Thursday and Being Brazen Blogger Interview :)

Being Brazen

 I had the priviledge of being able to ask some questions to Being Brazen, who has a really cool blog with the same name :)
So even though my blog is called betty bake and is predominatley about food and a bit about my life, I thought it would be good to share the things that interest me, the various stuff i like and the people whose :) blogs i read - cause they make me happy or inspired.
Being brazen is one of those blogs i read almost daily. I look forward to reading her posts and the various things that go round in her head and end up on her blog - just too cute and witty and sometimes even inspiring :) someone who makes you smile is ALWAYS worth a read and my time. So here are the questions I asked her - I hope you enjoy reading them as much as i did.

Being Brazen said "If I was a food I'd be a .....big block of cheese "

BEING BRAZEN INTERVIEW

The city I live in ...is a beautiful place

I  Love ....so much about my life

My favorite food is ..... pizza, mexican, lamb chops, fillet steak with mushroom sauce, mash potatoes, avocado, bacon, fish, cheese and salmon sushi.

My Staple food is .... cheese - without cheese I would have some serious withdrawals

My friends think I'm ....a unique snowflake

I totally rock at .... movie quizzes, being overly observant, rambling (its a gift) and  procrastinating

My style is....rather confused - but leaning toward a more classic style

My blog is about ...this and that

If I was a food I'd be a .....big block of cheese - beacuse i believe that you are what you eat ;)

My healthiest thing I eat is ....my morning vitamin tablets

My main obsession is...blogging and writing.

My parents discovered I was crazy ....when i was very little and I freaked out when I thought the leaves blowing around on the ground had turned into evil green ninjas.

I realised I was different when....my mom said I was just like the sloth from the movie " Ice Age"

If i could take 3 things with me to a desert island ....A fully stocked Yacht, My Boyfriend and a camera

My favourite read is.... Alice Hoffman and Sarah Addison Allen books.

My mood is best ....when i stop thinking so much and just relax

My blog address is.....http://www.beingbrazen.com

My readers are....beyond awesome
 

My wish for 2010 .....is just to be deleriously happy

  










Being Brazen 

________________________________

See isn't she witty and cute? I enjoyed that :)

Have a fabulous day. And let me know if you cooked something good :)

Betty Bake 

THINGS I MADE OR ATE THIS WEEKEND

sipped juice and read a good book in the sun

so it's monday again and the weekend is set to fade into the distance as another week starts. I had a lovely relaxing weekend for the most part:

1) enjoyed seeing my brother and his wife, eating nachos and playing poker (which I won!!)

2) having decaffe organic coffee at woolworths cafe at the V&A Waterfront while looking at the view of the boats

3)ate delicious steak and chips and watched a movie- i posted it for friday's Weekend food and it came out great 

4) did some reading in the sun with a good book and lots of fresh summer fruit - yum

so it was a great weekend
what did you eat this weekend and where?

Betty Bake

WEEKEND FOOD - Steak in a mushroom and creamy cheese sauce

  steak in a cheese and mushroom cream sauce with chips... mmmm

Everyone needs good food for the weekend. I thought this steak with a very easy cheesy mushroom sauce would be great for a weekend relax with a movie or some good company. Just add some chips and you're got plenty of food to keep you going :) and make your tongue tasty happy too :)

 

STEAK IN MUSHROOM ,CHEESE AND CREAM SAUCE

Before you start cooking set your oven to 200 degrees celcius (HOT) and let is heat up properly for 15 - 20 minutes. Make sure you have a frying pan that has metal handles so it can go in the oven. Take your favorite cut of steak, salt and then sear (seal) in a very hot pan on top of the stove with a nice generous blob of butter. Let is sizzle and brown and then turn to seal all the sides. Add some thinly sliced onion rings cut in half, some sliced mushrooms and let that cook for about 2 min or so. Then add some cream (about 4 - 6 tablespoons) and then some nicely grated cheese of choice - must be a good melting kind of cheese, cheddar or any nice one you like. place the entire pan in the oven and close the door.

