ICED TEA or A.K.A. JUICE TEA

Cherry & Apple rooibos Ice Tea

My daughter loves to drink a fruit ice tea made from rooibos (afrikaans for Red Bush) tea and whatever flavour fruit juice we mix with it to make a delicious cool drink/ ice tea. In the hot summer weather we are having this is a great healthy drink for the kids and family :) and for the adults in the party mood for new years eve this can easily made into an "adult" drink for a party.

INGREDIENTS
3 or 4 teabags (rooibos or tea of choice)
1 litre of fruit juice of your choice
some berries or lemon to garnish
alcohol (if making the adult version)

INSTRUCTIONS
take a 2 litre jug or pot that can handle boiling water. Boil roughly 750ml of water and add to the jug with the tea bags and leave to seep/draw and cool down. When the tea is luke warm add the full litre of fruit juice.
Place in the fridge and once ice cold then add some sliced lemon or berries.
serve in glasses with ice.

if making an alcoholic version add a nice tasting alcohol that blends nicely with fruit juice - southern comfort or peach schnapps, or any fruit flavoured liquer  roughly 100ml or to taste.

merry christmas and ALL that Jazz!..........

I tried my hardest to put a post up on christmas day but no matter how hard i tried blogger would not let me post it!!! so to all of you out there that read this blog - MERRY CHRISTMAS :) hope you had lekker (south african word for great) food- i definately did :) mmm i wish i had some now.
We had family functions to attend on christmas eve and family to go to on christmas day, so lots of eating was what we did and boy was it goooooood! My mom made such delicious food this year!

anyway hope you all had a good one.
New year is around the corner :)

Peace out!! he he he

Betty Bake

LAMB SHANKS ON A BED OF MASH WITH A GARDEN SIDE SALAD

So when making plans for my husbands birthday weekend one of the things he requested was a 3 course meal with 2 of our friends - And i was happy to oblige :)
So the meal he requested was:
Starters - Roasted butternut soup with cream and pumpkin seeds
Main course - Lamb shank on a bed of mash potatoes with a side of garden salad
Dessert - Decadent Chocolate Mousse with a Vanilla Marscapone and cream topping

He didn't quite ask for the vanilla marscapone and cream topping - that i added myself but he did ask for the chocolate mousse :) and the soup and lamb shanks with mash and salad. My man has such good taste :)

So I proceeded to cook my day away Friday to complete all the food for Friday night. This sounds so much more dramatic than it really is. It wasn't that hectic and I did manage to pop down to the market in the afternoon and come home and bath, wash my hair, and blow dry it. So you see it didn't take me to long to cook otherwise i wouldn't have had time to do all those other things :) Our lovely guests were  fellow blogger Janine from Being Brazen and her boyfriend - take a look at her blog here.

Recipe post for the Lamb Shank.
Recipe for the butternut soup is from awhile back and can be found here

LAMB SHANKS ON A BED OF MASH WITH A GARDEN SIDE SALAD

yes i really did make this myself :)

INGREDIENTS

4 lamb shanks (i used free range lamb)

2 onions finely diced

2 tins of peeled italian organic tomatoes or 8 large fresh tomatoes cubed

1 glass good quality red wine

1 cup beef or roast onion stock

3 medium sprigs of fresh rosemary

half an organic lemon cut in 3 chunks

salt and pepper

sugar

METHOD

1) Season shanks with lots of salt and black pepper to taste then fry shanks in batches in a HOT frying pan with some olive or sunflower oil. Brown on all sides and then set aside in an oven dish that all 4 shanks will fit in together. 

2) in the same pan that you browned the shanks cook the finely diced onion until soft and light brown -use more oil if needed then place on top of the shanks.

3) then add to the dish of shanks and onion the tomato, wine and stock with the rosemary and lemon nestled in between - lightly sprinkle with a tiny bit of sugar and cover and place in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for roughly 2 hours - check randomly and turn.

4) uncover for the last half an hour and spoon the tomato sauce over the shanks and let the sauce thicken while cooking. If you are preparing the shanks in advance then take them out at this stage before the sauce thickens to much and leave covered in the fridge until half an hour to 45 minuted before serving place in a pre-warmed oven of 180 degrees Celsius and serve on a bed of mash potatoes and a side salad or veg of your choice

Bon apetit 

The Life and times of the Crazy Betty

so i'm busy working at the moment on my computer - editing wedding photos of the beautiful Claire :)
hence no cooking posts or recipe posts. But it is the husbands birthday this weekend and he has requested a 3 course meal. So i shall try to put those up after the weekend :)

Happy times

count down to Christmas

CHRISTMAS BAUBLES

So i added this cool new little count down thingy to my blog yesterday :) look to the right .... there we go - it's big and green and has lots of numbers :) i check it every now and then when my daughter says "mom how many sleeps is it till Christmas?"  and i can confidently say how many it is. It also reminds me how many days i have until all the presents need to be wrapped!! and that i must start thinking about putting up a tree! and that i must bake a christmas cake!!!! [breath i tell myself, breath] but then i also realise it is also how many days until i can look forward to having my husband home and how many days till i can relax and spend time quality with my family, eat lovely food and do fun relaxing stuff with them and then i realise my breathing isn't so hard any more and i have a faint smile on my face. I really do love Christmas