3 ways with pizza dough

You know those cravings that won't leave you. The ones that creep up at in appropriate times. Cravings that whisper in your ear "that just doesn't taste right" when you eat something that isn't what you crave. Fill your mind to the point where not even your favourite series, your child's laughter or your husband's loving words can penetrate the thoughts of making or eating that which you crave? 

I see you nodding and so you will understand when I tell you about my pizza dough craving. It wasn't about what was on top, that didn't matter. It was the flavour and texture of what makes a pizza a pizza that took residence in my head and would not leave. 


So I paused Lost Girl, got up and made the dough. I had no idea WHAT I was going to put on it but the dough was made. Next I went foraging in the fridge, freezer and cupboards for something to use. No, going to the shop was not an option....because...stop it! No! aaaaanyway. In the freezer I found a beautiful piece of beef fillet which I had trimmed off a larger piece I made a few weeks back, some roasted red pepper and tomato soup and a couple of sausages. In the fridge a tiny bit of cheese and in the cupboards onion and spices.

So I went about creating these 3 tasty snacks for us, never having to leave the house or dress in anything but slippers and PJs (see why the shop was not an option). I turned the sausages into cows in blankets (beef sausage see), the meat I fried up with some onions, caramelising it a little then made balls of meaty goodness. The roasted red pepper and tomato soup was cooked down and thickened and made a beautifully rich base for the pizzas I made with cheese and some onion and the rest of the dough was mixed in some caramelised onions to make little dinner rolls (that never made it to dinner)

Pizza Dough

1/2 cup warm water
1 sachet activated dry yeast
2 + 1 cup 00 flour (or half white bread flour half cake flour)
1 tbs olive oil
1/2 tsp salt


Put the yeast in the warm water with a pinch of flour and allow it to bloom. Mix it in with the 2 cups of flour and knead adding the 3rd cup as you knead the dough. Kneed in the olive oil and salt. Place ina oiled bowl and cover and allow to rise. 
Once the dough has risen, knead it to knock out or the air bubbles and divide it into the number of portions you need. (If you are freezing the dough this is when you do it)

Baa Baa bolognese

I love when plans come together. When you have a tiny seed of an idea and with the right kind of nurturing it starts to grow into the seedling of something amazing. Some ideas, like some seeds, when planted at the wrong time or in the wrong place never sprout but others, oh they even surprise. That was why I was cooking supper for Jon from i shot images.

I had an idea, I thought he might be the person to help me grow it and what I got in return for sharing this project with him was more than I could have ever imagine. The excitement I was holding back, in case I was totally off the mark, he let show immediately. I started to hope, to dream and to plan. After a great brainstorming lunch out I thought a working dinner in would be the logical next step.

After telling Jon that I was cooking his reply was "Whoot! Such a privilege.. " and I started to panic. The pressure was on and my culinary creativity went into overdrive until my loving husband reminded me that keeping it simple was always a winning idea. So the meal of bolognese, and a new technique I had spotted on Rhodes across Italy that I had wanted to try, came to mind. As if by fate, Frankie Fenner tweeted about the lamb mince they had in stock and a meal was born.

The technique? Well before adding the tomatoes to the Ragu di Bolognese you add milk. Yes, milk. I knew this would make a difference, there was no reason to not believe that but I had to see for myself. So I fried off some lardons, cooked the mince with the usual carrot, onion and celery mix (also known as soffritto) and tasted the mince. Then I added the milk and cooked it till it was all soaked up by the mince and tasted again. The difference was not as subtle as I expected. The meat was softer, almost creamy and I from now on, that step will be added to my usual process (that is, if I don't forget)

Considering everyone went back for seconds and Baby Bug gobbled his portion with no complaints I figured this is a winning recipe. You can use any mince you have available but the lamb mince was a very nice change from the usual.

Baa Baa Bolognese

1 tablespoon lardons (or olive oil)
1 large carrot
1 cellery stick
1 onion
750g lamb mince
1 cup milk
1 tinned peeled and chopped tomatoes
1/2 tin water
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp dry oregano
salt and pepper to taste

Fry the lardons until the lard melts and add the carrot, cellery and onion.
Fry till soft then add the mince and brown.
Once the meat is cooked, add the milk and cook on a medium heat until all the milk is soaked up.
Add the tin of tomatoes, water, sugar and oregano and allow to simmer on a low heat for at least 1 hour.
Season about 20 minutes before serving.

I served mine with Rigatoni and toasted ciabatta.

Disclaimer: Sorry for all the mixed metaphors, entertaining the bugling and blogging is new to me.

