Meaty samp and bean stew

My husband has been travelling a lot recently, leaving me aaaall alooooone at home... poor me! 

I try to make the best of it. I watch all the chick flicks and series I need to catch up on. I have girly suppers with lots of giggling and silliness. And I eat meat. Lots of meat! My husband is a full vegetarian so I only have meat in the house if I am catering or when he's away. 

The one meaty dish I made recently is a dish I have loved since childhood: Samp and beans! I have taught my housekeeper to make a delicious vegetarian version which is the one we always eat. But while my husband was away, I thought it was time to make a hearty meaty samp and bean stew. 

It was delicious! Add to it a quick chopped salad and its a fabulously balanced, healthy and economical meal too. 

Samp and beans
Serves 6 - 8 (it freezes beautifully)

2 cups of dried samp and beans
1 cup of sugar beans
2 Tbsp of oil
2 large onions, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
500g beef shin off the bone, diced
1.5 liters of boiling water
2 oxtail stock cubes, crumbled 
2 tsp of smoked paprika
2 tsp of mild curry powder
1 Tbsp of soya sacue
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
2 cups of grated carrot
Salt and pepper to taste

Soak the samp and beans in water over-night or for a few hours. You can cook them from dry but it will just take longer and you will need to add more water to the recipe. 

In a medium sized heavy bottomed pot with a lid, fry the onion and garlic in the oil. Add the beef and fry for a few minutes. Add the water and stock cubes. Drain and add the samp and beans.

Add all the remaining ingredients except the salt a and sugar. Simmer for at least 2 hours, with the lid on stirring from time to time, until the beef and beans are soft and the sauce has formed a thick gravy. Season with salt and sugar to taste and allow this to simmer for a further half an hour or so until the flavors are fully combined. 

Serve with a chopped salad of your choice.

The yummiest stew I've ever eaten!

On Friday night I was invited to have dinner at the home of one of my oldest and dearest friends, Danielle Raubenheimer. She is an outstanding cook and hostess, so I knew I would be in for a treat. The meal she made blew my socks off so much I simply had to get her to share it with you. So over to Danielle.  

"Given the plummeting temperatures and my lack of villa in Ibiza, I felt something comforting and nostalgic was in order to lift the winter blues.  My Ouma's Tomato Bredie (lamb and tomato stew for you Englse out there) has been on my mind and I wanted to set about perfecting the recipe which I have only received by word of mouth from various family members. With the below recipe I think I may have nailed it. Memory lane, in a plate. 

I suggest cooking it the day before you intend on eating it. It gets better with gentle maturing.

Apart from adding your cardiologist on speed-dial and making sure your extractor fan is working, you will need the following:

Hardware:

1 x spatter shield

1 x Large stewing pot

Tongs

Wooden spoon

Ingredients:

1 bottle of good, dry, white wine. One glass is for you to drink whilst following the recipe. I suggest you do that first ;-) Use 2.5 cups of the wine in the bredie.

2 Tbsp of vegetable oil

1,5 kgs of lamb knuckle chunks (you can use lamb neck too)

1 tin of chopped and peeled tomatoes (400g)

1 tin of tomato paste (70g)

2 tsp Mixed Italian herbs

1 tsp Aromat

Half a tsp Cayenne pepper

1 tsp of Black pepper

Half a tsp Salt

5 tsp of Sugar

2 tsp Nomu lamb stock

2 peeled and diced potatoes (3cm x 3cm approximately)  

Method:

THE NIGHT BEFORE:

Heat the oil on medium high heat in your stewing pot. Brown the lamb in batches, ensuring that you don't over crowd the pot. Fry for about 1.5 - 2 minutes on each side or until nicely browned all over. Keep your browned meat on plate toy our side while you continue browning the next batches.

This is where your spatter shield and extractor fan will come in handy!

Then combine the meat, can of tomatoes, tomato paste and wine in your stewing pot and simmer with the lid off for 15 mins, this will allow the alcohol to cook off.

Add one cup of water, the Italian herbs, aromat, cayenne pepper, black pepper, salt and sugar and simmer cook on low heat (it must bubble slightly)  for 1 and a half hours or so, with the lid on but slightly askew to release the steam.

