Classy comfort food.

The week before last was a bad week.  Last week was worse.  My kids and dog were threatened with a firearm, then I discovered my daughter was the victim of some hate email, my dad had a bad round of chemo, but hey, we all laagered-up (that’s gathered around in a protective circle for you non-South Africans, and not lagered-up as in Castle Lager) and we dealt with it.  Or so I thought.  Obviously some of us are better at dealing than others and the residual fallout inevitably splashed over into the rest of my week.

In my heart of hearts I’ve always had this vision of myself as an elegantly clad Greta Garbo type.  Bizarrely, my husband has this same image.  And I say bizarrely because this elegant, organised alter-ego is diametrically opposed to the reality of my life.  I’m actually more Goldie Hawn than Greta Garbo, more Commedia del’arte than Film Noir.

I won’t go into all the sordid details, I’ll just hit you with the highlights.  Sunday afternoon, packed Deli, one of our regular customers happens to be sitting in the window overlooking the busy road.  He quietly informs me that there’s a bit of an odd situation going on with the parked cars.  A car alarm is going off and they have just seen someone disappearing into the car.  They think he could be hotwiring it.  Okay, I say, and I step outside to take a look.  So far this is all in the realms of possibility.  This is South Africa we are talking about.  I’m just going to check it out so I can ask around the deli if it is anyone’s car.  ‘Oh fudge!’  I murmer very quietly (not) ‘That’s my dad’s car!’  and I promptly abandon the shop and take off running up the road.  Now I’m not really very fond of running, and halfway there common sense starts to rear its unwelcome head.  What am I going to do if someone is trying to steal my dad’s car? 

I arrive on the scene and slightly apprehensively, peer into the car only to find one of our kp’s on his knees with a dustpan and broom in his hands, cleaning out the car for my dad.  ‘Oh, it’s you Alex’  I say, to which inane comment I get a perfectly reasonable blank look.  I turn around to go back to work, only to find the entire human contents of the deli on the pavement, with one socially minded gent running up the road behind me, ready to back me up.  Needless to say, his coffee went on my tab, and yes, I’m still blushing.

Monday was no less harrowing as we had to put our 15 year old siamese cat to sleep.  We were all still reeling, and after such a long week at the deli no-one had had time to go shopping for home.  The kids got home from school, we dug a grave next to our other cat in the garden and interred him with due ceremony and one of his favourite shortbread biscuits for the journey.  Then I got busy scrounging through a very bare larder in the effort to cobble together some sort of supper.  1 cup of jasmine rice, a few bits of salad, a small box of frozen shrimp and a package of frozen marinara mix.  Unusual finds really as we generally don’t eat frozen shrimp and/or marinara mix.  Still, neccessity is the mother of invention.  I picked some lemon thyme from my mom’s pot at the front door, heated some butter, put the rice on to cook and flung the contents of the freezer into the buttery pan. 

‘Oh fudge!’ I murmered genteely (again not!) ‘Look at this!  This is shocking!  There’s a massive rusty fishhoek in this marinara mix!  I can’t believe this!’  All wrapped up with a tracer (I think that’s what it’s called, I’m a cook, not a fisherman) and loads of fishing line.  My genteel murmer must have been reaching concert level decibals because my mom heard me from upstairs. 

‘What are you cooking?’  she called down to me.  ‘Don’t use the stuff in the freezer, that’s Tud’s bait!’

You can always rely on your family to back you up in a crisis.  But clearly mine didn’t fully appreciate how close to the edge I was.  Amidst their gales of laughter I flung ’supper’ in the bin, stuck a few stale slices of sourdough in the toaster, and opened an emergency tin of pilchards in tomato sauce, before stomping downstairs to sulk. 

My sister has been dining out on this story all week, but I have only just managed to bring myself to repeat it, perhaps so you will understand why I completely and utterly failed to send in my entry for Johanna’s round of WTSIM… Bistro Food event.  She mentioned the dearth of desserts in the event, but the roundup was full of fabulous dishes so pop on over and check it out.  And anyway, although this is a French apple flan recipe, I’m not entirely sure it is Bistro Food.  It’s certainly the comfortingly country French version of a great British pub Apple Pie, and served while still warm with lashings of whipped cream, made me feel better, even after the fortnight from hell!

The recipe is posted to the sidebar (as usual), so enjoy.

Fresh, crispy, cheese & pesto muffins

Man cannot live on bread alone, he needs the odd muffin to keep him sane.  I don’t think anybody ever said that, but they should have.  Muffins are like mini breads.  Quicker to make and quicker to eat, and just as satisfying for a host of different reasons. 