Trinchado

The start of something beautiful

When you have a relationship with some one for many years, living in the same house, sharing meals, you learn their preferences, their quirks. You discover what makes them turn up their nose and what makes their ears perk. After 7 years with Jack I can happily say that I KNOW the man and I KNOW what he loves.

My misfortune is that my husband is a man that eats because it is something that is needed to survive. He does enjoy things that taste good and has preferences but he does not go googly eyed at a well presented dish or get a far away stare when something so good touches his tongue, random "mmm" sounds do not escape his lips when he tastes something amazing. He will even eat things he isn't crazy about in the right company.

simmer away

He does, however, have his favourites. Something he will order every time we go to a certain restaurant or something he loves for me to make for him if I have a chance. One such thing is Trinchado. A Portuguese beef stew, rich with flavour. My favourite thing about this recipe is how forgiving it is of adjustments, especially the kind of adjustments that make it a healthier option.

The long cooking time means you can use lean cuts of meat and using evaporated milk or regular milk (carefully), while not making the dish AS creamy as using actual cream, still make for a very tasty dish. I personally don't miss the olives in the dish when I need to take them out for TheSister and my favourite adjustment has to be the wine.

A little longer

Trinchado

What you need:
1 tbs butter
1 tbs olive oil
(or 2 tbs olive oil if you want to reduce the fat)
1kg beef, cubed (as this is a stew you can decide how lean you want the beef)
2 large red onions, chopped
2-3 red chillies, chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
250ml beef stock (I used NoMu fonds, the richness is unbeatable)
1 bottle red wine, minus 1 glass for the cook (I used Pinotage)
1 bay leaf
100g black olives, stones removed (optional)
1 sprig fresh rosemary
125ml cream (or evaporated milk or regular milk)
1 tsp lemon rind
Salt and Pepper to taste

What to do:

Heat the butter and oil in a heavy-based pan and brown the beef.
Remove from the pan and set aside.
Lower the heat and saute the onions, I like to put in some water so that the onions get soft without burning, when the water has evaporated add the chillies and cook for about a minute.
Add the stock and wine. Bring to boil and stir continually.
Add the bay leaf, olives (if using) and the fresh rosemary.
Add the crushed garlic
Return the meat to the pan and simmer slowly for 2 hours (or more).
If you are making this in advance, this is where you stop. The rest of the process happens just before serving. When you are ready to serve, gently heat up the trinchado to a medium heat.
Add the cream (or substitute) and stir through. If you are using milk instead pour slowly and carefully to avoid it splittin.
Add the fresh lemon peel and if you want extra rosemary.
Season to taste

You can serve trinchado as a starter with some bread, or a main course with rice.

Anything for love "huevos" rancheros

If you have a partner you have been where I was this morning. Dreaming from the night before about using my texmex left overs for my very first attempt at Huevos Rancheros. Getting up I asked "TheHusband" if he would like a cheese omelette and got a resounding "yes" so bounced (as much as an 8 months pregnant lady can) off into the kitchen to make our respective breakfasts. I open the carton of eggs only to discover 2 lonely eggs staring back at me.

What do I do? Tell make TheHusband porridge and hope he forgets he was offered eggs, or give up on my breakfast fantasies? As you may have guessed from the title of this post I chose to forfeit the eggs. I however do not regret it as my breakfast was delicious (and ultimately way too much for me anyway)

Hummus Im Bassar and Happy Birthday to TheHusband

3 posts in 1 week, incredible! Ok so one of them was to announce this month's sushi club but still, more than usual.

Now my husband is the kind of man who eats because it's food. He appreciates fine food but he isn't likely to mmmmmm and aaaaaaa and smile from ear to ear with a glint in his eye when tasting some something delightful (guess who does?).‡ So knowing his favourite food is a big thing. when he asks for something by name it's even bigger.

Luckily on Sunday he mentioned wanting honey poached pairs, he said it like he didn't think I could do it...hahaha. That coupled with knowing he loved a popular middle eastern dish made his birthday menu easy:
‡ I have no idea if there grammar here is right, please don't kill me
Hummus im Basar 

followed by honey poached pears

Hummus Im Basar:

By now you are probably dying to know what that means (or not, but I will tell you anyway), it translates to "Hummus with Meat" but what it means when you order it at a restaurant in Israel is A plate full of hummus, topped with fragrant minced, or finely chopped, lamb garnished with paprika, olive oil, whole chickpeas and roasted pine nuts. Add to that some warm pita breads, pickles and salad and you have a hearty, healthy and very very filling meal.

