Basil Hummus

Tahini is either not available or super expensive in Kitwe, so this is my budget version of hummus! With the usual little flavour tweaks and something extra green 😉

You can use canned chickpeas if you prefer, I guess this would use about one drained can. Otherwise soak 1/2 cup dried chickpeas in a bowl of water overnight. Drain off the water, pop them in a pot, cover with water and cook until soft. (I like to use a wonderbag to minimize my stove usage – I just leave it in there for a couple of hours once it’s been heated sufficiently on the stove top.)

Drain the cooked chickpeas, pop them in a blender, add a handful of basil leaves, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 3 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1 tsp ground cumin and 1/3 cup low fat yogurt. Blend and enjoy with a flatbread, or with crudites, spread it on a burger bun, smear it on a pizza base and drizzle with mozarella… the possibilities are endless 🙂

Kedgeree for Two

I found canned mackerel at Shoprite this week and realized I had found the perfect solution to making a tasty kedgeree without fishbones tickling one’s throat as a side effect! Apparently some people view this as a breakfast dish –  for us it made a very satisfying lunch.

Boil 1/3 cup brown rice in 1 cup of water until all the water is absorbed and the rice is almost cooked.

In a separate pot, saute 1 – 2 cloves of garlic, 1 small onion and 1 heaped teaspoon grated fresh ginger.  The fresh ginger is a must as it really gives a zing that you can’t get from dried ginger. To that add 1 chopped medium tomato, 1/2 diced green pepper, a dozen curry leaves and 1 teaspoon curry powder (I love Rajah mild & spicy). Drain a 400 g can of mackerel middles & break up roughly half the fish into the pot with the onion mix. (Freeze the remainder or use it all if you’re cooking for three..). Add salt and pepper to taste. At this point, add the cooked rice, pour in 1/2 cup semi-sweet white wine (you could use a dash of honey and diluted lemon juice if wine’s not your thing) and let simmer for about 15 – 30 minutes.

Bring a small pot of water to the boil. Gently place two eggs in the boiling water and time about 8 minutes for a just-done but still not too hard yolk. Drop them into cold water and allow to cool before peeling.

Dish up the kedgeree and top with the boiled eggs cut in half.

 

 

 

Egg-free Gnocchi!

I once had the hilarious (in retrospect) experience of trying to make gnocchi with just mashed potato and a teaspoon of baking powder on the advice of someone who spoke bad English. I then found a recipe that worked for me (which included egg and flour) and have been going with that for a while. I just struggled with how sticky the dough was, and standing there rolling these sticky little balls and then they would stick to the plate…

So I was planning a butternut gnocchi but wanted to make a super small portion just for one meal for two light eaters, and thought “How am I going to use half an egg?” And then I thought, “What if I don’t use egg?” And that was when the magic happened.

I diced 150 g butternut and boiled it until soft and then drained off the water. The butternut cubes will be a little waterlogged, but that’s just fine. Add 150 g flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder and a pinch of salt. Mash and mix it together with a fork, adding roughly 1 tablespoon of olive oil or as much as you need to form a dough. Et voila! I LOVE THIS DOUGH BECAUSE IT ISN’T STICKY!!

You can even make it super vegan if you like by just making a tomato, garlic and basil sauce. I did a tomato and bacon sauce and topped it with some slices of smoked mozarella.

My Saucy Beans

I don’t know if it’s a thing outside of South Africa, but many of us enjoy our “sousboontjies” – beans in a curried sauce. My mom-in-law recently made some delicious sousboontjies and I asked for the recipe, which required 3 cups of vinegar and “2 packets of green beans” with no further specification as to the weight or size of said packets. Well, I used half that amount of vinegar and still ended up with such a mouth-puckering disaster that I used it to fertilize the banana trees!

So I played around a bit more cautiously and came up with a recipe that works for me. You could even add a further cup of cooked or green bean here, but I prefer to err on the side of extra sauce 😉  This makes 2 small jars or 1 big mayo jar of saucy beans.

