Buns are Holy

Hot Cross Buns (makes 16)

Driven to food distraction by numbers, these little hot cakes make your house smell all snug and tradition'y. They are sweet and sticky on the outside with lovely soft buttery lightness that goes real nice with cheese and cups of tea.

270mls milk
2 cloves
2tsp Cinnamon
1tsp of all spice
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
pinch of saffron

450g Strong white bread flour
100g butter (cubed)

1tsp salt

20g caster sugar

3 eggs

10g or 1 sachet of yeast (follow directions)

120g currents or raisins

For the crosses

3 tblsp of flour + some water to make a paste. 

some icing sugar and a paintbrush (small and fine)

Put the milk and spices in a pan and scald. Turn off the heat and leave milky spice mix to infuse for a while. Rub the butter into the flour. Add the salt and sugar and yeast (mix with some warm water to activate). Make a well in the middle, add 2 beaten eggs and gradually add the milk mix until you have a soft dough. Knead for 10 mins. Cover and leave somewhere warm for 1 hour (until doubled in size). Knead a wee bit, then stretch out on a work surface and add the currents / raisins. Kneed in so they distribute. Divide into 16.  Put on baking tray. Leave to double in size for a bit. Use  knife and mark a cross on the buns - brush with beaten egg - paint the cross on with flour paste. Place in the oven gas mark 5/6 for 25mins. Mix a little sugar with water and brush each bun - using a fine paintbrush paint the crosses with icing sugar.

I created a Monster

Bitter chocolate and orange cream cheese ganache tartlets 

Mmmmmm. Torn between cheesecake and tart, some delicious half breed was formed. These little digestive based tarts are simple and bitter sweet, the gooey orange pangs fumigate you mouth while the silky chocolate / cream cheese ganache squeezes your face into that mmmmm with squinty eyed happiness expression. N.b. not helpful for waistlines.

Base
150g dark chocolate digestives
100g salted butter

Cream part
200g cream cheese
2 oranges (squeezed)
30g icing sugar

Choc pot
100g dark chocolate (min 52% coco)
150g salted butter
50g light brown muscovado sugar
1 orange squeezed
2 eggs (beaten)

Melt the butter and combine with the crumbled biscuits (blend them or beat them with a rolling pin) to make the base. Grease the inside of 6 ramekin's with butter. Add digestive base to each and press down hard. Place in the friezed for 10mins to set. In a bowl, add all the cream part and whisk. On the heat add the butter and the chocolate (cubed), allow to melt. Add the juice of 1 orange and the sugar. In a separate pan, heat the cream part until it just simmers. Add the beaten eggs to this. Fold this into the melted choc pot pan. Pour this mix on top of your base into your ramekin's. Put in the over for 18 - 22 mins at gas mark 5 / 6. When you remove the centre should be the only bit that giggles.

I'd swap my eye for a pizza pie (well i'd get greasy cheese in it)

Goats cheese, basil pesto and sweet roasted pepper pizza (makes 2 pizzas)

Auk for crying out loud, the joys of electricity and an oven have only gone made pizza perfection. The light, crispy base is the source of the woops and yeahs and oos and ahhs - extra fine candian strong flour - you cheeky find - binds to make the softest dough making a truely bouncy bite possible. Basil pesto made with pecoroni rather than pine nuts and parmesan, maintains a nuttiness that sprawls itself snugly over the sweet charcol pangs of roasted pepper and creamy deapths of goats cheese.

Bouncy thin base
180g extra fine canadian bread flour
140ml warm water
7g dry yeast
1tbl sp olive oil

Tomato Sauze ( put all ingredients in a blender and whizz)

1/2 tin baby cherry tomatoes
handful basil
3 gloves garlic
salt / pepper
1 tblsp olive oil

Basil pesto (put ingredients in a blender and whizz)
handful of basil
30g pecoroni cheese
1 tblsp olive oil
1 clove garlic

Topping
100g buffalo mozzeralla
100g goats cheese
1 sweet red pepper (cook in the oven for 20mins gas mark 6)

Okay. It seems like there are lots of things here to refer back to with that never-ending ingredient list. Basically, everything rests on the base. If the base is soggy and without bite it doesn’t matter how delicious your toppings are - chaos will ensue. In a cup add warm water to yeast and salt (Fizz). Empty flour onto work surface and make a well in the middle. Fill the well with yeasty water and 1tblsp of olive oil. Gradually pull flour from the sides into the well and the quickquick keep doing this until the floury water mix comes together. Then knead it for 5-10mins. If its too wet spinkle more flour. If its feels like leather add a little water. If its very liney (with breaks in the dough) a little oil and a little water. Roll into a ball and break in two. Put in slightly oiled bowl and place a damp tea towel over the top and leave somewhere warm for 45mins.

Whiz the tomato sauz ingredients. Then whiz the basil pesto ingredients. Then 45 mins later roll out the dough and assemble your pizza. Place in an over turned floured baking tray (allows heat to cook it from beneath as well as above like a pizza oven). Cook 12-14mins in hot oven.