The trick to a good Hummus im Basar is the spices. Loads of cummin and paprika, a bit of a cayene pepper kick (in hebrew we call it "hot paprika") salt and pepper. Obviously you need to find the right balance, too much cummin and it will be sour, too little and well it won't really taste right.

This is why I love my mom's Kenwood chef

I minced my own lamb but if you can find it already minced you can go for it. Much like chicken I preffer mincing my own and I can control how fine it's minced. This dish works better with courser mince.

You can learn more about the process of putting food together in a pleasing way by attending California culinary schools.

MAKE YOUR OWN!!!

I admit, there are a lot of really good premade hummus and tahina options, we love to get those done by Salad Valley and Picante but for this dish, make your own. The only shortcut I will allow you to take (because I did) is using tinned chickpeas but trust me if you have (we discovered on sunday night that we had ½ a cup left) dried chickpeas, soak them and boil them yourself, you CAN taste the difference.

To make hummus:

Blend chickpeas with some tahini paste, water to loosen, salt and pepper to taste and garlic to your heart's desire. 

To make tahina:

You don't even need a food processor for this one, so no excuses. Mix together tahini paste with some water, a little bit at a time till the colour changes and it becomes runny, add some lemon juice and garlic to taste and then some salt to finish it off

Don't skimp, every flavour in this dish is important, use a GOOD olive oil, something peppery, both when cooking your meat (high heat, fast cooking, don't boil the lamb) and when serving the dish. The olive oil that comes out of the Arab villages in Israel is something special, cloudy and peppery but fresh at the same time. One day I will learn the secret and then bring it home to make all your lives that much richer.

Tip: to warm your pita breads without drying them up, first heat up your oven till it's nice an hot then turn it off. Pop the pita breads in till warmed through.

Now the pears were something new so I googled. Most of the recipes had white wine and I knew that method already, however my husband doesn't drink, he doesn't like the taste of alcohol so I searched a little deeper and found this recipe 

Really easy recipe, fresh and tasty, although very very sweet. May just drop the amount of sugar we add next time (or taste the pears first and add accordingly)

Braai (BBQ) time!

Heritage day in South Africa is one of the more lighthearted of our public holidays. It's a day when we celebrate our diversities and how they come together to create a truly unique flavour in South Africa. This past weekend I decided, after a difficult fast that I was braaing (b-rye-ing) and I didn't care that it was raining, I went ahead and prep'd my food and by the time I was ready, the sun came out for just long enough to light up my world as I turned the food on the fire.

Cooksister is hosting an event over on her blog for braai recipes and since the recipe on her anouncement post was sosaties (skewered meat) I have not been able to get the idea out of my head. I decided to do them anyway and just add my own flair. I love lamb, especially when you add the middle eastern spices, I am hooked. I also love rubbery hot cheese and exploring new flavours and so I was left with no other options but to indulge a whole bunch of my loves and pop them all on one plate...but 2 skewers.

Add to that some Israeli favourites, some new ideas and a hungry family, I had a winning combination.

Lamb and Moroccan sausage skewers

What you need:

cubed lamb

red,green,yellow peppers

spicy Moroccan sausages (we made ours but any spicy sausage will do)

paprika

cumin

tumeric

crushed dried garlic

What to do:

Marinate the lamb in the spices. Pop everything onto the skewers how ever you wish. Pop on a hot fire and turn every now and again

Braai cheese and veg skewers

What you need:

red,green,yellow peppers

mushrooms

baby marrow

Lancewood braai cheese

NoMU vegetable Fonds (or any other vegetable stock)

What to do:

Cut the mushrooms in half, cut the baby marrow into pieces about 4cm long. Soak in hot vegetable stock (this makes the veg soft enough that they don't split when skewered). Skewer the veg and cheese as you wish. Braai and serve

These are just the ones I did but the beauty of these is that you can do them according to your taste :) We served ours with some pitas, nafis, freshly baked corn bread (the husband calls it cake bread) and mashawsha

A guest post from The Creative Pot

We are currently in our production week and the magazine is going to print next week. This means that all my WABing activities come to a grinding halt to make sure everything is out on time with as few errors as possible. Unfortunately my food blog is one of those activities but luckily for you, dear readers, I can get by with a little help from my food blogging friends.  Our next guest this evening is non other that Marisa from The Creative Pot .


