Butternut and Spinach Savoury Muffin

This is my latest line of generics to the real McCoy. For a brief recap, why is this recipe a generic? The reason is quite simple, since I have embarked on a paleo, banting, naturalist, primal lifestyle (I do not even know what I am classified), I have stayed away from processed ingredients like flour, sugar etc.

An acknowledgement, the true hero of this recipe is the sweet version, which after a number of trials (from different sources) came out quite tops. The source of the sweet version is the website Empowered Sustenance . The first time I made the sweet version it was very good and easy.

I am not going to try and convince you that my hybrid savoury recipe is better. Just be comfortable in the knowledge that this recipe managed to convince my taste buds to take the matter up with my brain to place the recipe on this blog. That is reference enough!

Ingredients:

-          1 cup butternut

-          1 cup spinach

-          ½ cup coconut flour

-          6 eggs

-          6 Tbsp coconut oil

-          2 Tbsp Greek Yoghurt

-          ½ tsp baking soda

-          1 tsp vinegar

-          1 tsp salt

-          Feta

Method:

-          Pre-heat oven to 150 degree C

-          Cut butternut into cubes and boil until soft

-          Combine and liquidise soft butternut and spinach

-          In a bowl starting at coconut flour add each ingredient in order and mix until smooth liquid texture (excluding feta)

-          Mix liquidised butternut and spinach into mixture

-          In cupcake tray add, mixture and feta in whatever combination

-          Place in oven for 10-15mins or until slightly brown

-          Remove from oven, let cool and enjoy

 

 PS: the mixture does stick to the cupcake tray abit. My favourite way to enjoy this is with a piece of macon (fake bacon) in between ala fake sandwich.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Avocado Mash!

What a terrible name, mash, might as well be smash the crappy "instant" de-hydrated potato in a sachet. Sometimes I feel for an absorbent substance with which to eat my proteins and I do not feel mentally comfortable eating rice, potato (mash) or some kind of bread, except a croissant (I suppose the French can claim victory on that). I could have called it mush, which I use to deter dinner guests from coming over so there is more food for me. That last bit is me just being greedy.

This recipe kind off fulfils that void and introduces another complimentary taste to my meals, just short off  the insulin rushing effects of a post rice/mash meal.

The recipe itself is very quick to make and I usually only make the recipe once the main meal is ready. Be warned this recipe on its own is quite filling and should serve usually 2 people.

Ingredients
1 large avocado
1 handful of macadamia nuts
3 Tbsp of olive oil

Method
Add all ingredients into a blender
blend for 10 seconds, depending on how smooth you want the texture

Dish out and enjoy!

Eggs......Really!

The post shall be about a generally accepted breakfast dish.....eggs, but with some additional joys of the natural food realm. I believe eggs are easy enough to make and doesn't necessarily warrant a recipe post, but after seeing the amount of popularity that these pictures generate on Instagram, I have decided to post a methodology on an egg variation.

You might notice that I refrained from calling this post a recipe in the latter half of the first paragraph and that is because it does not take rocket science or culinary mystic to prepare an egg.......Rocky "cracked" raw eggs to any number of cooked variations i.e. poached, fried, boiled.....or just add heat and eat. "Heat and eat" the breakfast version of "shake and bake".....too much?

What I enjoy about preparing eggs is that I generally use fresh ingredients, which I am fortunate enough to source from the actual farmer and not the painted effigy at the local convenience store.

For this recipe, I use red onions which imparts a sweetie acidity to the meal and Pomodoro tomatoes, which should be the star of a bolognaise but compliment the onions soo well, and holistically the taste is very good. The small difference is that it usually takes me about 45mins to prepare an egg dish because I like the flavours to slow cook together so that the taste is an amalgam of glorious natural flavours.

At this point I should also mention that the eggs I source are of such great quality that you require a little bit of elbow grease to break the shell, the Yoke is a rich texture of colour and the natural flavour is glorious. I believe the chickens that lay (not slay) these golden nuggets still live in trees.

