toasted from frozen. I added the baked bean mix on to the toasted and buttered squares and enjoyed for lunch!

Joxo Chilli

So I had some leftover baked bean mix and had this idea in my head to make American Chilli. When I googled the recipes for American Chilli I realised that I do not have most of the ingredients in my house and besides the fact that I prefer to cook with what I have in house, it was still a few days until payday! I decided to make my own dish. My dish is inspired by the idea of American chilli and probably similar to some that already exist. I threw green beans, carrots and split peas in a pot together to cook. In future I would put the split peas in their own pot or not make them at all. Although I did enjoy their taste though, they were sadly still hard when I dished despite being cooked for a really long time. I added some garlic to my baked bean mix. I fried some beef patties (hamburger meat) in a pan, once cooked I added some barbeque sauce over the patties. I cut up the patties and added them to the baked bean mix while I waited for the veg to become soft. Once the veg was soft, I added it into the baked bean mix. I made the sticky barbeque instant sauce from Imana (I used more water than suggested on the instructions to give the chilli a nice runny consistency) and added to the baked bean mix. I stirred well and ta da! Joxo Chilli! I made some mash to put the chilli on, and man am I glad that I did! In one of my previous posts I have mentioned that my mom had cancer, I swear the chemo did something to her taste buds. My nose was running from the burn of the chilli and she sits there not worried about a thing. I asked her if she didn’t taste it? She responded that she tastes it but it isn’t nose run bad – really hope the chemo affected her taste buds otherwise there might be something wrong with mine! Point being that the mash under the chilli really helped with the burn.

I hope this inspires you to take something you don’t like and turn it into something you would enjoy!

Love Jo xo

Jo’s Take Aways

Never complain about having food
There’s always a way to “upcycle” an ingredient you don’t enjoy
Try new things

Home Made Magic

Sometimes in life you get the privilege of choosing your own family where the connection feels magical. I was blessed enough to be able to choose my own brother (from another mother). We shared a house for more than a year and he now stays one town away and I miss him and having him around terribly.

He came to my town for a day and we spent it at a friend’s mother’s coffee shop. Living in a place like South Africa with our economy on a constant downward spiral, one needs to get creative! This brother of mine has always had a very unique mind and been very creative, don’t ask me how he got the idea in his head but he decided to make home-made crème liquor.

I am always very skeptical of my brother’s hair brained ideas and even asked the owner of the coffee shop is she trusted what the boys were doing.

It started with making our own ideal milk (one again South Africa’s economy made us decide to make our own). How does one make ideal milk, you might ask? Well I did at least. The answer = you boil milk!!! Okay, it is slightly more complicated than just leaving a pot of milk on the stove for an hour- that would just be a disaster!

So you start off by measuring the amount of milk you would like to use, and add half of it to a thick-based sauce pan. You then take a sosatie stick (kebab skewer) place it in the milk and mark where the milk is against the sosatie stick. You add the rest of the milk and slowly bring to a boil.

There is one annoying thing about making ideal milk yourself and that would be constantly removing and discarding the layer of skin that forms on top of the milk. Once the amount of milk once again reaches the level it was when it was marked on the sosatie stick, you have ideal milk, also known as evaporated milk. The process can take quite a while though as you don’t want to have the sauce pan become too hot and burn the milk.

So while the boys were making ideal milk and getting to business on the liquor, I got roped into helping cover chocolate coated truffles in chocolate. One would think that it’s an easy task…nope! I think with a lot of practice and some skill you could manage to always have them come out perfect. However on a first try my hands and feet- yes my feet too- were covered in chocolate and my truffles were definitely not all perfectly covered in chocolate. Luckily they were to be saved by having white chocolate drizzled over them the following day.

I have a new respect for bakers- tasks that appear to be seemingly easy take a lot more time, effort and skill than we realise! I won’t be complaining about the price of a treat any time soon!

So back to the boys and what seemed like their Dexter’s Laboratory experiment… Once the milk had boiled down to half of what it was (500 ml), they added a tin of condensed milk (sadly I don’t know how to make this at home yet) and three tablespoons of coffee. They then waited for this mixture to cool down, and according to them it already tasted sublime!

Once the mixture was at about room temperature, they added the alcohol, 300 ml of Brandy. They mixed it well and gave each of us a taste (in improvised shot glasses of course)! Indeed their creative flair and mad scientist ideas paid off and they had accomplished making a magical cost effective crème coffee liquor!

There is a magic about spending time with those who are like family to you, and to create something together in that time just melts it into your memory! My brother has inspired me to try many more home made things, first up being homemade feta cheese (goat’s cheese). You’ll have to wait for my next post to see whether I succeed and if I’ll be making tuna & feta puffs or just tuna puffs!

Love Jo xo

Jo’s 3 Take Aways:

Creativity is key
Respect your baker
Find people who love like family

Featured

A Proudly South African Saturday (Part 2)

I rushed off to the store to get some meat for the braai (yes I am aware I had just eaten a large meal, don’t judge me- I’m proudly South African and we can eat!) Finally I found a nice T-bone steak for a decent price and get absolute excited to eat this gorgeous cut of meat in an hour or two.