I salute hotpots

Hot Butternut squash and Coconut Daal 

When everything starts to get a bit much and your eye balls have been physically scratched it’s nice to resort to a one pot dish that breathes warm and spicy fumes into your house and total satisfaction to belly. This daal is draped in sweetness from the cinnamon and coconut combination, but avoids sickly sweet, as it’s cut through by the chilli and the butternut squash, what cushy padding - it's more of a background player, but it gives texture and is so clever at absorbing flavour and creating harmony that it wouldn’t be quite so satisfying without it. 

rather how it makes you feel than what it looks like
(FORGOT TO PHOTOGRAGH MY DISH)

5 handfuls of any type of lentils
2 medium butternut squashes (chopped to 1 cm cubes)
4 handfuls of chopped spinach
4 green chillis
2 large onions
4 cloves garlic
2 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger
1 tsp cinnamon 

1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp paprika
2 tsp ground coriander
4 tsp ground cumin / crushed cumin seeds
3 tsp medium curry powder
2 bay leaves
1 can coconut milk
4 cans of boiling water
50 g butter / ghee 

40 g tomatoe puree
salt and pepper to taste (be generous)

Heat oil in a pan, add onion, crushed garlic / ginger / chilli. Cook for 6 mins. Add butter or ghee and all the spices and the bay leaves. Add the chopped butternut squash and 1 tin of water – leave for 2-3 mins. Add the coconut milk, lentils and remaining water. Cook for 1 hour on a low heat – add the tomato puree - add the chopped spinach. Cook until you feel like eating. If it gets too thick add some more water, it it seems too watery let it boil for a little so it reduces.

I ate a bucket of meat

African Brai, Street party style : Mzoli's (Gugulethu, Capetown)

Any person who knows about Mzoli's glows about it. I didn't quite know what to expect but from the instant buzz people get when they talk about this place my tastebuds were tickled just thinking about it.

Sitsuated in the heart of Gugulethu township in surrounding Capetown - on first glance - totally missable, it looks dingy and totally confusing to see the ques of people spilling out onto the street. There is a haze of smoke crawling out from behind a giant tin roof - and then you smell wood burning meat - and your totalz swept up in the humy buzz of smokey energy.

  

This place has got the art of Braii perfected. In the midst of a township it's easy to feel out of place or a sense of trespassing - but this place welcomes everyone - even a kinda of awkward middle aged women doing the moonwalk. It's an all day street party where you BYO booze / salads / ice boxes and you buy your meat at their butchers. Line up in the first building with dusty glass and choose any meat you could dream off, fillet, sausages, lamb chops (totally mouthwatering) ribs - get it weighed and pay - then follow your nose out the back to the floor to ceiling wood burning fires - where all your meaty goodness is cooked to perfection and seeped in woody smokey greatness.




Hell Yeah!!

 

I eat humus by the tablespoon

Humus with freshly baked pita pockets

2 months without an oven has caused serious food day dreams of all the uncookable things that linger just out of reach – until yesterday. Pita bread time – well a version of pita, more like flat bread - and oh holy moly you can't have pita without humus.

Humus
8 tblsp Tahini (the tahini I used was runny and real pale in colour)
2 tins of chickpeas
1 ½ cans of liquid from the tin of chickpeas
2 ½ tsp chopped garlic
juice of 1 ½ lemon
½ tsp salt
4-5 tblsp olive oil

This recipe is my current version - but always worth playing with. Add the two tins of chickpeas to a pan – heat on a low temperature for 2-3 mins. Add all other ingredients to the chickpeas. Continue to heat on a low temperature for about 5 mins and use a potato masher to much it up. Turn off the heat and mash or blend until smooth.

Pitta Pockets
3 cups of flour (1 of white 2 of brown bread flour)
1 ½ tsp salt
1 packet of yeast (15g)
1 ¼ – 1 ½ cups of luke warm water
2 tblsp olive oil

Mix yeast with flour and salt – add the olive oil and 1 ¼ cup of water and stir. The ingredients should come together to form a ball (if the flour won't stick add some more water / if too wet add some more flour). Place ball on a floured work surface and kneed for 10 mins. Then place ball in a bowl that is lightly coated in olive oil- coat ball in oil by rolling it around the bowl. Cover with cling film and leave somewhere warm until it has doubled in size (90 mins). When doubled, punch down to release trapped gas and divide into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and cover with cling film. Let it rest for 20 mins. Pre- heat oven to it's hottest – spread flour on a baking sheet. Roll out balls to 1/8 inch thick – cook for 5 mins. Then whats real nice is to toast them to give them a lovely golden brown colour. They should keep for a few dayz.

When I dream about markets I dream about this place

Neighbourgoods Market, Old Biscuit Mill (375 Albert Road, Woodstock, Cape Town)

Check out their website here

OMG this place is like heaven.

Feels like Bourgh Market with space and more light during a street party. Its part independent designer goods, part food. I hung out with the beautiful clothes for a bit, but the lure of the gormet treats in the next building was too much and I was off.

The market was founded in 2006 by Justin Rhodes and Cameron Munro and comes to life in a sky-lit Victorian warehouse. Communities have always flourished around lively food markets and the concept behind Neighbourgoods was to rejuvenate a district through a 'local food market' - make a hub of energy by creating community and transform a space.

As you walk around the market you are surrounded by buzz words, heavy on the locally sourced, fresh and organic stalls. This is so exciting to see here and much needed forward thinking in a country that at times seems dated. There's organic fruit and veg stalls, raw chocolate, french specialty delights, heaps of uber fresh bill-tong, pure white mozzarella, roasted mushrooms with garlic salt. The warehouse is lined with high quality and beautifully presented food wares, and you kind of long to buy a little from each. 

The real indulgence, however, is the amount of time you want to spend here - esp sitting at those long, long, long tables that stretch along the center of the market -  where everyone crams onto wooden school benches to devour their food bootie. People are drinking champagne (well Cape Sparkle), Mojitos or 1 quid beers and it's not even midday. This community vibe is the highlight and the energy force behind this market, creating a total stir to Saturdays afternoons in Cape town.