You can switch the stove off, secure the lid and call it a night. Leave the pot standing overnight. By this stage the stew should already be going a rich reddy-brown colour and the smells should start making you salivate ;-)

THE NEXT DAY:

Start heating the stew up about an 1 hour and 45 minutes before you want to eat. I use a medium to low heat and add another 2 cups of water plus the lamb stock. The goal here is to have a thick rich stew with not too many flavours. The character the lamb takes on is flavour enough.

Add the potatoes half an hour or so before serving. Keep an eye out for any burning at this point as the gravy should be thick and sticky by now!

I like to serve my bredie with basmati rice and a sprinkling of fresh, flat leaf parsley. 

Enjoy!"

My take on sugar and it's substitutes

Sugar as well as sugar substitutes are a thorny topic in health conscious circles. There is plenty of reading to be done with arguments, debates, scientific evidence, personal testimonies; all with differing opinions on whether they are good or bad for you and in what quantities. 

So as with most things I follow my guiding principle of 'all things in moderation'. 

I don't have a huge sweet tooth but when I get a craving I like to indulge it properly. I would find it hard to live without cheese cake, ice cream or good quality chocolate from time to time. I try not to over do it (not always successfully) and in between I use sugar substitutes like xylitol and stevia. 

I am not a fan of the taste of either of them though. Xylitol has an empty metallic taste and stevia is sooo intense and has a mild licorice taste. I have however found the perfect solution. 

Mixing xylitol and stevia together in the ratio of 1 cup of xylitol to 1 tsp of pure stevia powder, compliment each other perfectly. I find the taste really pleasant. In fact I ran out of the mixture and for a week I have been using regular sugar in my morning coffee. Yesterday I made up a fresh batch of my xylitol stevia mix and much preferred the taste in my coffee this morning.

My husband who is a sugar fiend and hates sugar substitutes also really likes this combination. He uses it willing and asks for it when it runs out. We do however use it moderately and I also only buy the GMO free Xylitol.  

Luscious lamb chops

I have recently been craving lamb chops. This is not normal for me. Most of my life I couldn't have cared less for lamb chops. But this, I realise, is because most of my life I have been exposed to appallingly cooked chops. 

In my past most chops have either not been seasoned at all or been overly seasoned in some one size fits all braai marinade which over powers the subtle flavours of the lamb. The chops are then either cremated, the fat burned and the meat tough and tasteless. Or even worse, they are slowly cooked until grey with soft white gelatinous fat. Shudder. 

But then from time to time you come across a chop, delicately marinaded, grilled until the fat starts to caramelise and the meat it browned but still pink inside. Soft and juicy meat, crisp and creamy fat. Paired with a baked potato and fresh zesty salad; any red blooded person would go weak at the knees. 

So here is my take on how to do the perfect chop. I encourage suggestions and improvements as this is going to be a lifelong love affair for me. 

Lamb chops in rosemary and red wine

Serves 2

½ a cup of good red wine

1 Tbsp of fresh rosemary leaves, roughly chopped

1 tsp of crushed garlic

1 tsp of lemon zest

1 tsp of dijon mustard

2 Tbsp of freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 tsp of sugar

1 tsp of salt

½ tsp of black pepper

500g of best quality lamb chops you can find

Add all the marinade ingredients into a zip lock bag. Mix them around in the bag until well combined. Add the lamb chops to the bag. Squeeze out the air and seal the zip lock. Arrange the chops until they are lying flat and covered with marinade. Tuck any extra length of bag underneath the chops. Allow the chops to marinade for at least 4 hours up to 24 hours in the fridge. 

When you are ready to use the chops, make sure all the side dishes you are planning to serve have been prepared. Preheat the oven on grill and fan and place the rack at the top of the oven.

Pour the marinade into a sauce pan and start to simmer it on medium high heat to reduce this to a sauce. Place the chops into a roasting pan and once the oven is as hot as it can go slip the chops under the grill. The length of time to grill them differs depending on how hot your oven can go and how thick the chops are. I grill mine for about 4 - 5 minutes until the fat is caramelised and meat has browned. Then I flip the chops and grill them for a further 2 minutes or so, again until the fat has just caramelised. 