Ingredients
1Tbsp Coconut Oil
2 Green chillies
1 Chopped Medium Red Onion
1 handful of chopped cold meat
2 Medium Chopped Pomodoro tomatoes
3 Tbsp crumpled Feta
4 Organic Eggs
1 tsp pepper

Method
Place coconut oil, onions and chillies in pan on low heat (33% of full heat)
Wait until onions become soft, then add chopped cold meat
Wait until cold meat becomes crispy on edges then, add chopped Pomodoro tomatoes
Wait until tomatoes lose shape, become soft and give off liquid
mix soft tomatoes into onions and break eggs into mixture, add Feta and pepper
Wait until the eggs are cooked to your likeliness

Enjoy!

Chicken and Butternut Salad

 

 

I’m chilling in the coffee shop/restaurant Ginger and Fig, in Pretoria. I’ve just hooked up to the wi-fi and the password code is the funniest I’ve heard in a while. The story of Ginger and Fig is a very cool one. Although the owner (he is a ginger) does not fit the profile of the story. He looks very much like Lucas Parker of Crossfit fame, and someone not to F#$* with.

The food is very good, lovely ambiance and the coffee is at this date my favourite in Pretoria, eclipsing Haloa, Vintage coffee and Lucky bread by the fairest of margins. They use Doubleshot coffee beans which is locally roasted in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, #supportlocal. I would certainly recommend this place for an all-round experience.    

There is so much I’ve wanted to share but the time and my own personal laziness have prevented the outpouring of my knowledge. This recipe was born out of items that I had in my freezer but not particularly fond of. The chief culprit, chicken fillet. Why oh! why did we buy chicken fillet. All the best proponents of the chicken have been removed, bones, skin etc. It’s like a laboratory generated meat with a propensity to not cook properly. The weirdest thing is that we pay more for it. Rant aside I hope to have worked out a recipe using one of my disliked ingredients with another childhood phobic word, i.e. SALAD.

The recipe also uses an air fryer (marketing beguilement of note), to complete a trifecta of pet hates. Last rant-tjie (synonym in English/Afrikaans for small rant) I promise………for now. On to the recipe!

Ingredients

·         Chicken fillets (250g), cut into cubes

·         1 tsp chilli flakes

·         1 tsp freshly ground pepper

·         1 “medium” butternut, cut into blocks (apologies for the term medium, I do not even know how to describe the butternut size used)

·         1 green pepper

·         3 Tbsp Olive Oil

·         1 small red onion (cut into cubes)

·         3 Tbsp Feta (crumpled)

Method

·         Mix chicken fillets, chilli flakes and pepper and place in air fryer for 13mins @ 220 deg C (ensure that the fillets are cooked)

·         Remove chicken and place in bowl

·         Add butternut to air fryer and cook for 15mins @ 220 deg C

·         Place green pepper and olive oil with chicken in bowl and mix around

·         After 15mins add onions and coconut oil to butternut and mix around, then place in air fryer for 20mins.

·         After 20mins, remove butternut and onion and combine with chicken.

·         Add Feta and serve…….Either hot or cold!!

Bon appetite!!

 

Aubergine, Pepper salad

I'm sitting at the airport at the moment and wondering how things have changed, how life has moved on and even what I enjoy has changed. The term salad used to evoke a sense of something you had to do in order to get to the good stuff or something that only herbivores would eat. It also evoked feelings of annoyance because it was coupled with diet and suffering and those crappy glomail adverts.

As I embarked on my life-style change, I started looking at some vegetables/fruit differently and after I went to Morocco and tasted some of the most amazing salads without a leaf in site. The other thing is that I also went through a stage where I could not eat any more meat, so I just felt like eating vegetables only.

I usually post pictures of some of my dishes on Instagram. My follower's on that platform would request a recipe to the salad. I found this request weird because you just put stuff together and voila salad! but I changed my thinking to realise this is like making any other dish and the salad is the end result.

This post is the start of a departure from the "main-course" type meals that I have been blogging so far. I do not have a step by step picture account but with a salad one picture is enough to convey the idea.

I hope you enjoy the directional change.

