Do unto others!

What do (did) we, as employees, expect from our employers?

For those of us luckily enough to be able to afford a housekeeper, maid, char, nanny, cleaner, helper or whatever name we use for the wonderful women (and men) who help us in our homes; let us remember that they are our employees. They have the same expectations we have from our bosses.

They wait in hope ever year for their annual increases and bonuses, just like we do. They rely on a yearly inflationary increase in their salary to keep up with their rent, food and transport costs. They also hope to be appreciated for their loyal service.

Industry norms are as follows

1 – Mandatory salary increase per year based on inflation – you can check this by clicking on this link.

However, the lower income earners are harder hit by inflation, as they spend almost all of their salaries on food, energy and transport which have a higher rate of inflation.

My determined suggestion would be to give your staff an annual increase of the published rate of inflation plus an additional 2%, to even it out to somewhere closer to the true rate of inflation.

2 – Each year you should evaluate your staff members performance. If they don’t have a job description and list of required tasks, please set one up, as this really helps them to know what you expect from them. Salary increases for loyal service and good performance are an incentive to serve you better. Even if it’s only a few percent, showing your appreciation financially is the best way to say thank you.

Dissatisfied employees skive off and steal... remember that housekeepers talk to each other, if they know so many other ladies are getting increases and they aren’t, they are more likely to think it only fair to call home on your landline and take a few rolls of loo paper and some sugar home with them... wouldn’t you?

3 – Annual bonuses. Depending on how a business’s profits for the year look, is how a business decides what the annual bonus for their team will be. Think about how you’ve done this year financially speaking. If you’ve done well – so should your housekeeper. If not, then figure out a fair bonus based on your years income and explain it them clearly and honestly. 

Remember that this pays for their kids Christmas presents, holiday trips home to see their family, school fees and clothes for the next year. I am sure, one less fancy dinner out, or a few less bottles of champers over the festive season are worth knowing how much further that money will go for your housekeeper.

An employee who feels valued and cared for is an asset and treasure. Are your staff feeling that way? 

Caramelised baby onion, rosa tomato and lentil salad

I have never been a natural salad eater. I have had to work hard at becoming one. Some of the keys to my enjoying a salad are that they need to have more than just leaves and few salad veggies in them. I like them to have crunch and softness. Tangy, tart and sweet notes. Proteins, diary, nuts and or seeds and a wide variety of veggies and leaves. I don't like them to be drenched in mayo or oil and I'm not crazy about balsamic vinegar. I hate raisins in my salad and am iffy about fruit in a salad. And I don't like eating salad when its cold outside. But besides that...

I now eat a lot of salad and am always looking out for new and interesting ones. A dear friend and very talented cook made a salad for me a while ago which I just couldn't get enough of. I have been dying to try to recreate it using the guide lines she gave me. I'm not sure if I properly did it justice but this recipe is as close as I could get. 

Caramelised baby onion and lentil salad

Serves 4

10 pickling onions or shallots, trimmed and peeled

1 Tbsp of olive oil

½ tsp of salt

2 Tbsp of balsamic vinegar

2 tsp of sugar

1 tin of lentils, well washed and drained

1 tsp of lemon zest

2 Tbsp of lemon juice

2 Tbsp of chopped fresh herbs (thyme, oreganum, parsley, basil)

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp of sugar

¼ tsp of salt (or to taste)

125g of baby rosa tomatoes, halved 

2 handfuls of baby spinach, well washed

1/2 a cup of crumbled feta

Reserve some tomatoes and herbs for garnish

In a sauce pan gently fry the onions in the oil, adding dashes of water from time to time. Keep a lid on the pot, but slightly open a crack. After about 10 – 15 minutes depending on the size of the onions, add the seasoning and vinegar and fry until the sauce has thickened. Turn off the heat and leave with the lid on.

While frying the onions, combine all the lentil ingredients. Once the onions have cooled, add them to the lentils and refrigerate until well cooled.

