ASIAN LAMB RIB NOODLE SOUP

INGREDIENTS
2 Large Onions
500- 800g lamb ribs (cut into ribbetjies - cut into strips)
a few tiny pieces star anise
fresh celeriac stems (about half a handful)
1 bunch organic carrots

fresh sage (half a handful of the baby leaves)
fresh chives (about 5 leaves)

fresh rosemary (1 sprig- end of a stick)
fresh oregano (half a handful)
dried basil (2 Tablespoons)
dried origanum (1 Tablespoon)
1 medium to large butternut
2 large fresh mielies/corn
2 handfuls of rice noodles
olive oil
Salt 
Black pepper
1 clove of garlic crushed

METHOD
Take your lamb ribs and place them in an oven dish  sprinkle with olive oil, salt and black pepper and half of an onion roughly chopped. Add a little fresh rosemary and a sprig of fresh oregano. Place in the oven and bake at 190- 200 degrees Celsius. While the lamb is cooking in the oven in a Large pot chop up the remaining 1 and a half onions and fry in some olive oil with a tiny bit star anise until lightly browned. Add a little salt. Cut the corn off the cob and place in the browning onions and stir for a few minutes. Now add the celeriac stems and leaves chopped up medium fine. Stir for a little bit and then fill your pot with water until just above three quarters of the pot. Bring to the boil. While you are waiting for the watery soup to come to the boil peel and chop up your carrots into rounds and place in the soup. Add the fresh and dried spices (except the rosemary). Take out the floating star anise, if you can see any. Peel and cube the butternut and add to the lamb ribs which should be starting to brown - Cover the ribs with the butter nut and add some garlic and season with salt. Continue to bake the butternut and lamb ribs until the butternut is tender and the ribs are well cooked. At the same time the soup should be boiling, turn down to a simmer and allow to reduce for about an hour. Then place the butternut and lamb and all the juices etc from the lamb dish into the soup pot and continue to simmer - cover the soup and taste. Add salt and skim off the oils on top with a large spoon. Add the rice noodles 10 minutes before serving. Stir and season then serve in Large soup bowls


Enjoy

FOOD FOOD FOOD

FOOD - what can I say? I am drawn to it like a moth to a flame. And what a good hot flame this weekend is going to be. If you are in Cape Town this weekend you know why... Don't you!? You have the opportunity to visit The Good Food and Wine Show. If you haven't already heard about it, it is this huge food event that has loads of cool food related stalls and events going on - the WHOLE weekend :)

There is food to try and food to buy and food so see and food being made and food everything!  Of course I will be going!

Of all the things happening at the Good Food and wine show they have this one idea that I am particularly drawn to - They have these cooking theaters were you can watch food being prepared. One of them being Lindt (drool) and you know me and chocolate :) whats not to love right?

But there is more than just Lindt  *gasp (why who knows? -the world should revolve around chocolate) But they do have several theaters all with very interesting chefs lined up in each.
But one in particular caught my eye.... what for it.... strained silence *crickets chirping They are having Heston Blummenthal from the michelin starred Fat Duck restaurant. He is acclaimed as the coolest chef in the world - so of course I need to go see for myself- (compliments of the Good Food and Wine Show) I'll be sure to report back with my findings and tastings.



So with the Good Food and Wine Show starting tomorrow there is no excuse not to start the weekend off early and go give your taste buds a really good time out :) I'm sure going to

CREAM OF ROASTED TOMATO SOUP

 INGREDIENTS
a bag or 2 of tomatoes (1kg or more)
a handful of fresh basil leaves
1 large onion (roughly chopped)
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
pinch or 2 of Salt
olive oil
a dash of balsamic vinegar (if you like)
1 tub (250ml) fresh cream

METHOD

Wash your tomatoes and then slice in half or if very large in quarters. Place them in a large roasting dish/ one they can comfortably fit in. Drizzle with olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle over your chopped up onion, basil and then your sugar and salt. Place in the oven on the middle rack and roast at 180 degrees Celsius stirring occasionally until nicely soft and roasted through and your roasting dish is brown and sticky.
Place all of the contents of the roasting dish in a nice sized pot and blend with a blender stick adding a little hot water to the dish from the oven and then pouring it into the pot. Blend some more until smooth. Add almost the whole tub of cream (keep a tiny bit for garnishing). Stir in the cream and warm on the stove top until hot and steaming. Pour into bowls and accompany with toast or fresh bread.

