Poor Man's Pasta

Right so I know it's been a while, but I've recently resigned (Tandlet jumping for joy in the backround) and with doing so, I have been so poor, I couldn't afford internet... or food, whichever sounds more convincing. The truth is, although I have been cooking, I sadly have had writers block, and as lame as my excuses may sound, it's even more lame that I spent an entire month trying to make them up. Anyway never the less I do apologise, you must be starved.

In light of the reality of unemployment I must say cooking on a budget has been tough, but luckily it has given room for some creativity. Poor Man's Pasta was invented with bits and bobs found in the fridge, and thankfully landed up rather tasty!

What you need:

• Tin of chopped tomatoes
• Bacon
• Onion
• Mushrooms
• If possible left over roasted vegetables
• Pasta
• Garlic
• Chili
• Milk
• Red wine

How it's done:

1. Place a pot on to boil for your pasta.
2. Blend up your left over vegetables
3. Chop your onion, mushrooms, garlic, chili and bacon and place in your pot/deep pan, and cook until soft
4. Add your blended vegetables and tin of tomatoes and simmer for a minute. (please remember to season as you go along, with sugar, salt and pepper)
5. Add some wine to sand simmer.
6. When your pasta is ready, add 100ml of milk to the sauce, stir and serve.

* How I roast my vegetables:
I rub them in basil pesto, place them into a deep dish, dribble some oil over and add some butter in the last 5 mins.....delicious

Banana Split Splendor

My hubby was away this weekend and I had really been missing him. So on a cold and lonely Sunday, I decided to send him something to remind him how much he had been missing me too. As we all know, the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach. So I conjured up the most scrumptious thing I think of, and covered it in chocolate. I Must be
honest here, I think these are the naughtiest pictures I have ever taken.

Banana Split Splendor

What you need:

• 200ml Butter
• 300ml Caster sugar
• 200ml Buttermilk
• 200ml Milk
• 4 Eggs (separated)
• 3 Mashed bananas
• 600ml Self raising flour
• Pinch of salt
• Dark Chocolate
• Nuts
• Cream

• 250g Icing sugar
• 50g Coco
• 100ml Hot milk

How it's done:

1. Preheat the oven to 160'C and line your spring form tin.
2. Cream the butter and sugar, and then slowly add you egg yolks. (use an electrical beater will help)
3. Add your milk, buttermilk and banana.
4. Add your dry ingredients, and fold in to the mixture
5. Beat your egg whites until stiff, fold into mixture with nuts and chocolate.
6. Pour into your cake tin and bake for 60 - 70 mins
7. While the cake bakes, heat the milk and add the icing sugar and coco. (add more icing sugar if you feel it is too runny)
8. When your cake has cooled, pour the icing over and serve with some whipped cream.

Chickatouille Tuesday

Being that it is the end of the month, I find myself counting the pennies. So tonight's dinner was everyone's favourite peasant's dish, with a twist. Ratatouille with yummy roasted tomato chicken. This being an awesome new creation of mine, it needed an awesome new name: Chickatouille...

What you need:

• Ripe tomatoes................................400g
• Chicken pieces (skin on)..............4
• Baby marrows................................4
• Mushrooms....................................125g
• Chicken stock.................................250ml
• Tomato jam
• Garlic.........................................1 or 2 cloves
• Salt
• Pepper
• Red wine (optional)......................100ml

How it's done:

1. Turn the oven on to 200'C
2. Chop your tomatoes roughly, place in roasting pan with all the juices. (you can also use tinned tomatoes)
3. Pour in your stock and wine.
4. Place chicken pieces on top, and push gently into the liquid, but don't cover the skin.
5. Spread the tomato jam onto the skin.
6. Season and place into the oven for 20-30mins.
7. Slice your baby marrows, mushrooms and garlic, place in roasting tray.

Birthday Babalas

Wow so, yesterday was my 26th birthday, and being that this is a very special occasion, we went balls to the walls on Saturday night. After mingling with friends such as Tequila, Jaggermeister and lets not forget the Sparkling wine crowd, one gets left with a gift of a headache from hell! In my moment of death, we managed to organize breakfast, which should actually be called lunch, seems as it was only at 12h00 that everyone started to rise. A greasy breakfast served with a side of Cream Sober was in order! So I decided to make us all my famous hangover cure, souffle omelet. Alas I was so close to dying from my self inflicted headache, we had some toast instead. If however I had a boyfriend that actually knew how to use a frying pan, this would of been the breakfast requested.

Hangover Omelet

What you will need per omelet:

• 4 eggs
• Toppings of your choice
• Salt
• Pepper

How it's done:

1. Separate the eggs, and beat the egg whites until stiff
2. Beat the egg yolks and slowly fold into the egg whites.
3. Pour into a grease frying pan, add your toppings, and cook until the bottom is slightly brown. (check by lifting the omelet slightly)
4. Place into oven under the grill for +-5mins (watch closely)
5. When slightly browned on top, fold over and serve.