To serve, arrange the spinach on a platter, scatter with the lentil onion mixture and garnish with the feta, tomato and herbs.

Chicken Piccata

This is not a new recipe. I blogged about it about three years ago first but I have so many new followers now and it is such a winner of a recipe I felt I just had to share it again. I have taught this recipe in my classes so many times and it is such a success every time. 

I have refined the recipe a little since then and created a flour free version of it too which it just as tasty. So I will share both versions below. 

It is particularly important to the success of this recipe to use a meat mallet to tenderise the chicken breasts. To read more about this, click here.


Chicken Piccata
Serves 4 
4 chicken breast, tenderised
¼ cup of white flour
½ tsp of salt
Seasoning of your choice (I used a pinch of coriander, cumin, turmeric and chilli powder)
1 Tbsp olive oil 
1 Tbsp of butter
1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 tsp of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
½ a cup of sherry (or white wine with 1 Tbsp of sugar)
1 cup of chicken stock
1 tsp of lemon zest
3 Tbsp of lemon juice
2 Tbsp of brown sugar
2 Tbsp of capers
1 tsp of whole grain mustard
2 Tbsp Italian parsley, finely chopped

Mix up the flour, salt and seasoning. Heat half the oil in a large non stick pan to medium high heat. Coat your tenderised chicken breasts with the flour and fry them until just browning on each side (2 minutes per side max). Add extra oil as needed. Set aside the chicken. 

If there is any burned flour in your pan, clean it out, if not add the butter to the same pan and once it has melted, add the onions and garlic and fry for a minute or two until they turn glassy. Add the sherry, stock, lemon zest and juice, capers, mustard and sugar. Allow this to simmer and reduce by about a 1/3. Then add the chicken breasts and parsley to the sauce and simmer until heated through.   

If making this ahead of time. Leave the chicken and sauce separate until ready for use. Then heat the sauce, add the chicken and parsley, and simmer until the chicken is heated through. 

For garnish add lemon slices and extra capers like you can see in the picture.



Chicken Piccata (flour free)
Serves 4 

1 Tbsp of olive oil
½ tsp of salt
¼ tsp of pepper
1 tsp of fresh herbs, finely chopped
Seasoning of your choice (I used a pinch of coriander, cumin, turmeric and chilli powder)
4 chicken breasts, tenderised 
2 Tbsp butter
1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 tsp garlic, peeled and finely chopped
½ a cup of sherry (or white wine with 1 Tbsp of sugar)
1 cup of strong chicken stock
1 tsp of lemon zest
3 Tbsp of lemon juice  
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp of capers
2 tsp of whole grain mustard
1 Tbsp Italian parsley, finely chopped 

Combine half the oil and all the seasoning. Heat the other half of the oil in a large pan to medium high heat.  Cover the chicken breasts with the seasoning and fry them until browning on each side (2 minutes per side max). Set aside the chicken. 

Add the butter to the same pan and once it has melted add the onions and garlic and fry for a few minutes until they turn glassy. Then add the sherry, stock, lemon zest and juice, capers, mustard and sugar. Allow this to simmer and reduce the sauce by ½, then add the chicken breasts and parsley to the sauce and simmer for a further minute.  

For garnish add lemon slices and extra capers like you can see in the picture.

Grilled kingklip with Mediterranean veg

I was craving grilled fish yesterday and spotted some lovely fresh kingklip. I had my nieces coming over for a quick lunch before their extra maths class; so I thought I'd throw together something fresh, quick and light for us. It turned out so well. 

This is a perfect one pot wonder for a quick meal but you can also add a starch and salad on the side to bulk it out. We ate it just like that and it was perfectly filling and so satisfying. 

I also think it looks really appealing, which would make it great for entertaining. 

