A POCKET OF PLEASURE

Some days when you are tired and really just not in the mood to stand for hours creating magic, by doing just a few simple steps, delicious food is never far away and this is such a meal.  It is really impressive enough for serve for a dinner party or perfect for a BBQ in the garden.

Take a lamb steak and place it on a sheet of tinfoil

 Take a tablespoon or two of red pesto sauce and grate some lemon zest and the juice of half the lemon and mix together.

Spread a layer of the red pesto sauce on top of the lamb steak.

And wrap it tightly so that the folds are facing upwards and no juice can leak out.

Take a red pepper or two and cut open and de-seed.

 And put into the middle of each pepper about four cherry tomatoes

Slice very thinly a garlic clove and put one or two slices in between the tomatoes and add three anchovies over the tomatoes and then the oil from the tin - sprinkle over the whole pepper.

Anchovies when cooked  melt and give the pepper the most wonderful flavour and saltiness.

Put both the steak and peppers in the oven for about an hour at a temperature of about 180 C

until the pepper is roasted and the tomatoes soft.

About five minutes before you take the steak out of 

the oven - open the tinfoil and allow to brown slightly

          

Add a few boiled baby potatoes and steamed snap peas and

sit back and enjoy your pocket of pleasure that took 

no time or effort at all.

Until next time my friends.
Love The Tipsy Tart
xx

AN AWESOME FOURSOME +1 AND MY PROFESSIONAL TASTE TESTER

I was browsing through a few blogs the other day and found a fabulous blog called Curly Girl Kitchen by Heather whose recipes and food is amazing.


However, there was one that just called to me saying "make me, make me, be mine" and as I find it so hard to  resist any wonderful cause, I did.

Although I have not yet made the coconut muffins and my version of the kiwi lime curd is definitely not as pretty, it tastes pretty good even if I say so myself.

And that got me thinking (as you do)  - I had Lemon and Raspberry Curd in the fridge so why not make Passionfruit Curd which I know is delicious and make a pudding with the four different flavours - and so I did.

I took all the flavours that I had and just mixed each of them individually with a tablespoon or two of whipped double cream and put the filling in a meringue and this is is how my awesome foursome ended up looking like.

Passionfruit Cream

.

Lemon Cream

Raspberry Cream

Kiwi and Lime Fruit Cream

and only because my favourite snack is never too far from me at the moment,
I just could not resist making another Chocolate Philly Cream.

I just love the little mark left by a telltale secret taster
when your back is turned - so sweet.

And my professional taste tester, just happened to be one cute granddaughter.

Love The Tipsy Tart

xx

CHOCOLATE PHILLY MERINGUES

Tonight we were invited to friends for supper and my contribution was the pudding.

Other than to tell you that I took two tubs of chocolate philly and mixed it together with two big tablespoons of extra thick double cream and put a very very big tablespoon into the middle of each of the 8 meringue nests and then grated a bit of toblerone over - I shall say no more other than to let my photos do the talking for once...

Dylan, my son, the taste tester.

Love The Tipsy Tart 

A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE WITH AMBER

While speaking to my daughter this last week and discussing all the food that our family has loved and enjoyed over the years,  she reminded me that my spinach and feta quiche was one of her favourite meals that I used to cook for her as a teenager. I was immediately transported back to my kitchen in Cape Town and packing a picnic hamper with this quiche and heading out to the beach to enjoy quality time as a family or with good friends under a cool shady tree during the extreme heat of the summer sun.   

Sadly for me, Amber left home years ago to work in London so I do not get to see her that often but her love of  home cooked meals remains as passionate as ever.

Because she works such long hours and shares accommodation with friends,  it is not always easy or possible for her to cook or eat what she loves,  so when she homes home, the pen and paper come out and I am given a list of all the things that she wants to eat.

 As Easter is a few weeks away and Amber is coming home with Jonathan her wonderful boyfriend, I know that we will both be in the kitchen cooking up a storm

 and taking a trip down memory lane of all things wonderful and I am hoping that after just one bite of my quiche, Jonathan will turn to Amber and say he will definitely bring her home more often xx

Love The Tipsy Tart

PURPLE RASPBERRY CURD

My husband and I have joined the National Trust in the UK compliments of my lovely Mother  It is absolutely wonderful going out on a Saturday with a picnic and just taking in fresh air and seeing all the magificant stately homes and countryside in our beautiful country and just walking to try and get a bit healthier.    When we went a few weeks ago to see the burnt ruins of a stately home in Worcestershire called Whitley Court, we went into their shop in the entrance where they sell different items to bring in funds for the National Trust like food, wine, books etc and one of the foods that they were selling were jams and raspberry curd which they allowed us to sample and it was delicious.

As I had made some passion fruit curd a few weeks ago and my husband loving it, I just knew that I wanted to try and make this one.

I got home and dug out my passion fruit recipe and just decided that all I really needed to do was swop the fruit and this is the result although I did double the recipe.

  The taste is wonderful however, perhaps a bit sweet so next time I would reduce the sugar slightly.  However not sure about the colour being quite right as what started off as a wonderful red raspberry has ended up as a delicious purple delight.

I put 400g of frozen raspberries in my food processor

and pureed them to an inch of their life.

And I then put the raspberries in a sieve so that my puree was smooth without any pips.

I put the strained raspberries in a pot on the hob together with 280g of butter and six eggs

and added 500g sugar and 4 tablespoons of cornflour

and cooked it very very slowly for a long time stirring continuously to prevent burning and to prevent the eggs curdling.  It barely came up to a simmer but eventually it started to get thick and when it was the consistency of very thick custard.
 I strained it once more to get rid of any stray pips or bits of egg that might have curdled,

  before I poured the curd into steralised jars -

(all three of them).