Garnish with a drizzle of cream and a fresh basil leaf or some grated cheese. Serve and enjoy.

CHEESE CAKE AND CHERRY, COCONUT TRUFFLES AND SPAR CAPE QUARTER

The SPAR challenge - So I was contacted by SPAR Cape Quarter and they asked me if I would like to do a recipe bake-off of some kind. All I had to do was come up with a recipe or two and they would supply the ingredients. Mmmm now this could be interesting...
The deal was I had to get ALL the ingredients from the Cape Quarter SPAR. Darn it! - there goes Peruvian dark chocolate truffles and any other exotic thing I could think of. Well boy was I wrong! The owners of this particular SPAR decided they needed to have a large variety of imported chocolates *drool* and I decided my husband had to see all this deliciousness with me ;)

So I had to take (drag) him along on a Saturday when he and our daughter could both accompany me. Also I wanted to bounce recipe ideas off the husband (as the recipes were driving me crazy running around my head). Much to his delight - NOT! He kept asking me on the drive there - why is that you need me with again? Its a Saturday you know... Can't you shop on another day? like by yourself? I politely told him I needed him to be with and I just got back blank stares.

AT CAPE QUARTER SPAR....
Walking up and down the many aisles I reached the chocolate aisle - or should I say area. and that was the end of me - blank stare, *drool*.
Husband: Are you talking to yourself?
Me: ignoring husband - you are a pretty chocolate...mmm.
Eventually the husband literally dragged me to another aisle filled with wine and olive oil and shook me...
Me: Yes babe?
Husband: you can't invent a whole recipe out of chocolate you know.
Me: Oh really? watch me!
Husband: you need other things too - like this, this... randomly looking for things, um olive oil!!! (ok he didn't pick olive oil - but he did seem to look at me in a crazy way)


More shopping and aisle walking - clip clop, clip clop..
Husband: why am I here again?
Me: to help me - remember... what do you think? this awesomely huge chocolate - where I take these slabs and just melt them into this giant chocolate so it will "seem" like a recipe? or this other silly recipe of... um milk tart (trying to make it sound yuk and uninteresting)?

The poor man, if you have seen the variety of interesting things they stock - like marmalades from Great Britain and olive oils from various places in the world - you understand how I drove him crazy that day. and so the shopping proceeded:
Me: look babe at the this Marmalade it's from Great Britain.
Husband: Yes honey
Me: and this olive oil it's from Spain
and so the shopping trip went...
Me: look at this.. and that ..and this..
Husband: Yes sweetie (blank stare)
But near the end of the shopping trip when I had eventually talked myself (with the husbands help) out of getting 10 slabs of imported chocolate at R37 a slab -the husband just couldn't understand that spending R370 on 600grams of chocolate (yes they are only 60grams a slab) wasn't decadent AT ALL!!!
I did buy him a cheese cake from the bakery and some camembert cheese and biscuits. He walked out of there a happy man - and my shopping was complete. And Yes I did get some chocolate ;)

*And just so you know - they do stock local ingredients too but clearly I LOVE chocolate!