Grilled kingklip with Mediterranean veg

Serves 4

4 x 150g medallions of firm white fish (like kingklip)

8 baby marrows, trimmed, halved lengthways and width ways

1 yellow pepper, seeded and cut into chunks

125g of baby tomatoes

4 pickling onions (or shallots), trimmed, peeled and cut into wedges

2 Tbsp of capers

12 black olives, pitted and halved

2 large cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

1 Tbsp of olive oil

1 tsp of salt

½ tsp of black pepper

¼ cup of fresh herbs (basil, thyme, oreganum and/or basil)

½ tsp of lemon zest

1 Tbsp of lemon juice, freshly squeezed

Pre-heat your oven on grill, fan and maximum heat. Place the rack in the middle of the oven.

In a casserole dish, large enough so that the fish and veggies don’t overlap, place the fish evenly spaced and scatter the veggies, capers, olives and garlic in between the fish. I have olive oil in a little spray bottle and I spray the veggies and fish with a thin layer of good olive oil. If you don’t have a spray bottle, drizzle the oil and make sure the fish is well rubbed with it. Then sprinkle the dish with the salt (more salt on the fish than the veggies) and black pepper. And grill for 10 – 12 minutes, depending on how thick the fish is. The fish must be barely cooked and the veggies starting to blacken on the edges. Turn off the heat and leave the dish in the oven for a further 5 minutes or so. Leave for 5 minutes out the oven before serving.

Just before serving, drizzle the fish with the lemon zest and juice and sprinkle the whole dish with the fresh herbs. 

Thai salad parcels

It must be at least 20 years since I first discovered Thai salad parcels at Wang Thai. Our family quickly made up their own version of the dish and have been making it with relish ever since. About two weeks ago for date night I rustled this one up for Adam and I. 

I bought three heads of iceberg lettuce and stripped the outer leaves away leaving just the smaller bowl shaped tender and crispy inner leaves. I keep the large outer leaves to use in a regular salad, but the inner leaves make the perfect 'bowl' to gather the filling and sauce in. 

The fillings in this case were - salted peanuts, toasted coconut, chopped ginger, chopped garlic, chopped fresh chilli, chopped lemon peel and chopped lemon segments. The sauce was a combination of soya sauce and honey (I don't like it too sweet, so only a dash of honey for me). I would usually add a little fish sauce too, but Adam doesn't eat fish so I left that out. 

The combination of flavours is so refreshing and exhilarating. It makes for a perfect light meal or starter, leaving your senses peeked and your tummy satisfied. If you think it looks weird, trust me - I have never served this to anyone who hasn't been wowed by it. You get to choose what and how much of anything to put into your salad wrapper so each person can tailor-make it suit their taste. 

Sensible satisfying snacks

I love to snack. I need to snack. I'm not a carrots or apple kind of snacker either, so now that I am trying to be all low-fat, low-carb its making it pretty hard to find satisfying snacks. 

These two have really hit the spot though. The first one is fat free cottage cheese mixed up with my spicy seed mix, scooped up with crunchy veggie sticks. Totally addictive and you don't feel like your compromising at all. 

The second is for my sweet tooth moments; which is fat-free yogurt with vanilla and almond essence, ground almonds and my artificial sweetening of choice. I sometimes even grate in some candarel chocolate to give it a chocolaty boost, but try not to do this too often.

Both are perfect to have pre-made in the fridge, so that when the snack attack comes around, it's an easy fix rather than chips or biscuits. 

One doesn't really need a recipe for these since they are so nice to mix and match and improvise with; and can be made to suit your needs best. But if you need a guide line to get started, or a plan to get your housekeeper to make them and leave them in the fridge for you, here goes:

Cottage cheese dips with veggie sticks

½ cup of mixed seeds

½ tsp of sesame oil

¼ tsp of salt (or to taste)

¼ tsp of cumin

¼ tsp of garam marsala

¼ tsp of turmeric

A pinch of smoked paprika

A pinch of chilli powder

250g tub of fat free chunky cottage cheese 

Extra salt to taste

Cucumber, carrots and peppers

In small pan on medium heat start to fry the seeds with sesame oil and spices until the seeds start to roast and make popping sounds.