You may have noticed (or at least I hope you have) that my images are improving. The reason for this dear readers, or really more the inspiration is Marisa's blog. See if you visit her blog, which I am sure you wont hesitate to do, you will immediately want to climb into your screen and have a feast. Her images make you think "I don't care how complicated the recipe is or if I have these ingredients or not I HAVE TO MAKE THAT!" and you will not be disappointed if you do, her concoctions are just as spectacular as her pictures. Don't believe me yet, take a look:

I am nothing if not dedicated to my craft. So much so that when I was gripped in the middle of a (up-to-now-unknown-to-me) soccer obsession, I managed to tear myself away from the excitement for long enough to study up on some Uruguayan food in honour of the sexy boys of Uruguay.
And it was no mean feat either. For one, there weren't a lot of information online about Uruguayan food - the sexy men must have some super secretive womenfolk in their kitchens at home.  And secondly, the information that was available was mostly in Spanish. Which I am mostly unfamiliar with, barring an unfulfilled yearning to speak Spanish fluently one day. But sadly, no habla Espanol as of yet. Enter my friend, Google translate, which helpful though it was, also caused some smirks on my side at the sometimes painly obvious translation mistakes. Eg. Lengua stifado, which Google translated as Language Stew. (In case you were interested, the correct translation should've been Tongue Stew).

Nevertheless I forged on until I happened on this beauty of a recipe. Meatballs. I can hear you already: "Meatballs? Really? LadyRaven why did you give us this boring person with her boring old meatball recipe?" Because, really, what can be new about a meatball? 
Oh but you haven't tried these - they come with raisins embedded in their meaty insides. Raisins! And as I'm a sucker for fruit/meat (indeed any sweet/savoury) combos, I whipped out my minced meat, shook in some raisins and started forming the mixture into soccer imitating balls. You know, in the spirit of the World Cup and all that. Definitely not your normal meatball. Damn tasty though. But don't tell those secret-hoarding Uruguyan women that I've let the cat out of the bag. They might send their men to come pummel me...


Albóndigas con pasas de uva (Raisin Meatballs)
Adapted from Recipes Wiki
Serves 4
500g (approx 1 lb) minced (ground) beef
2 eggs
1 tsp minced garlic
2 tbsp chopped parsley
4 tbsp breadcrumbs
1/3 cup raisins
salt and pepper to taste
sunflower oil
2 leeks, white part only, sliced
5 carrots
1/2 cup semi-sweet white wine
1. Place meat in a bowl, add eggs unbeaten, parsley, bread crumbs, salt and pepper, raisins, chopped garlic boys.
2. Mix all of this, then form into 8 meatballs, dip in flour and fry in hot oil.
3. Brown them well and remove from the heat, reserve.
4. In the same oil, put the white of leek, sliced, cooked a bit and add carrots, peeled and cut rather small, the kitchen a moment, put back the meatballs to the pan, add the wine is left uncovered so that the alcohol evaporates, add enough water to cover the remaining meatballs, add 1 tablespoon salt, cook till the carrots are tender. 


If you enjoyed this post, you will most certainly enjoy the rest of my shenanigans over at The Creative Pot. Or come & say hi on twitter. Or facebook. Even better, you can subscribe to my RSS feed so you never miss out on any of my posts. Happy cooking!

Sticky Fingers BBQ - A review

When you walk into Sticky Fingers BBQ you notice 2 things. Firstly the thick wall of delicious grill smell and then the great posters on the wall. Closer inspection gives you a great! pinup bar counter and bottlecap holders.


The atmosphere is friendly and inviting and the music, well its up to the crowd says the owner and I proved it by pulling funny faces on songs I didnt like till they played one I did and I smiled. Look up if you want a menu, nothing on the table jus ton the wall over the grill and everything is on there.

Now rest assured all you meat eaters that are connected to vegetarians, there is loads to eat for any lacto ova vegeterians, all the side dishes and there are loads are veggie friendly. Another thing that will make the meat eaters happy is the fact that the meat is all fresh. The owner doesnt like freezing meat so he doesnt. It does mean that if it was a busy lunch service you may not be able to get everything on the menu but that, my friend, is a price i am willing to pay for freshness. While we are on the price side, what would you think the following combination would cost you:

Add to that 3 cups of coffee and 2 cool drinks.


Any guesses?


C'mon, you all eat out...


The total bill came to R178. Nope I didnt forget any zeros, that was really the whole bill.


The owner is really friendly, even came round to give everyone free vodka jelly shots (normally R10). Man they tasted like high school. The guys who work there are both waiters and cooks and everyone is very friendly and helpful. you get a knife and fork but only cause so many people have asked, if it was up to the owner you wouldnt get any, even the "garden salad" is served as veggie sticks so you can eat it with your fingers. No waist of time with serviettes, you get a whole role of kitchen towel.


I will go back for sure, had a great and a great meal.
So for my ratings
Food ❤❤❤❤❤
Service ❤❤❤❤♡
Price ❤❤❤❤❤


Find them at :
93 Station road, Observatory