I left it overnight to cool and set and it was perfect - exactly what curd should look like.

I then went to my Mum with some scones, the curd and some squirty cream 

to get her to try my creation with her morning cup of tea.

And this is what I presented her with.

She loved it although said the colour was a bit strange and bright !!!

Until next time.

Love The Tipsy Tart

xx

SUNSHINE ON A PLATE

In anticipation of summer being just around the corner and a friend saying that she was coming to visit me from South Africa later this year, my spirits were high and I wanted to create something that was as bright and happy as I was feeling.

So supper last night was a simple version of Spanish Paella and it looked like sunshine on a plate and it did not taste too bad either.

I chopped two onions and used a sprinkling of oil from a jar of Roasted Peppers and browned them for a while together with 1 Spanish Ring of Chorizo Sausage which was about 225g in weight.

I then added one chopped green pepper and a jar of the drained Red and Yellow Roasted Peppers (about 280g) and six skinned chicken thighs.

I added no spices, salt, pepper or garlic as the chorizo sausage has so much flavour and this simple dish just did not require it.

When it had all browned nicely, I added two big cups of brown rice.  I love brown rice as it is just has such a nutty flavour and obviously more healthy. However, because the chorizo contains a lot of fat, it probably would not matter too much in this dish if you use white rice.

I added chicken stock to two litres of water and just allowed this to cook slowly stirring occasionally until the rice had doubled in size.  Brown rice does take longer to cook and I left it simmering for about half an hour.

When the liquid had reduced and the rice was almost cooked, I added about a cup of frozen peas and 70g of mixed olives  If I was having friends over, I would also at this stage, add a few prawns as well.

And this was my sunshine on a plate - absolutely delicious with the smoky flavour of the chorizo coming through and so pretty to look at as well.

I only served it with garlic bread because my son loves everything with garlic bread.

Until next time and Happy Cooking to you all always.

Love The Tipsy Tart
xx

HOT CROSS BUN PUDDING FOR MICHELLE

Michelle today and her two beautiful children,
Justin and Isabelle.

A little story that always makes me smile -

When my younger daughter was about 7, our family went for a trip around America for about 7 weeks or so.  We started in Miami and after spending about a week at Disney World we got in the car and just drove - not really with any aim where we were going but just knowing that by Christmas we had to be in Canada to visit family.

We had a few places that we wanted to see and one of them was to go to New Orleans and see the great Mississippi River.  We managed to get there and also went on a river boat. As it was a freezing day, we sat inside trying to get some warmth and as we were all starving, we also found a canteen selling food.  We ordered a variety of foods but Michelle was the only one who ordered a "Bread and Butter" pudding.  

As we lived in South Africa at the time and generally did not eat heavy puddings - it was something that we had not ever tasted before and something that Michelle had never come across.

So she ate it quietly, finished the lot and disappeared to the lady behind the counter.    She came back a while later with a piece of paper in her hand and said "Mom, because I loved it so much, I went and asked for the recipe and here it is!!!.  The smile - I will always remember...  Although I do not have that recipe anymore, I found this recipe in the latest Good Food Magazine that I get every month and it looked delicious.

So my daughter, this is for you and although it is slightly different to the original one you tasted, I hope you love it as much today as you did all those years ago.

Spread a thick layer of Lemon Curd on 4 Hot Cross Buns.

Beat 2 eggs and then add 200ml double cream, 200ml milk, 4 tablespoon of sugar and the zest of one lemon and about 2 big tablespoons of lemon curd as well.

Mix together and then pour over your lemon curd hot cross buns and leave to soak up all the egg custard for about 30 minutes.

Put in an oven of about 160C degrees for about 45 minutes until it has puffed up and cooked until golden and the custard has set..Leave to stand for a while.

And serve with either custard or pouring cream.  

I hope you enjoy it as much as my little girl did all those years ago.

Love The Tipsy Tart
xx

LAMB POTJIE

Today is a glorious day. The sun is shining after months of winter, the windows are open and my husband has decided that we need to have the first potjie of the season.

He has decided that today the blog is his to have and hold and that no Tipsy Tart will be getting any part of the cooking process other than to take photos and add a bit of gloss and substance.

This is a potjie - which translated into english is a three legged cast iron pot used by our Dutch ancestors to cook their food in the open when they travelled across Southern Africa.  It is still a very popular way of cooking food today as it imparts a unique taste and flavour and there is nothing more that South Africans enjoy more than outdoor cooking over an open fire.

My husband prefers his vegetables chunky and just used what we had available although he did buy the lamb chops.  Although mutton is what is usually used in this traditional dish,  is it almost impossible to find in the UK.  The brown soup powder is from South Africa but any homemade stock is suitable.

This is what my husband made for me which is still to this date an incomplete pizza oven.

However it retains the heat well and does not burn the food easily even in a hot fire.

Lamb chops put in the potjie to brown

Vegetables added with a bit of garlic and salt with the occasional bit of water added.  My husband kept it simple to allow the food taste to come through rather than the any spices.

He left the food on the fire for a good few hours to simmer away while we enjoyed our first afternoon in the sun.

And after a few hours and a few glasses of wine later - my husband's potjie was ready to be enjoyed.

and it was everything he told me it would be...
it was simple food at its best cooked by the one I love the most.....

Love The Tipsy Tart
xx