Lemon Zest Baked Cheese Cake

 

I got the base from the Planet Organic Cookbook by Renee Elliott and Eric Treuille. Cheese cake filling is all mine :)


INGREDIENTS FOR BASE:
150grams Almonds (blend in a processor/electric blender until fine-ish like course sugar)
4 rounded Tablespoons butter at room Temperature
4 Tablespoons Brown organic Sugar (you can use whatever sugar you have - just not icing sugar)
tiny bit of salt

METHOD FOR BASE:
Place all of the ingredients into a bowl and mix with an electric mixer (or by hand) until nicely combined.  Press into a buttered and double lined cake tin and bake in the oven at 180 degrees Celcius for 10 -15 minutes. Or until very pale brown. Take out and let stand while you prepare the filling.

INGREDIENTS FOR CHEESE CAKE FILLING:
2 x 250gram cream cheese
250ml cream
4 eggs
1-2 Lemons = of which you will need 4 Tablespoons lemon juice and 1/2 teaspoons lemon zest
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Bulgarian Yoghurt

METHOD FOR CHEESE CAKE FILLING

Beat together the cream cheese and cream until smooth. Scrap down the sides of the bowl every now and then to incorporate. Beating slowly add one egg at a time on slow. Add the Lemon juice and lemon zest and beat in. Add the sugar and beat again. Now add the yoghurt and beat in. Pour onto the prepared base and place on the center shelf of a preheated oven at 180 degrees celcius. Bake for +/- 50 min until the edges have puffed up and started to golden and the center is still a little wobbly. Open the oven and take the cheese cake out and let some heat escape for a minute then place the cheese cake to cool in the oven with the door closed for 30 - 40min. Then place the cheese cake in the fridge for 3 hours or over night.
Garnish as you desire and serve. Best cut with a wet sharp knife.

Cherry and Coconut Truffles

INGREDIENTS
50grams Raw almonds
7 fresh Dates (pips removed)
a generous handful of Glace Cherries (roughly 17) +/- 100grams
50g 70% dark Chocolate (I used Lindt) (roughly chopped)
1/2 cup fine coconut
70- 100grams dark chocolate (or chocolate of your choice)
2 teaspoons sunflower oil
OPTIONAL a few marachino cherries on stalks

METHOD
Grind the almonds until fine in a blender and then take out and set aside.
Place dates in the blender and blend slightly and then add the glace cherries. Blend a bit more and then add the dark chocolate and blend until  very well mixed, chopped and kind of smooth. Add the ground almonds and mix again. Now add the coconut little by little until you reach a pliable consistency. Then roll into balls or mold around marachino cherries.
Melt the chocolate and oil in a baine marie or a glass bowl balanced on top of a pot with a little water boiling below (the glass bowl mustn't touch the water below). Stir until melted. Dip the rolled cherry and coconut balls in the chocolate and spoon over more melted chocolate with a spoon and then place on waxed paper to set. There will be a little melted chocolate left over but if you use less you wan't be able to spoon the chocolate over the balls - so spread the left over chocolate on a separate piece of wax paper and sprinkle with cherries, almonds or raisins or water you fancy in your chocolate and leave to set - break into pieces and enjoy.

Enjoy your lovely cherry and coconut truffles or wrap up and package in a pretty box to make a beautiful and delicious gift.

 
 
p.s placed in the Friday Link up at http://www.whipperberry.com/

FOLLOW YOUR HEART IN BLACK & WHITE

As requested the I'LL FOLLOW THE ROAD TILL I FIND YOUR HEART pic in Black and White :)

Hope you have had a fantastic week :) it seems to be going by so quickly, but I guess that is what happens when Monday this week was a public holiday. 4 day working weeks are lovely. But it does make me think that next week is going to feel super long.

Don't forget that it's Mother's Day on Sunday :) It's also my brothers birthday, I'll be sure not to confuse his present with my moms - hahaha can you imagine his face if I give him a bunch of flowers for his birthday instead of my mom - priceless ;) (not that I'm giving you flowers mom) -don't tell her OK.

So I'll be on the present hunt this weekend finding lots of bling for my mom ;) and something super gadgety for my brother. I hope I find the right stuff.

What are you getting for your mom this weekend? or doing for her?
Inspiration welcome.

hugs