Ingredients
1 large aubergine
1 yellow bell pepper
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Avocado
2 Tbsp feta
10cm long piece of cucumber
Pepper

Method
Dice aubergine and yellow bell pepper, mix with olive oil and place in air-fryer for 30mins
Turn/mix the aubergine/pepper once after 20mins in air-fryer
Remove aubergine/pepper and let cool (15mins)
Dice up avocado and cucumber and place on aubergine/pepper
Sprinkle feta
Grind some black pepper and add additional olive oil for taste

Enjoy!

Please give feedback if you tried and enjoyed the recipe.

Mushroom Cupcakes

Well well well, how lazy have I become!, posts being few and far between. I now realise putting a post at a specific time very week consistently is a very challenging undertaking and I respect people who do it, very much.

I have made a mid-year resolution to try and blog consistently, maybe once or twice a week. Project LOL has developed nicely and I have not posted in 4 months in that direction.......soon.

This recipe was born from what is left in the fridge category. This type or recipe might have already been around but I did think this up on my own. The originality might be in doubt but the thought process shouldn't. This recipe made quite a wonderful breakfast.

Ingredients:

1. 5 Portobello Mushrooms (real big curly beasts, that create a "cuplike" centre)
2. 2 cloves garlic (crushed and diced)
3. 2 Tbsp Olive oil
4. 2 eggs
5. 1 handful coriander (dandhia/dania/dhania)
6. 1/2 tsp crushed pepper
7. 2 Tbsp Feta (Approximate)

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 220 degree C
2. Place mushrooms on baking tray, garlic and brush olive oil on mushrooms
3. place mushrooms in oven
4. Insert eggs, diced coriander, pepper in bowl and whisk/beat until you get a running mixture
5. Once mushrooms give a nice cooked smell (10mins), remove from oven and increase oven to grill
6. Insert mixture into mushroom "cup" and sprinkler feta on top
7. Place mushrooms back into oven
8. Watch until top of mushroom becomes slightly crisped
9. Remove from oven and enjoy!

Beef Karai Potjie

These days (last 5 years) I really enjoy eating a chicken Karai. This is a Pakistani dish with very wholesome flavours. Karai is also the name given to a kind of “indian style” wok to cook over the fire. You might immediately notice that the heading and the small knowledge snippet have discrepancies. For one it is beef and not chicken. The cooking apparatus is named twice. This doesn’t bode well for a simple/wholesome dish (my cooking mantra).

There a method in my naming convention. Beef is the meat used in the dish (obviously), Karai in this case does not point to the cooking apparatus but rather the recipe and the potjie is the cooking methodology/apparatus. This is a kind of Afrikaans/Pakistani fusion dish.

For all my adoring fans, you might be wondering why I went AWOL instead of me going on about the recipe, well in a nut shell, I visited Morocco with my better quarter and so did not get the opportunity to blog, and sadly my tagine that I bought was confiscated at Morocco customs for no particular reason, but the country is flippen awesome.

I found this recipe via google for chicken and have used it on a number of occasions. When making this dish with fresh ingredients the taste is amazing. When I eat out I have to look for an alternate recipe since I much prefer my own homemade chicken karai.

This was an experiment to use the same chicken recipe with beef and same procedure but in a potjie. Let’s just say the flavour was amazing. The recipe has been scaled for a potjie.

Ingredients:

• ·         3 Tbsp butter

• ·         3 cloves garlic, crushed and diced

• ·         2 Tbsp ginger, diced

• ·         5 tomatoes, liquidised

• ·         3 chillies chopped up (mild heat)

• ·         2 tsp turmeric

• ·         2 tsp salt

• ·         1kg beef chopped in small pieces (I prefer approximately 20mm cubes)

• ·         1 handful/bunch of coriander (or any other meaningless measurement of size)

Method:

• ·         Place empty potjie onto fire, let pot heat up

• ·         Add butter, ginger and garlic until garlic changes into a brownish colour (not burnt)

• ·         Add tomatoes, chillies, turmeric and salt – stir and let water substance reduce to a Jam like texture

• ·         Add Beef, mix and cook until tender

• ·         Add coriander and serve!