Leave for 5-10 min (this will depend on the thickness of your steak) Check with a knife by inserting it into the middle of the steak to see of blood runs out. I always make a little cut and peer in to the middle of my steak to see how pink it is. Cook until how you would like it - rare, medium rare, medium, well done :)

Serve with chips and( according to some friends) a good glass of red wine

HAPPY WEEKEND

Betty Bake

Interesting Breakfast -Soaked Oats with honey and Almonds

soaked oats with honey and almonds

Soaked rolled oats ummmm so it's a kind of strange thing to write about - abd this is how it started....
It came about after reading articles about soaking foods on the internet a few times (natural and very healthy, green people like to write about it) then I yet again read about it in an article in one of the health magazines -"soaking things to make them softer and easier for your body to digest". So it wasn't the first time I was reading about it and I'm sure it won't be the last time as more and more people are turning into "green bunnies" AKA health freaks - (just so you know i am one of them to - well kind of).Now this doesn't sound all that great but I was pleasantly surprised at the one that i tried out and discovered it was actually really cool!
It's so super easy and all that is required is some oats and some planning ahead of time :) Little extra things can make it even nicer like vanilla or berries etc.
RECIPE: All I did was take a soup/porridge bowl and half filled it with some nice organic rolled oats, then filled it up with filtered tap water until the oats were covered and had about 1cm(half an inch) of water on top. Added some blue berries and  then covered my bowl and placed it in the fridge over night. The next morning I took it out the fridge dished half for my husband into a bowl and added some chopped almonds and some honey and then we ate this nice cold bowl of oats in sweet silence while looking out at the view :)
i know cold oats sounds yukky - but it's not like cold porridge - it's not sticky and is soft as anything - very nice with blue berries and can be substituted for so many things. The next morning I had no more blue berries so I added ground vanilla and honey with a dash of cinnamon and some chopped up almonds.
*soak the almomds over night too in it's own container covered with water :) came out lovely. then chop and add to the oats.
It is summer here and this is great when the weather is warm out - I think in winter I'll stick to cooked and warm things - but today this is just ...perfect.

THINGS I MADE OR ATE THIS WEEKEND

fruit salad

Weekends always go by so quickly... and mine rushed by in a whirl wind. I can remember something about a house warming/braai on saturday night and the rest is much of a blur... oh yes lunch at my parents on sunday - ok so it's slowly coming back to me now :) so here are a few of the things i can sort of remember as everything flew by so fast!


1) My daughter and i made fruit salad (delicious) with cream and yoghurt - I had the cream and she had the yoghurt.

2) braai at my brother and sister in laws house - so nice braaied beef sausage and lovely salads, potatoe salad, garden salad, cous cous :) mmmm

3) roast organic chicken with salad at my parents - very nice chicken i might add! Woolworths organic cooked chickens - but not all of their chickens are free range/organic so check with the person that helps you at woolies :)

so how was your weekend? Did you eat anything good? I am posting this so late on a monday night as i haven't stopped all day - the BLUR continues....... :)

NEW YEAR, NEW HOUSE & PANCAKES - well same house but it's new because it's clean for once......

 

NEW YEAR, NEW HOUSE & PANCAKES -  WELL SAME HOUSE BUT IT'S A NEW BECAUSE IT'S CLEAN FOR ONCE......

I've been going through my house and throwing  out extra stuff and giving things away i no longer need. Being the New year and all i really want a clutter free home. So one of my projects is to go through my Food & Home Magazines I've collected through the years, rip out out the recipes i like (some of you are gasping right now, I do love them but i need the space) and put them into a folder. The rest of the mags are going out with the recycling *pat on the back*
And while on my recipe rampage i came across a crepe recipe that seemed rather tempting to try. Plus I've been having the urge for some nice yummy pancakes and my husband adores them, so it was easy for me to want to make a nice batch for us to eat.
But would it work??? You see recipe's always get converted into wheat-free in our house as my daughter is wheat intolerant and my hubby and i feel it's healthy to have whole wheat or wheat-free for ourselves. But the recipe's i've tried in the past to convert from normal wheat pancakes to wheat-free have been disastrous!!! trust me - BAD!!! not edible and just plain sad. So i decided to give this recipe a whirl and the results were quite good :)

pancake with cinnamon and sugar with a squeeze of lemon

OLD FOOD & HOME CREPE/PANCAKE RECIPE


250ml cake flour ( i used Nature's choice Gluten -Free Cake Flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
150ml milk
150ml water
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 and half teaspoons oil
1 egg
iced water for thinning
oil for frying


Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the bowl. Combine the milk, water, lemon juice and oil in a jug. Add the egg and whisk to combine. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the egg mixture.Beat well until smooth (i used a hand whisk and beat the mixture until there were no more lumps). Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours - but can be used after 30 minutes of refrigeration at the very minimum.
Before using, thin down the mixture wuth ice water to the consistency of pouring cream.
Heat a frying pan. pour in about a teaspoon of oil. When hot add enough mixture to just coat the bottom of the pan then tilt and swirl the pan until the pan is evenly coated.cook until the are starting to dry and the surface is all bubbky and slightly firm then loosen with an egg lifter and flip. cook the other side and then serve with cinnamon and sugar and some lemon squeezed over or make into a savoury chicken and mushroom pancake or fill with anything edible your heart desires


Betty

LUNCH BOXES AND EARLY MORNINGS

Seagulls on the beach  - end of the holidays

At the moment i am making lists and making sure the things on those lists get done. As tomorrow is the first day of school and i need to make sure my daughter has everything she needs to start the year off. I'm also thinking about school lunches and what cute healthy things i can put into her lunch box - (no sweets allowed) so i'm thinking little bunches of grapes and cheese cubes with biltong and a rice cake or two. Mmmmm I'm sure i'll come up with more combinations in the next few days - as i start to get myself out of holiday mode and into back to school mode- up early again for me.