What you look like when making said omelet

Fabulously Fishy

Last week I got a wonderful surprise! An old Silwood mate had called to say that he will be in Cape Town and would like to see us. This was very exciting, mainly because it meant that I could make my very special fish dish. The reason for this elation centered around the making of my fish dish, was solely because this is my favourite thing to eat. Due to me loving this meal so much, Dev, my lover, is now so tired of having the same thing, in fact, hates it. So I like to pretend that it's my "go to", "we have guests coming", "it's time to impress", dish. I know that this is not really a fair thing to do, coaxing my partner into thinking that this is the only thing we can serve our friends, but I feel that I should take any opportunity that I have, to eat my favourite meal. So due to all of the above I feel that it is my obligation take this moment to say, thank you JP, I always love a good excuse to make my fish.

The recipe that I am going to give you will work with any white fish and for salmon or trout. It also works for both a braai (BBQ) or in the oven.

What you will need:

• Fish (I like to use Blue Nose)
• Chives
• Spring onions
• Chili (seeded and chopped finely)
• Garlic clove (chopped finely)
• Lemons
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil 30ml
• White wine (optional)
• Tin/Aluminium foil

How it's done:

1. Take a big piece of foil (2.5X the size of the fish) and place it shiny side up. place the fish, skin down on the foil (refer to the picture).
2. Squeeze one lemon over the fish and season with salt and pepper, mix the chili, garlic and olive oil together and brush the fish
3. Slice the spring onion in half, place on the fish. Place the chives on the fish, covering it.
4. You can either squeeze the lemons and make about a cup of juice, or slice the lemons and cover the fish with them.
5. If you have opted to squeeze the lemons, before pouring it over the fish, fold the other half of the foil over and roll up the sides tightly around the fish, leaving a hole at the top to pour in the lemon juice and a cup of wine.
6. Close the hole up by rolling it up tightly so that the liquids don't leak
7. Place on a hot fire and close the lid. Alternatively place in the oven at 200'C for 20 - 30 mins.

I hope you enjoy it, it really is my favourite dish.

Honey for my Hubby

So, yesterday my hubby and I decided to have a threesome with a dirty slut called Influenza. Rather adventurous of us I know, but it wasn't going as well as one would think a Menage a Trois should go. So to cheer our miserable selves up, I thought that I would make pancakes for breakfast. All I can say is that, that little affair was the best thing we could ever do. While the rain outside played an important part to our enjoyment, I honestly feel that the Raw Wild Flower Honey was the star of the show.

What was needed:

• 250ml cake flour
• 200ml milk
• 200ml water
• 3 table spoons of butter/oil
• Table spoon of sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 egg
• Bacon
• Honey/Syrup (we got our honey from the Cheese and Wine Festival so it really is something special)
• Cinnamon
• Lemon

How they were made:

1. Sift the flour, sugar and salt into a bowl.
2. Measure out the milk and water in a jug and add the butter. Place into the microwave for a minute.
3. While stirring the warm mixture add an egg and beat (you may also add some vanilla to the mixture).
4. Pour the liquid into the flour and beat until smooth. Pour through a sieve into another bowl/jug.
5. Place the bacon under the grill in the oven, and keep an eye on it while you fry the pancakes.
6. When you have made your pancakes and bacon you can roll your pancakes.

What I did for my lover was:

• Squirt lemon onto the pancakes, place the bacon in the centre and roll the pancakes, i finished them with honey on top

What I did for myself:

• I love your simple cinnamon and sugar pancake, so I squirted my lemon, dusted with cinnamon and drizzled the honey into the center of the pancake, rolled them up and enjoyed every moment of eating them.

Spilling my Soup

Right, so in the excitement of my rather monotonous life, I decided to change things up last night. I sent my lover off to the shops with a very simple list: soup, bread and cheese. Luckily his list had been smsed so he couldn't argue while driving. This is a good tip for any of you wonderful people that have cooking challenged spouses that think that they have a say in the matter. Before I waste your time with silly relationship advice, let me get to the climax of this story. Last night i made the most simple, yet delicious and relatively healthy supper ever! This magnificent meal was: Tomato soup with cheesy pesto zucchini brochette.

How this was done:

1. Turn your oven on to 200'C
2. Slice the ciabatta, and spread pesto on each slice (much like spreading butter)
3. Take a peeler and slice the zucchini (baby marrow) length ways and then season with salt and pepper.
4. Place a few slices of zucchini on the ciabatta slices. You can also add some precooked bacon bits
5. Place the slices onto a baking tray and cover with grated mozzarella bake fore 10 - 15 mins (want the cheese to go slightly brown)
6. Warm up your soup (recipe to follow)

What was needed:

• Tomato soup
• Ciabatta
• Pesto
• Mozzarella
• Zucchini

Although I got a little lazy and decided to buy my tomato soup, those that are a little more energetic and adventurous, I do have a great recipe that doesn't take too long to make.

Tomato Soup Recipe

What you will need:

• 1kg very ripe italian tomatoes, peeled
• 15ml olive oil
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• basil
• salt, pepper and sugar to taste
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 15g butter or olive oil
• 200ml chicken stock
• 250ml bechamel (white) sauce

How to do it:

1. Place tomatoes in a small roasting tray, toss in garlic, olive oil,season with salt, pepper and sugar. roast at 200'C for 15 mins, chop roughly reserving all the juices.
2. Sweat (cook on a low heat) onions in butter until soft. add tomatoes with their juices and chicken stock. simmer until tomatoes are completely soft - 10 mins
3. Add bechamel sauce and simmer for a few mins to blend flavours.
4. Liquadize in a blender, and salt, pepper and basil to taste

I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did!