Once the seeds have cooled combine them in a larger tupperware with the cottage cheese and extra salt to taste.

Cut up the veggies into sticks about 5 – 8 cm long and about 2 cm wide. Keeping them wide makes it easier to scoop up the crumbly cottage cheese. Store in a tupperware in the fridge.

Vanilla almond yogurt

2 cups of fat free plain yogurt

½ cup of ground almonds

½ tsp of vanilla essence

¼ tsp of almond essence (or less if you’re not crazy about the taste of marzipan)

Sweetener of choice (I like to use my home made xylitol stevia blend)

Combine all of the above. Add as much sweetness as you like. Store in a sealed Tupperware in the fridge.

I sometimes add grated candarel chocolate which adds that extra bit of almost guilt free decadence. 

Cauliflower wraps with cheesy bean mash and salad

I'm on a health kick and will be till I shed these 4kgs which sneaked up on me. I like eating too much to restrict myself to small portions of boring bland food. So I have been trying really hard to get as creative as possible around low-carb, high-protein, high raw-veg food and yesterday I totally nailed it. 

I read about these cauliflower wraps on Roost, a favourite blog of mine, months ago and only got round to trying them yesterday. I followed the recipe for the wraps exactly but I added a few drops of sesame oil (because I love the roasted flavour it adds) and some a black pepper. I was doubtful about how they would turn out as the batter was so runny; but they set perfectly. I added some colour by grilling them on high heat for a few minutes at the end. The resulting wraps are still quite tender and you need to eat them carefully to avoid tearing. They taste delicious and have an unusual but appealing texture. 

You can use these to add any of your favourite fillings to. I added a filling of a cheesy bean mash, salad veggies and leaves and drizzled them with yogurt. The wraps are baked, the cheese in my bean mash was fat reduced and the yogurt was fat free but the wraps were bursting with flavour and had a richness which belied their low fat nature. 

Cauliflower wraps with bean mash and salad

Makes 4 wraps

For the wraps

3 cups of cauliflower, pulsed in a blender till it forms a rice like consistency

1 large egg

4 large egg whites

½ tsp of salt

¼ tsp of sesame oil

¼ tsp of black pepper, freshly ground

Pre heat the oven to 200°C. Line two baking sheets with baking paper.

Boil the cauliflower rice for a few minutes until just cooked. Drain it in a sieve and allow it cool a little. With a spatula press the cauliflower to the sides of sieve to release more water. Alternativly place the cook cauliflower in a kitchen towel and squeeze the excess water out.

Combine the cauliflower with the remaining ingredients. With a soup ladle spoon the mixture into four piles, on the two baking sheets. Two wraps per baking sheet. With the back of the spoon spread the mixture out into large flat circles.

Bake the wraps for 10 – 15 minutes until set. Grill for a few minutes until the top wraps start to turn golden. Remove that sheet and grill the second sheet of wraps until golden. Allow the wraps to cool before peeling them off the baking paper.

For the cheesy bean mash

2 cups of cooked beans of choice, drained and well rinsed

½ a cup of water (more if needed)

4 Tbsp of red pesto (I used pesto princess)

1 tsp of chilli sauce, use your favourite

½ tsp of cumin

½ tsp of smoked paprika

½ cup of fat reduced feta, crumbled

½ cup of fat reduced mozzarella, grated

Salt to taste

In small pot or sauce pan heat up the beans and water and mash with a potato masher until it forms a rough paste. Add all the remaining ingredients and stir on medium heat until the cheese has just melted.  

For the salad filling

1 cup of mini tomatoes, halved

¼ cucumber, cut into sticks

½ a pepper, cut into sticks

1 handful of baby salad leaves

Fat free yogurt, to drizzle

Arrange the wraps on large plates and fill with bean mash, salad veggies and drizzle with the yogurt, like in the picture. With clean hands fold over the sides of the wrap and eat. Have plenty of napkins available for your hands!