Betty Bake

ps for those of you who have requested my pancake recipe it will follow in a day or 2 :)

THINGS I MADE OR ATE THIS WEEKEND

Being Monday and  because i don't do posts on the weekend i thought i would fill you in on the delicious and not so delicious things i ate this weekend.

1) I had delicious but rather sweet wheat-free chocolate cake at the woolworths cafe in cavendish on saturday with Being brazen and the Boyfriend and ofcourse my lovely husband.
2) I made a nice chicken and mushroom savoury pancake last night for dinner - the husband and little one seem to enjoy it too.
4) The husband and i ate camembert and biscuits (corn thins for me, wheat-free and all)
3) The rest was really uneventful - so nothing to write home about there.....

How was your food the last few days? Anything delicious? Did you make something nummy? or did it all burn?

Betty

WEEKEND FOOD - Cheese & Fruit

The one thing i love about summer is all the fresh fruit that is available - strawberries, cherries and pineapples or any of your favorite fruit - fresh, juicy,  numminess all sliced up on a plate or in a bowl. Pair it off with a good cheese and some biscuits. My husband recons a good wine - but i'm not a fan of anything that doesn't taste like juice.But i've heard that wine compliments cheese and biscuits really well. so add your favorite and you have a great recipe of relaxing food for a friday evening sunset or saturday afternoon lunch/ supper and you set. Good book in the sun or some good company :) what a blissful Cape Town summer weekend. Cause that is what we capetonians do :) 

wishing you a sunny weekend
Betty

NACHOS CON POLLO - nachos with chicken :) mmmm

NACHOS in the oven

My sister in law Sara introduced me to this wonderful dish of nachos with chicken and mushrooms and it is just so delicious that my husband has been asking me to make it over and over again! It is really THAT good.
I never used to be a nachos fan but now I love it very much and have since put my own spin on it adding different spices and making my own tomatoe and onion spicy sauce :) And it tastes so much better than it looks in the photos.

INGREDIENTS
4 or 5 medium/large tomatoes
2 medium to large oinions
1 red pepper
half a green pepper
1 or 2 chillies
salt and pepper (black and cayenne)
2 - 4 tablespoons sugar
1 packet of Nachos corn chips
1 and a half cups grated cheddar cheese
3 or 4 fresh pepperdews (if available)
4 chicken breasts cubed or sliced into strips
4 table spoons of sweet chilli sauce or chutney
1 punnet of button mushrooms sliced
10cm length of cucumber diced onto cubes
6 table spoons sour cream
half and avocado
2 teaspoons brown vinegar

SPICY TOMATOE SAUCE
Dice the onion and fry in a little oil till light brown with some salt. Blanch the tomatoes in boiling water, then peel off the skins and dice and add to the onions. let simmer for 3 min then add diced red and green peppers  and finely chopped chillies - add as little or as much to taste - mild to burny. Add finely chopped and deseeded pepper dews if available. Simmer and add sugar and salt and pepper to taste. Let the mixture simmer until nice and thick.

CHICKEN
In a separate pan fry the chicken breasts in a little oil and sweet chilli sauce or chutney (which ever you prefer) and set aside in a once cooked through.

MUSHROOMS
In a separate pan or pot fry the mushrooms in a little oil and set aside.

AVOCADO
remove the avocado from the skin and mash till soft and mix in the vinegar and a little salt

ASSEMBLY
turn on the grill of the oven to Hot/ 220 degrees celcius. On a large oven proof dish/plate lay out a  medium to thick layer of nachos chips. Spoon the spicey tomatoe sauce over the chips taking care not to put to much on, roughly a no thicker than your little finger thick of sauce all over. Now layer as follows: spread the chicken then the mushrooms then the cucumber and then the grated cheese all in nice even layers.place under the grill and brown until bubbling and melted all over.

take out the oven and spoon sour creamin the middle topped with the avo and serve while hot.
eat while warm as it will go soggy.

enjoy  - very delicious

Betty