locovore- week 2

I promise I won't post pictures of our fruit/veg bags every week from here to eternity, but the novelty of these bags totally hasn't worn off. Understandable, I suppose, seeing as how it is only week two. Check out the new stash!

 

This week we have rocket, swiss chard, curly parsley, lettuce, spring onions, avo, turnips, bananas, oranges, satsumas, red onions, sweet potatoes and apples (another kg of them...not shown). Tonight there will be a swiss chard and caramelized onion tart for sure. 

This shot also gives a little glimpse at our (ok...let's be honest...my) cookbook collection, both stacked on the shelf and open for perusal on the table. I was planning menus for dinner gatherings last night and this evening, as well as scoping out a recipe for apricot almond muffins that are likely to show up on our breakfast table this weekend. You see the corner of that one called Super Natural Cooking with Heidi Swanson's smiling face on it? I have my lovely friend Mariel to thank for bringing Heidi into my life and kitchen. Her website is inspirational and that cookbook (a wedding pressie from Mariel and her equally lovely nearly-husband Brett) is pure deliciousness and healthy to boot. I am hoping some little birthday fairy might set me up with her new cookbook for my birthday. I have a thing for cookbooks...I'll either need a bigger shelf or a 12 step program soon.

becoming a locavore

I recently read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a book about her family's quest to eat locally and sustainably for a year. It was an enjoyable and thought provoking read that made me reconsider how and what I eat. While I'm not ready to raise chickens or grow most all of my own food, it did get me keen to put a bit more energy into eating seasonally and locally. I want to become a locavore, or at least more of one.

My first step was to sign us up for a weekly local, organic, seasonal food bag from Wild Organic Foods in Woodstock. For R150 (about 20 American bucks) we got a big bag of fruit and veg grown in the greater Cape Town area. This week we got our first bag and I was delighted by the contents.

In addition to the butternut, beets, celery, baby leeks, carrots, sweet potatoes, satsumas, and mushrooms you see above we got a packet of herb salad, 1 kg/2 lbs of apples, a load of green beans and these little babies...

Gooseberries! Cape gooseberries are a real treat to me. I grew up in a place where the native gooseberries are very sour and totally inedible unless a horrific amount of sugar is involved (or at least the ones that grew on the bush in front of our house were like that; my brothers and I used to dare each other to eat them). I'll admit the gooseberries in our bag are a little on the tart side, but I think they will bake up nicely with some of the apples. I smell an apple gooseberry pie in the making.

I ate a satsuma as soon as I got home. They are delicate, sweet, and (best of all) seedless. Fruit with seeds that get in the way is pretty high up on my list of ridiculous things I don't like, along with meat on bones. We are cooking dinner with friends tomorrow night and a beet and satsuma salad is on the menu. Yum. For dinner last night we combined the lettuces, half the beans, half the celery, and a handful of the carrots along with some other veggies lying around to make a salad with prosciutto, goat cheese, and a poached egg on top. We are WAY into poached eggs at the moment, and have declared this our "winter of the poached egg"...but that is a whole other blog post.

Here's my take on all this: Could we have gotten conventional versions of all these fruits and veggies at the grocery store for less? I'm pretty sure of it. And while I'm not an organic food nut, I like that these veggies are organic...it is better for the soil they are grown in and better for our health (mostly in cases where we are eating the skins of things). It also just feels pretty stinkin nice to support local growers. Perhaps most of all, I like the challenge of getting a bag of whatever is in season now and making a plan with that. I love beets, but I never buy them. Now I have them and have to make a plan to eat them. And if I get a repeat veggie, I need to come up with ways to prepare it to make it novel. It's all a really fun, culinary game to me. Next week's bag will include pears, satsumas, bananas, avocados, oranges, salad mix, parsley, spring onion, rocket/arugula, swiss chard, sweet potatoes, red onions and turnips. I'm thinking there will be a roast chicken with turnips, onions, and sweet potatoes, and maybe a savory tart with swiss chard and caramelized onions...I can't wait.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This day always serves as a wonderful reminder to stop and take stock of the multitude of things I have to be thankful for: good health, an peach of a husband, wonderful family and incredible friends who are like family, one seriously hilarious kitty, a beautiful home in a beautiful country, wonderful food, upcoming visits with loved ones, great books, inspiring travel, peace and joy and happiness....and pumpkin pie for breakfast in the morning!

Brendan and I have agreed that every Thanksgiving in our future will start with pumpkin pie for breakfast. I've planned a wonderful little feast for our first Thanksgiving in Cape Town: roast turkey, peppery whipped potatoes, gingered green beans, apricot and hazelnut stuffing, caramelized corn with mint, that jiggly cranberry sauce from a can that I just can't get enough of, and pumpkin pie for dessert.

So be thankful for all the good things you've got, enjoy the day, and have some pie!

birthday celebrations, part 3

At long last, it is time to talk about all the yummy food we ate on our weekend away. There was lots of it, and most of it was already resting happily in our stomachs before I realized I should have gotten a picture of it, but these are a few of the winners.

Eggplant fries with a spicy Indian and goat cheese dip. This was the starter at dinner on our first night in town at a place called The Perfect Wife. So so good. I never would have put goat cheese with Indian spices, but the flavors were fantastic.