1/2 cup dried beans (I used kidney beans and chickpeas, haricot is also nice – use whatever you have or fancy)

1 heaped cup fresh green beans, chopped

1 small onion

2 cloves garlic

Soak the dried beans for at least 24 hours, then boil them until they’re soft (I use a Wonderbag which is great as  just cook my beans for about 15 or 20 mins and then pop them in there overnight. You could also use a pressure cooker especially if you’re going to double up.). Drain the beans.

Chop up the onion and garlic into a pot, drizzle a little olive oil over and saute.  Add the beans.

Pour over 1 cup of water, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper, 1 tsp curry powder (I like Rajah Mild & Spicy), 60 ml vinegar (white, brown, red, whatever you have). Stir it all up. Once it’s bubbling nicely mix in 2 tablespoons of flour and give the sauce a few minutes to thicken up, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking at the bottom. Once slightly cooled, pour into a jar and let cool to room temperature before popping the lid on.

Enjoy as a side dish or snack, warm or cold 🙂

Pork a la Prince

Well, I’m going to call it that anyway 😉 My handsome prince loves pork and it’s economical and tasty when you get a nice cut. I saw this little 290 g pork steak pack at Food Lovers and snapped it up as a perfect Meal For Two.

Thinking along the lines of a chicken a la king, I sauteed half a medium red onion with 3 cloves of garlic in a bit of olive oil, then cut the 290 g pork steak/fillet into strips and chunks and popped that in the pan too. Once the meat was browning I added a handful of chopped oyster mushrooms (you could use whatever mushie you fancy), a stick of chopped celery complete with the leaves and 1/3 cup of cream.

While that was on the go, I put 1/3 cup brown rice, with a bit of red quinoa and lentil mixed in, in a pot and topped up with 1 cup of water. Bring to the boil and then turn heat down and let it cook.

Heading back to the meat pot, pour in 1/4 cup of white wine and 1/2 cup of water, then stir in one heaped tbsp of mushroom soup powder. Add one tsp each of dried thyme and sage (or use fresh if you have) and let simmer away for 20 – 30 mins.

Dish up! You really don’t need to do anything to the rice because the sauce has so much flavour going on. Garnish with some fresh chopped parsley and a scattering of parmesan cheese.

 

Zambian Lamb Shank

There is a reason why women (or at least whoever is the cook in the house) should be doing all the food shopping and men (or the lesser foodies) should be banned from this activity. “Sweetie, I got lamb shanks for Sunday!” the hubby announced. Me (dubiously): “You did? From where?”  He: “Food Lovers.”

Now a note here: I was there on Food Lovers’ opening day and met the butcher and got his number. Twice I ordered from him and was happy with the result. But just randomly shopping there can be … interesting. Read eeny weeny lamb shanks or having to take an entire leg because the butcher on duty can’t understand my explanation of where a shank should be cut off even though i’m standing in front of him, pointing it out on the leg. 

Hubby’s purchase looked questionable enough in clingwrap. Unwrapped it’s even weirder. Oh well, bony casserole here we go.

Ah well, even with clueless butchers, load-shedding, the occasional water-cut, and the murderous pre-rain season heat, at least I have pretty flowers to cheer things up.

 

More Meat-free Meals

I had this idea of doing a yin yang kind of lunch – something bright and cool, next to something warmly nourishing and green 🙂

The salad is 1 chopped orange, 1 grated carrot, a handful of chopped cilantro and a handful of chopped cashews, sprinkled with a dash of salt.

For the warm rice salad I boiled almost 1/3 cup rice, topped up with 2 tablespoons mixed quinoa. I simply steamed 3 small sliced zucchinis and 1/3 head of chopped broccoli in a sieve on top of the boiling rice. When the rice was done, I mixed in the steamed veg and added salt and pepper to taste, 1 tablespoon of butter, 1/2 teaspoon cumin and 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric. 