It is vital to rest the meat once you take it out the oven. I like to rest my chops uncovered as I don’t want the steam to soften the crispy bits. But if it is very cold in the kitchen you can cover them with foil until ready to serve. I like to rest my chops for a good 5 - 8 minutes before serving. I usually plate up my side dishes and finish off my sauce while waiting for my meat. The sauce should have reduced to a thickish syrup. I like to add extra sugar, salt and sometimes a dash of cream to balance the flavours in the sauce. 

Then tuck in and enjoy immediately! 

Dairy-free (or not) creamed spinach

I love creamed spinach. It is the perfect creamy savory heavenly comfort food veg. It is both old fashioned and timeless. In South Africa if you order a meal which comes with hot veg of the day, you are more than likely going to get creamed spinach and butternut mash. It's something we have grown up with and love (or hate). 

That said until a few months ago I had never made it at home. I read up about it online and was surprised to find that one needs to cook it for a good 30 - 45 minutes. I had thought that a leafy veg would become soft in minutes. After testing this out for myself (as I am not a fan of veggies cooked to death) I found that it really is necessary to cook it for that long. That is, if you want it to be melt in your mouth soft and creamy. 

Before I give you the recipe I feel it is necessary to bring up something I am always surprised so few people know: the difference between spinach and Swiss chard. The spinach I grew up with in South Africa is a big dark green curly leaf with a thick white stem running up the center. Well it's not, it's actually called Swiss chard. 

The leaves which later hit our shelves called baby leaf spinach or English spinach are actually real spinach. Real spinach is a small bright green oval leaf and has no white stem growing through the leaf. If you are confused - go to google images and search for Swiss chard and then search for spinach. You will quickly see the difference.  

The relevance of this differentiation is twofold for my recipe for creamed spinach. In preparing Swiss chard for cooking, you need to wash it even more thoroughly as the curly leaves trap more dirt than flat spinach leaves. You also then need to trim the white stems out of the leaves and chop these finely, so that they are not stringy and tough.

In cooking Swiss chard, because of its tougher leaf, it needs to be cooked longer than spinach before it becomes tender and creamy. So be aware of this before tackling any recipe including spinach when you are in fact using Swiss chard. 

Creamed spinach

Serves 4 side portions

600g of chopped spinach, well washed

1 Tbsp of olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 cup of coconut cream (or regular cream)

½ tsp of salt (or to taste)

black pepper, to taste

nutmeg, to taste

Wash your spinach really really well and drain it. In a large pot dry fry the still wet spinach till it is soft and reduced. Drain and rinse it in a colander with cold water. Then squeeze the spinach between your hands, squeezing as much moisture out as you can. Chop it roughly.

In a medium sized pot fry the onions in the oil until soft. Add the spinach and simmer for a minute or two. Add the coconut cream and turn the heat down to a low simmer.

Leave the lid off the pot and let the spinach simmer for about 30 minutes stirring from time to time until the spinach is soft and creamy and the cream has thickened. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. A tiny dash of soya sauce can also add a bit of depth but is totally optional.  

This is a great side veg for meat and also lovely for breakfast on toast topped with a poached egg. One of my favourite veggie meals is mashed potato with creamed spinach topped with pouched eggs. Super yum.

Sugar-free granola and going organic.

For quite some time now I have been erring towards organic products where it has been convenient and easy to do. But since last week, while being caught up in all the Monsanto protests, we have decided to go as organic as it is possible for us be. We get our weekly veggie box from Ethical Co-op and add selected products from their website to bulk up our order. 

I get a lot of my organic grains, nuts, dried fruits and seeds from Komati Foods which is just round the corner from me. They have an online shop too but the selection is much bigger in store. It really is worth popping in every month or two to stock up, even if you don't live in the area. The prices and selection are good. 

Some of the larger Woolies stores have a fabulous organic selection of fresh and dried goods. I buy their organic dairy products and eggs and they have a nice selection of organic dry, tinned and bottled pantry items. I love their organic veggies as they are so picture perfect and beautifully packaged but I need to keep and eye on budget too. So I mostly stick to my Ethical co-op veggie boxes. 

