My local fruit and vegetable shop had a whole basket of fresh artichokes, so guess what I am having for lunch today? Yes the look weird to eat, but they are excellent!
Instructions:
Great with a vinaigrette or melted butter.
When we were in Delaware, we had an amazing cheese cake for dessert one night. Pam, who made it could not join us because she was receiving some “hurricane refugees” at her house. But on the night of Hurricane Irene, I met Pam, and she gave me the recipe. It is easy to make, unhealthy and good. I tried it out last night at a friends birthday dinner and it was excellent.
Although it uses a lot of cream cheese, it feeds about 10 people, so there is plenty to go around.
Here is my metricated and slightly modified version of the recipe:
Use a 24cm Spring Form Pan
Crust Ingredients
Place butter into mixing bowl. Pour flour and sugar on top of butter. “Fork-In” flour and sugar into butter. Add Vanilla and Yolks.
Roll dough into ball and place in refrigerator for 1 hour.
Roll out 1/2 of the dough (OR I JUST PRESS THE DOUGH WITH MY FINGERS ) on the greased Base of the Spring Form Pan, and the rest on the sides of the pan.
Bake 220 degrees for 8-10 minutes until slightly golden brown.
Filling Ingredients
DO NOT OVER WHIP THE BELOW
Put cream cream Cheese in mixing bowl.
Add Sugar and mix well.
Add flour, mix well.
Add vanilla.
Add 1 whole egg at a time and blend well.
Add 1 Egg Yolk at a time and blend well.
Fold in Heavy Cream.
Pour batter into Spring Form Pan
Bake 180 degrees for 20 Minutes then drop temperature to 140 degrees for 1-1/2 to 2 hours.
When cooled…place fruit topping of your choice…
Fresh bread, home-made gouda cheese, rocket and Spanish sausage, all from the Earth Fair Market in Tokai.
My dad makes the best pancakes! When I lived with my parents, my father made pancakes on Sunday evenings. I have not had my dad’s pancakes in years, so I was excited when he announced that he was making them for Mother’s day tea.
My dad has not lost his touch. He still flips the best pancakes. Especially when you add Canadian Maple syrup, cinnamon sugar, cream and a dash of fresh lemon juice.
C’est La Vie bakery, Rosmead Road, Kalk Bay. They have wonderful French baguettes and other interesting breads. I read about them in the BA airline magazine on Sunday, and today I went to find them. They are a little out of the way but quite easy to fine. They also have a few tables outside where you can order sit-down meals, but we brought the baguettes home for lunch, and they are wonderfully fresh and chewy, just like a real baguette should be.
We cooked these the other evening; black mushrooms with fresh garlic, crushed chilli and grated parmesan cheese.
Very yummy!
I have been looking for this for ages, and I am so glad to finally find it. Every South African knows the famous Mrs Ball’s Chutney, which is found on every South African table. Well a few weeks ago I read an article about Desmond Ball, who is Mrs Ball’s great great grandson. He is making and selling chutney, but according to the original family recipe (not the commercial Unilever version).
So, I was very excited to find it for sale at the organic market in Tokai (behind Builders Warehouse), and of course I immediately bought a bottle. It is without a doubt one of the smoothest and tastiest chutneys that I have ever tasted, and it is organic as well.
He sells it under the Amelia label (which is Mrs Ball’s first name), and if you find a bottle, you won’t regret buying it. By the way, there is a lot of myth and story about Mrs Ball; you can read here to find out more (it is fascinating reading).
I seem to be eating out awfully often at the moment, and try as we do to stay at home, there always seems to be a really good reason to go out.
Today, it was lunch at the River Café with my good friends Nick and Jeanne, who are at the moment sitting on a flight back to the UK, so it was out last chance to see them in a while.
The River Café is a lovely restaurant at the entrance of Constantia Uitsig Wine farm. Although I have not been there in a while, the service and food were fantastic. The staff managed to maintain the fine balance between being there when they were needed, and not quite getting in the way. While they have a simple and small menu, there is a good variety of tasty and interesting foods.
I started with Won-ton parcels, with a side-salad of veges stir-fried in peanut oil. While the parcels were a little oily, they were tasty and firm; and the veges were fantastic. You could have ordered just the veges as a main course (they were that good!).
Now I know that a burger for main course sounds really boring, but in this type of restaurant you can be assured that you will not get a boring burger, and I was not disappointed. It was succulent, juicy and tasty. The home-made tomatoe relish was wonderful, and this was definitely one of the best burgers that I have had in a long time.
Lois had Gazpacho, which she proclaimed as very good, and both Nick and Jeanne had the fish, which was equally praised. On the downside, the restaurant is not the cheapest place to eat, but the food and service are good. While there are a few vegetarian options (for Lois), the selection is not huge.
However, if you want to go somewhere for a really good meal, this is a place to consider.
No doubt I will be blogging about another restaurant next week :-)
Nothing like an ice cold cider to quench your (well at least Lois’) thirst at Lunch (I had a beer). We had lunch on Sunday at Peddlars on the Bend, a wonderful restaurant that has both stood the test of time, and the test of a fire. The entire restaurant almost burnt down a few years ago. But thankfully it survived, and after major repairs has been open ever since.
The outside garden area at Peddlars on the Bend
They still have one of the best bars and outside seating in Cape Town, and a wonderful (but more formal) restaurant inside. We spent a leasurely afternoon with some friends enjoying a beer or two, and an amazing meal. The staff are attentive but out of the way, and at about R80-R100 for most main courses, excellent value as well. There is also something for almost anybody; a very well thought-out menu.
Stacked Aubergine starter
Roasted Eisbein, not a small meal
Look at the baby garlic that we received in our last vegetable delivery. Each head is tiny, only about 2cm in height, but they are so tasty. We put two complete heads into a pasta sauce (which is probably equivalent to about four cloves of regular garlic).
Here you can compare the size to a regular head of garlic.
You can get your own baby garlic from Ganics.
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