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Lately my bok choi is doing fantastically in the garden and I love the springy pea-green hue it lends to pasta! Now I had a huge pumpkin I had bought at a farmer’s market and not much idea what to do with it, so I googled some recipe ideas. When I saw a pumpkin cream sauce pasta topped with crispy sage leaves, I knew I had to try it. I’ve never tried frying sage leaves before and I must say it was a bit of fun and they are delicious! Even the hubby enjoyed it 🙂

Lemon Cream Pasta with Prawns

I’m very lucky that my husband doesn’t object to cleaning prawns because my hands instantly break out in an itchy rash when I handle them raw. I felt for something yummy on Sunday and the local restaurants just don’t cut it.

For the pasta I blended 1 egg, a pinch of salt, a handful of baby comfrey leaves and a handful of lemon balm leaves in the nutribullet. I added that to 100 g cake flour and 1 tbsp olive oil in the cake mixer, worked it to a smooth dough and rolled it through the pasta machine. Hung it up to dry for about two hours and then cut into strips.

For the sauce I mixed roughly 1/2 cup cream, 30 ml lemon juice, 1/2 tsp salt, some black pepper, and a chunk of butter (about 20g or a heaped tbsp) in a small pan over medium heat. Once the butter had melted I added about 1 tbsp flour to thicken things up.

I got a big pot of salted water on the boil and while that was heating up I tossed about 350 g thawed and cleaned prawns into a pan with olive oil, salt, black pepper, a dash of turmeric, a tbsp crushed garlic, a squeeze of lemon juice, and 1/2 tsp smoked paprika.

The pasta takes 2 – 5 mins to cook, once it’s floating test it out. Drain the pasta and then dump it in your lemon cream sauce, mix well and dish onto plates. Top with the prawns and enjoy with a good sauvignon blanc. Serves 2.

Amazing Ice Cream

Once you get into a habit of making your own ice cream, you just won’t look at store-bought ice cream the same way. I’ve played around with a few different recipes and variations (Nigella Lawson’s margarita ice cream is delicious), but here is the basic recipe which you can tweak to your desire.

Separate 3 eggs, beat the whites until stiff. Pop that into the fridge while doing the next steps.

Add the egg yolks in a bowl to 1 can of sweetened condensed milk. Here you add your flavouring: vanilla essence, a few tablespoons of cocoa powder, Horlicks, Milo, lime & tequila, whatever you fancy.

Living in Zambia, or South Africa, it’s pretty darn hot in summer, and that can mess with whipping cream. A great tip I got is to make everything super cold! So have 500ml whipping cream chilling out in the freezer for 15 – 20 mins beforehand, and put the whisk attachment in the freezer too. If you have room, put your (preferably metal) mixing bowl in the freezer too. If you’re in a warm climate this just makes your cream whip up beautifully in minutes.

To the firmly whipped cream, pour in your flavour bowl with the egg yolk and condensed milk, and finally fold in the egg whites just to add a luscious lightness. Pour into containers (I like using small containers so it freezes faster 😉  ) and freeze. Enjoy!

Chicken Leftovers Lasagne

My cooking strategies revolve around two main concepts: firstly, there will be nothing wasted, and secondly, I will cram as much vegetables and herbs into everything that I possibly can – for both economy and the health benefits. This dish optimizes both concepts.

I’m crazy about making pasta and nothing beats freshly made. I weigh 100 g cake flour (in Zambia the only flour to use for pasta is Cake Delight – any other brand makes for hard chewy pasta – gah) and make a well in the centre. In the Nutribullet I blitz 1 whole egg, a pinch of salt and 2 great handfuls of chopped herbs (rocket, parsley, basil, marjoram, sage, rosemary – make the combo your own). I pour that into the centre of the flour and let my Kenwood dough hook do the hard work. I usually then add about 2 teaspoons of olive oil and the tiniest trickle of water to bring it to a beautiful smooth dough. I roll it out into thin sheets, and leave them on a floured baking tray while I prep the sauce.