In the picture above was the organic breakfast I made myself yesterday. I had some lovely yogurt and banana's but no granola to give it sweetness and crunch. But I did have most of the basic ingredients in my pantry. So this is what happened. 

Organic sugar-free wheat-free granola

2 cups of organic whole rolled spelt (rolled oats would be great too)
1 tsp of vanilla essence
a few drops of almond essence
a pinch of salt
2 Tbsp of xylitol stevia blend (I mix about 1 - 2% of stevia powder to my xylitol)
1/4 cup of flaked almonds
1/2 a cup of organic flaked coconut
1 tbsp of organic cold pressed coconut oil
6 dates chopped into little pieces

In a large non stick pan on medium heat dry toast the spelt for a few minutes until hot. Add the vanilla, almond essence, salt and xylitol to it while tossing and toasting continually. Add the almonds, coconut and coconut oil and combine. While allowing this to slowly toast and crisp up, I chopped up some organic dates into very small pieces. Once the granola was toasted and crisp I allowed it to cool a little before adding the dates and tossing them around with my finger tips breaking them up into bits until the spelt and coconut coated the dates and stopped them from sticking to each other. 

This I sprinkled onto my yogurt and banana and felt very virtuous while eating it. 

Aubergine concoction with a story

When I say story, it's less of a 'once upon a time' and more of 'a Frenchman an Indian and a South African meet in a bar' kind of story. My favourite dish for my mom to make for me when I'm feeling the need for comfort food has always been a dish we called Eggs Milanese. I found out that it is actually called eggs Provencal and the way we've been making is not strictly speaking the traditional way either. This was all very confusing as the more traditional version has aubergines and peppers in it and even sometime courgettes, which sounds more like ratatouille to me. 

I also make a much loved Indian dish, called Aubergine Masala which in the end is closer to the recipe for eggs Provencal than my mom's dish ever was. So if this is all very confusing for you, suffice it to say - I have chucked all the traditions out and made up my own recipe taking the elements I like most from these recipes, putting them together into one super comfort food meal which just rocks my world. 

I have made it at least five times this year already and am still in the process of perfecting it, but here is the recipe as it stands now. It is so yum. Trust me. 

Masala Provencal Eggs a la Thekla

Serves 6

2 Tbsp of olive oil

2 medium onions, roughly chopped

2 medium aubergines, (about 600g – 700g) diced

1 tsp of salt

4 tsp of chopped garlic

2 tsp of garam marsala

2 tsp of paprika

1 tsp of turmeric

1 tsp of ground coriander

1 tsp of chilli powder (optional)

2 tins of chopped tomatoes

100ml of tomato puree

1 Tbsp of Herbs de Provence

(or a combo of marjoram, thyme, basil, sage, rosemary)

2 Tbsp of sugar, or to taste

2 green, yellow or orange peppers, cut into chunks

Salt and pepper to taste

In a medium sized pot fry the onions and aubergines in the oil with the salt. If it starts to stick and dry out, add a dash of water as needed to remove any bits that are sticking and encourage the softening of the veggies.

When they start to soften, in about 10 minutes or so, add the spices and fry for a minute. Add the tomatoes and herbs and simmer until the aubergines and onions are soft and the sauce has become a thick gravy, about half an hour. Add sugar to taste, then add the peppers.

You can switch off the stove, put on the lid and leave the stew for 30 minutes before serving. The heat in the pot will cook the peppers. Or you can carry on simmering the stew for about 10 minutes until the peppers are cooked but still firm. Check seasoning and serve.

This dish is great for breakfast served with poached eggs and whole wheat toast. It also makes a great main meal served with rice and salad, or my personal favourite, served on a bed of creamy mashed potato with soft boiled eggs.

For the mash

4 large potatoes, peeled and diced

1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced

50g of butter or coconut oil (optional)

¾ cup of regular milk or coconut milk (more if needed)

1 Tbsp of smooth Dijon mustard

1 tsp of salt (or to taste)

Boil the potatoes until just done. Pour off the hot water from the potatoes and mash them with the butter until fluffy with no lumps. Add the milk, salt and mustard and mash until smooth and creamy.