Food is just a pretence under which we get together, but not necessarily eat. This is what makes a South African braai better than an American barbeque, or any other country’s version. For example, one couple only brought their meat for show- by the time I left, the lady was stuffed on side dished and dessert, and her fiancé had consumed some alcohol and was so engaged in conversation that they both forgot the existence of their meat.

At a typical South African braai, there would usually be alcohol involved. The men would be at the fire making sure there are enough coals and wood so they have more time to drink and catch up. The women find another spot usually far enough away for the smoke not to burn their eyes yet close enough to hear if they happen to be misrepresented in a tale by their other half.

Sometimes, (and honestly preferably) there would be some snacks like chips and peanuts to snack on while we wait for the illusion of the meat being cooked.

There would be side dishes like the most amazing potato dish someone made for the night.

Potatoes cooked with once again brown onion soup and butter, partially sliced open with sliced onion in the slits! Definitely a treat worth a try. Of course, there was also some sweet bread- dough covered in cream and brown sugar baked in the oven! It was my first time trying both these dishes and I was astounded at how divine they were! I did find the sweet bread a tad sweet and ended up swirling it in the brown onion soup on my plate. I think these dishes saved the young lady whose fiancé had forgotten about their meat.

What I really love about braais is that you chose what you eat, you bring your meat with you and most ladies have their male counter parts cook their meat for them. Or if you’re like me, get a friend’s male counterpart to cook it! After a few braais and try’s you figure out who braais the best- make sure to always ask them because you don’t want the steak you’ve been looking forward to for the past two hours to be overcooked. Thankfully mine wasn’t, or at least I don’t think it was as I could only get two bites in after being so stuffed on the side dishes and potjie. However there is always room for dessert!

I finally understand why we usually don’t have desserts at braais because man, did we suffer, scoffing down every delicious bite of granadilla fridge tart but hoping with all our hearts our faces wouldn’t turn green for sheer over indulgence. Worth it though!

The one thing about the way too much food filled day that really brought it home for me was that food brings us together, whether we eat way too much or don’t even eat what we brought to the table. It gives us a platform to express love and kindness to one another, a moment to sit and catch up, and enables us to fulfil a basic human need- connection with others!

So in conclusion, if you want to experience two proudly South African culinary extravaganzas within a few hours of each other, make sure to stop eating at least two days prior to prevent a food overload coma and, for the love of pineapples, have an antacid ready!! Also have a heart that’s ready to receive the love of those who will become your unofficial family.

Jo’s take away

1. Don’t eat a full dinner less than two hours prior

2. If you are on a budget getting beef short rib to braai is an absolute life saver!

3. Braai broodjies are a must! Grab 2 slices of bread, butter the outsides, add some tomato, cheese and sliced onion. Spice with some salt and pepper and grill over the fire! No braai is complete without this treat!

A proudly South African Saturday (Part 1)

When one is moderately young and not specifically into spending every weekend clubbing, there are really only two respectable things to do (in South Africa, at least): braai and potjie (fondly called a pot). This weekend, I did both.

A braai would be similar to a barbeque in the American culture, and a potjie similar to a stew.

Every nationalist will claim that their country’s take on a traditional or famous meal would be the best. However, as a proudly South African woman who has never been overseas, I can assure you that our take on the so-called barbeque and stew is definitely the best!

When I was younger and everything still seemed right with the world, we use to make potjie for family gatherings. Everyone would get together from the near by towns. My favorite part would always be the dumplings with condensed milk at the end.

Perhaps I try to recreate these picture perfect family moments that I treasure from my childhood with the friends who are like family to me now and possibly that’s why I enjoy these kinds of gatherings so much.

We’ll start off with the potjie- you can read part two of this article to find out more about our traditional South African braai.

There’s something so serene about spending a Saturday afternoon with friends and their kids, helping prep food, enjoying great conversation and watching the cast iron pot cook over the fire, resembling a witch’s brew we have all pictured from the fairy tales we read and watched when we were kids.

I think the anticipation involved in making a potjie makes it so much more satisfying in the end- you smell every ingredient as it goes into the pot and change the smell of the steam coming out from the pot oh so subtly.

My friend’s husband was our chef and did an amazing job with a lamb pot!

First he sauteed the onions in some spice, then added some potatoes and later the lamb meat to the pot. He added brown onion soup mix and some frozen mix veg and fresh mushroom. The pot was only about half full with liquid and was left to steam, with an occasional stir.

The wife of the chef made some rice upon which the lamb pot was to be served and the whole meal came together, but more than that, it brought 3 generations together. We played and colored with the kids outside while patiently waiting for the meal to be cooked, which created a perfect light hearted atmosphere.

While still at the potjie, I received a text from a friend inviting me to her surprise birthday braai that same evening.

I initially wanted to decline but as both our busy schedules wouldn’t allow for us to celebrate her birthday together any other time soon, my first hosts very graciously excused me.

It really was a great start to a way too much food filled day, and it was only going to get better!

Jo’s take away:

1. Bring crisps to a potjie, it takes a while!

2. If you’re planning on drinking take something light otherwise you won’t make it till food.

3. Maybe add some dumplings and condensed milk, one of my favorite things with potjie!