Remember this picture? Despite the unhealthy yellowed look it is getting from the candlelight, this dessert was incredible and delightfully simple. We both spied it straight away on the menu at Candeleros and decided to order before we had even selected our entrees (this was big, considering Brendan doesn't typically do dessert). It was a southwestern take on strawberry shortcake using grilled cornbread. Great buttery warm cornbread with loads of fresh strawberries and melting whipped cream...delish!

These last few shots are from our stop at a farm stall outside of Brattleboro where we stocked up on most of our picnic goodies. Truth be told, I pretty much wanted to buy everything- the produce looked fantastic, the baked goodies were warm and smelled so good. 

In the end, we bought strawberries (the best tasting ones we've had all summer), a loaf of oatmeal bread to go with the cheddar cheese we got earlier, and a peach raspberry pie. Oh those pies...they had so many that wanted to come home with us. We bought just the one and may or may not have eaten all of it in one sitting. A lady never eats and tells...

birthday celebrations, part 1

Our birthdays are 3 days apart, so each year brings a bundle of joint festivities and this year was no exception. Let's begin at the beginning...

Wednesday was my birthday, and I woke up to tea in bed and loads of fab pressies. I was seriously spoilt by the wonderful people in my life...and I just love it! Later that morning was the USA vs Algeria game, and I am happy to report that the anniversary of my birth brought the boys some good luck.

After the game, we returned to my office to share some coconut custard birthday pie (my fav) with the work friends. Yum.

The day ended splendidly with a great meal at home. I'm much more apt to want to cook a really decadent meal at home than go out, and we had a fun time cooking, singing, and dancing around the kitchen together. Being the mildly food-obsessed person that I am, I planned a menu a few weeks ago that included some of my favorite ingredients and dishes. 

We started with rosemary peach champagne cocktails (recipe at the end of the post). Nothing tastes more celebratory than champagne. 

prosciutto and melon for a starter

veggie and shrimp paella for the main course

and berries and cream for dessert

The courses fit wonderfully together, were really scrumptious, and provided some tasty leftovers. All in all, it was a great start to the end of my 20s!

Rosemary peach champagne cocktails

(adapted from Cooking Light magazine)

1 bottle champagne or sparkling wine

2 peaches, diced to 1 inch pieces

1 spring rosemary

honey

1 cup water

Put water, rosemary, and honey (I eyeballed this, but estimate I used about 1/4 cup) into a small pot and bring to boil. Let boil for roughly 5 minutes, then remove from heat and cool to room temp. Remove rosemary. Place peaches and rosemary simply syrup into blender and blend until smooth. Pass through sieve to remove any pulpy bits (and use this pulp in a smoothie- it's delish!), and then let this rosemary peach puree sit in your fridge for 4 hours (better if overnight). I made these up by putting 4 Tbs of the peach mixture into a glass and then topping with champagne, but the champs really reacts with the peach and gets very foamy and hard to pour. Instead, mix half the peach mixture with a bottle of champs in a pitcher, taste, and add more peach as necessary. Garnish glasses with a rosemary spring, and enjoy!

strawberry rhubarb compote

It is reaching the end of rhubarb season for another year, so we've been enjoying it while we still can. Earlier in the week I made a batch of chocolate rhubarb cookies (although the end result was a bit of a cake-y cookie). They turned out quite good (alterations: dial back the sugar by at least 1/4 cup and add extra 'barb), and I brought the lot of them into the office for the ladies to enjoy. They went fast.

Two days ago, upon realizing that the remnants of our four pound box of strawberries was going to spoil if we didn't eat them ASAP, we had strawberry rhubarb tart. The compote- which was the topping- was easy, really delicious, and free of refined sugar (which means Brendan will eat it).

Strawberry Rhubarb Compote
roughly 3 cups strawberries, halved, and quartered if necessary to get them into a vaguely uniform size
roughly 4 cups rhubarb, peeled where necessary to remove the "strings", and diced to about 3/4"
honey
zest of half a lemon
lemon juice
1/2 a vanilla bean

Put most of the fruit (keep a handful of strawbs aside for later) and veg (rhubarb is a vegetable!) into a heavy bottomed saucepan. Add just a dash of water, and give a really generous drizzle of honey all over it. Let this sit a couple minutes so the natural juices start to come out. In the mean time, halve the vanilla bean, scrape the seeds out and put them in the pot, and toss the bean in too for good measure and flavor. Add in the zest, and only half the juice from your lemon half. Cook on medium-high heat for about 10 mins, stirring regularly. Taste it- is it too tart? Add more honey. Once the rhubarb and strawberries have started to break down, turn the heat lower and simmer for another few minutes. The mixture should be thickening. If it needs help, mix some of the fruit juice with corn starch or flour. Stir it until very smooth, then add back to the pot. That should do the trick. Once it looks and tastes right, discard the vanilla bean, stir in those extra strawberries for a bit of texture, and let it cool to room temp.

From here you can use pie dough or puff pastry to make a tart (just don't go getting involved in another project and forget your tart and end up with well done edges like I did), put it on yogurt or ice cream (it tastes heavenly with coconut ice cream), or just eat it right out of the pot because it is so darn good.