Chopped spring onion, baby tomatoes, grated carrot, chopped carrot greens, fresh garden peas or frozen peas, turmeric, coriander, cumin, salt and black pepper – get that all going in a dash of olive oil and then add your chopped leftover chicken, a glug of white wine (or a small tablespoon of vinegar if you’re avoiding alcohol) and 1/2 tsp sugar. If you don’t have leftovers, one large chicken breast should be about right.

For a change up from the regular white sauce I make a coconut sauce: a knob of butter with 1/2 can coconut milk in a small pot. Add a dash of salt and about 1 tbsp flour  and stir over moderate heat until it thickens.

Layer up the lasagne sheets and meat sauce, top with the coconut sauce and grated cheddar cheese, and grate a little nutmeg over the top. Pop in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 30-45 mins.

Absolutely smashing left in the fridge for a day or two before eating, but also okay to eat on the same day.

Potato Gnocchi

A little old Italian lady told me that she had recently made gnocchi and I asked her how. “Ah, is easy. You justa boil potato, mash, add little baking powder…”

“Baking powder? How much?”

Vague confused look.

“A teaspoon?”

“Aaah…perhaps.”

Okay, for future reference I will never try something out on such sketchy directions. The next day, I boiled and mashed potato, seasoned it with care, added a teaspoon of baking powder and rolled tiny dumplings. I then dropped them into a pot of boiling water. I’m actually really surprised that no one I asked so far could predict the outcome, so maybe I’m not a complete imbecile. But if you think about it well enough, it shouldn’t be surprising that balls of potato mash dropped into boiling water will simply…disintegrate. Et voila! Potato water!

After such a stupid, epic fail (and eating bread rolls for dinner instead) I took two weeks off from all thought of gnocchi and then Googled recipes and settled for the one from taste.com.au. It works! Of course I would halve and tweak things a bit so here’s my version.

Dice 400 g potato and steam it for 20 minutes or until soft. Let it drain and cool for a bit before mashing. Beat 1 egg with 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp black pepper (or to your taste). Mix this into the mashed potato, along with 150 g plain flour, adding the flour in two batches. Add a tablespoon of your favourite dried herbs or some parmesan if you wish, then turn the dough onto a well-floured surface and start pinching off 1/2 tsp sized-dumplings and rolling them into balls. If you want to be all Italian mama, go ahead and roll the surface with a floured fork to make little grooves. I just think this is time-consuming enough already. Pop the dumplings in the fridge until you’re ready to rock and roll.

Tomato sauce: chop 1 tomato, 1/2 onion, 2 cloves garlic and saute them in a wee pot. Add 1 tbsp vinegar, a splash of dry red wine, 1/2 tsp salt and 1 tsp sugar. Let the liquid reduce by about half.

Bring a pot of water to the boil. Drop the potato gnocchi in, taking care not to crowd the pot. Let each batch cook for about 2-3 mins or until they float to the surface.

Chop a mixed handful of basil, pak choi, baby spinach…whatever you fancy.

Drain the gnocchi well, spoon tomato sauce over, then sprinkle with your greens. Finish off with some parmesan gratings and a loving drizzle of lemon-flavoured avocado oil.

 

Smoked chicken filled basil ravioli with creamy tomato and thyme sauce

This was so super yummy! I had some smoked chicken breast, so minced a small one in the food processor and made the usual pasta recipe with two big handfuls of fresh basil leaves.

For the sauce, chop 1 medium tomato, 1 small onion and 1 clove of garlic. Add 1 tablespoon tomato puree, 60 ml red wine, 1 tablespoon dried thyme leaves, 30 ml cream and 1/2 cup water. Let it cook and thicken for about 15 – 20 mins.

If you’re doing the ravioli straight away, pop it into a large pot of boiling water – it takes about 3 minutes to cook.

Dish out the ravioli, pour the sauce over and top with grated Parmesan or Pecorino cheese.