Served with Aubergine salad

 

 

Beef Potjie and potjie event

You might remember from a previous post where I prepared a springbok potjie. Today is also a potjie recipe but it is very easy. What I would like to convey in addition to the meal recipe is an event "recipe". The event in this case is a potjie event.

As with most of my posts this begins with a little rant. I remember my mom going through a lot of effort and stress preparing for the arrival of guests for a meal and/or stay over. Once the guest arrived the entire time would be lots of fun and some of my best memories are from those occasions. In a way it feeds the notion great reward comes with hard work. I recently witnessed this "pre-event stress" and this time tried to argue that all this effort was unnecessary. The general reply was "what would people think off me". This response is also a core problem with people hitting the gym and starving themselves trying to look "good" based on what people "expect", another rant for another time......the vanity effect.

The point I was making is that generally people visit because they want to experience your company, robust debate, catch up, plan, partake in good fortune (baby, wedding), just have fun etc. You as a person or couple or family already bring the main ingredients of a good time, the snacks or meal which causes the major amount of stress is not even discussed or there is a passing comment, "compliments to the chef" which takes all of 1% of the total face to face/event time. These points can be debated but essentially life is too short to sweat the little stuff. Question, " How many people rave about the meat/salad/décor at a braai/barbeque?"..........huh?............I hope my point is made!

Potjie Event Recipe

• Rule 1: Decide on the fly what to place in the potjie and buy those raw ingredients beforehand eg: beef, carrots, oil, potatoes, chicken etc (Marco-ingredients)
• Rule 2: Start fire when guests arrive. I have attached some pictures below on how I start a fire, its clean and takes advantage of the fire's abilities to spread (bush veld fires is an example, little human intervention), this takes about 1 to 1.5 hrs before the heat is raging.

Step 1: Place charcoal (not briquettes) into braai, place blitz on charcoal (I used a old potjie as my braai stand) 

Step 2: Light blitz

Step 3: Let blitz burn out

Step 4: Place potjie on heat source (The fire will spread over time on its own)

• Rule 3: Prepare Potjie with guests (Refer to recipe below)
• Rule 4: Insert Potjie onto fire (weather raging or not)
• Rule 5: Decide on drinks and/or snacks and go pick it up (Generally I offer, cold water, biltong (Jerky) and nuts, normal snacks I have at home) 
• Rule 6: Sit around and chat, throw a ball (of any shape) with the kids/ friends, jump in the pool or whatever the guests came over for, look at the baby, wedding photos, movies (Lord of the rings marathon with Potjie.....what an idea!!)
• Rule 7: Do not disturb potjie until about 3 to 4 hours in, and check if it ready.
• Rule 8:Dish, Eat, continue conversation and have fun.
• Rule 9: Keep dishes to a minimum, hence I enjoy disposable plates and eat with my hands

I know I call them "RULES" they are more suggestions but this process combines the prep and guest visit into one. Also the other plus side is that your guests do not feel inadequate (Unless they are soulless mother fathers) because of your pre-event prep. It is just loads of fun. On to the recipe!

Ingredients:
3 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp ginger
4 Tbsp coconut oil
2 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper
3 cardamom
1 stick cinnamon
1-2kg beef
2 onion
2 tomatoes
4 sprigs tyme and rosemary
Green beans and carrot (This is your choice and depended on space in potjie)
Sprinkle of salt for end

Method:
Liquidise garlic, ginger, 1 Tbsp coconut oil, salt, pepper, cardamom, cinnamon
Marinate beef in paste from above step
Insert 3 Tbsp coconut oil into pot
Insert onions cut into blocks
Insert beef
Liquidise and insert tomatoes
Tie rosemary and type into bunch and insert into pot
Place green beans and carrots
Sprinkle salt at the end
NB: The prep is layered and to not disturb the potjie with spoon in the middle of the cooking time
Cover and place potjie onto fire
Cook for 2-4 hours depending on potjie depth and intensity of fire
Dish and enjoy!