You don’t need to make a sandwich out of a muffin, you can just bake your filling in.  Of course, that doesn’t preclude you from adding more fillings afterwards.  For more than 25 years these muffins, in one form or another, have been a mainstay of my mother’s kitchen.  The basic recipe is so easy to make, and the results so irresistably delicious that they were one of the recipes I gave to Garden & Home magazine for their May feature on me.

We sell several batches a day in the deli, and I have some in the oven whilst I type.  So, I’ve got 35 minutes to get the recipe down for you, and to link it to the lovely Chris at Melecotte, who is hosting this week’s WHB.  Originally the brainchild of Kalyn (Kalyn’s Kitchen), Weekend Herb Blogging is now in its 4th year and is being administered by Haalo at Cook (almost) anything.

So click here for the recipe, and yes, they qualify for WHB because they are full of homemade basil pesto.  Feel free to substitute any of your own herbs, cheeses, or other muffiny type things like crispy bacon bits, or slices of preserved green fig, apple or peppers.

Happy weekend everybody.

Whoops!  Clearly I am on African Time.  This week’s host is Marija from Palachinka.  Sorry Chris, but nice to discover a new blog anyway.  Thanks for hosting Marija.

crisp, herby and really cheesy. yum!

This mix will make 12 muffins, or six bounteous buxom beauties like these.

Butter and flour your muffin tins.

Sieve:

4 cups flour

8 Tbspns flat baking powder

1 teaspoon mustard powder

A good pinch of flavoured or Maldon sea salt and some fresh black pepper.

Add 100g butter and blend with your fingertips until crumbly.

Mix 1 ½ cups of grated cheddar and a small handful of chopped fresh herbs such as chives, basil or lemon thyme) into 2 ½ cups of milk, and add this to the dry ingredients.

You should have a fairly stiff mix, but make sure there are no dry pockets.

Mound into your prepared tins and then using a spoon or your finger, make a hollow deep into the centre of the muffin.

Spoon in a dollop of basil pesto and top with a halved cherry or mini plum tomato.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake at 200*C for 20-25 minutes.

The muffins should be beautifully browned and a skewer should come out clean.

Serve warm or cold with ripe brie, and prosciutto, drizzled with balsamic dressing, or eat with brie and avo , and have the prosciutto with fresh ripe figs.

a ray of lemony sunshine on a late summer's afternoon

It has been far too long since I’ve participated in a food blogging event, but halfway around the world from home, and with a deli to run, bending my week’s menu around a blogging event becomes somewhat challenging.  GYO (Grow Your Own) seems to sidestep all that as the title really encapsulates the only rule, and even this Andrea has been known to bend.

GYO also goes right to the heart of everything I like to strive for in food, encouraging us to use local (like in our own garden) and seasonal produce.  This has it’s own difficulties in a worldwide culture of instant gratification.  But also it’s own special rewards.

As if these delicious sour cream lemon cakes didn’t go straight for the g-spot (that’s the ‘gasp! how yummy!’ – spot, for the uninitiated), there is the added satisfaction of knowing I kneaded and squeezed every delicious drop of citrussy goodness out of home-grown lemons, un besmirched by modern chemicals and pesticides.  Strictly speaking, I didn’t grow my own, as the lemon tree in question is in my mom’s mountainside African garden, but she’s always saying what’s hers is mine…

Baked in individual shaped cups, and inverted to show off their gorgeous architectural lines, these little cakes are all around show stoppers, especially drizzled with a little lemon zest icing and topped with the most indecently chubby raspberries just coming into season.  The sour cream in the sponge ensures a cake that improves over a few days, but I’m here to tell you you’ll just have to take my word for it as they will never last past the first afternoon.

Gasp! How yummy!

As usual , I’m posting my recipe to the sidebar, and don’t be shy about giving it a try, it’s really easy.  And for other GYO entries this month check out the roundup at Andrea’s. 

Look, I have the banner to prove it!

Thank you Holly, and all the voters. It was such fun and there was some seriously good competition. I am still working my way through the entries. Several people have said you are going to try making my dessert. If you do I’d love to hear how it went.

In the meantime, as the winner I get the pleasure of choosing the next ingredient. As it will be the March competition I have chosen eggs, to represent Easter and the pagan celebration of rebirth and renewal. Roll on Spring! Holly and I agreed that this may be a little limiting so it can either be something made with egg as the main ingredient (this means there has to be more egg than anything else), or something in an egg shape. We leave the rest up to you.

For details go to the Art You can Eat site where Holly will lay out the rules and tell you where to send entries. The only bad thing about this is that I’m now desperate for some chocolate mousse but I ate it all ages ago. Perhaps it’s time to get back in the kitchen…