Nectarine Parcels

Phew, last post, last minute! Thank you LadyRaven for hosting the Ready Steady Cook! challenge, it definitely was a challenge to finish it all on time (due to my laziness...), but it was a learning experience.



This dessert is quick and dirty, no measuring of ingredients, just add to taste..!

Nectarine Parcels

• Nectarines, cut into slivers
  
• Butter
  
• Sugar
  
• Cinnamon
  
• Mixed Spice
  
• Lemon Zest
  
• Phyllo Pastry
  

1. Melt the butter and sugar in a pan. Add the nectarines and cook for about 10 minutes.
   
2. Add the spices and lemon zest, cook for a few minutes more and remove from heat.
   
3. Cut phyllo pastry into 10cm wide strips. Place about 5 strips on top of each other.
   
4. Place some nectarines on one of the corner areas. Fold the corner over to the opposite side to form a triangle. Keep on folding triangles until you have reached the end of the strip. Brush the edge with butter to seal the triangle.
   
5. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius until the pastry is golden brown.
   

Filled Red Pepper with Hollandaise Sauce

In my mind the 15th of September was on a Friday (I soon realised that it was actually a Wednesday). This date is significant because it is the deadline for entries for the Ready Steady Cook! challenge. Why did I fly into a panic when I realised that the 15th of September was tomorrow? It is because up until that point I had only finished my starter entry. This blog post will probably hold the record for the fastest turnover time between cooking and blogging, there's nothing like a deadline to get me moving!



I had my reservations about how successful this course would be, but the pronounced silence when my boyfriend started eating soon quelled any fears I had! This is the first time that I have made hollandaise sauce, despite my fears of ending up with pieces of lumpy egg it came out great; smooth, creamy, lemony and oh so tasty!

Check out my first post to see what this Ready Steady Cook is all about: Red Pepper Walnut Dip with Naan Bread


Hollandaise Sauce

• 3 egg yolks
  
• 150ml butter
  
• Juice of 1-1.5 lemons
  
• Salt to taste
  

1. Place egg yolks, salt and lemon juice in a blender. Blend for 1 minute.
   
2. Heat butter until very hot (the butter is going to cook the eggs).
   
3. With the blender running very slowly pour in the butter.
   
4. Continue blending for about a minute, then it's done!
   

Couscous and Broccoli filled Red Pepper with Chickpeas
Serves 2

• 1 Large Red Pepper
  
• 3/4 cup Couscous, uncooked
  
• 0.5 Broccoli head
  
• 0.5 tin Chickpeas, drained
  
• 2 teaspoons Cumin
  

1. Cut red pepper in half, place on a baking tray and bake for 20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius or until soft.
   
2. Meanwhile heat a splash of oil in a pan. Add cumin and fry for a minute. Add the couscous and fry for 5 minutes.
   
3. Prepare the couscous according to the instructions on the packet.
   
4. Steam broccoli until just cooked.
   
5. Assemble and serve with the hollandaise sauce!
   

Red Pepper Walnut Dip with Naan Bread

This is my starter course for the Ready Steady Cook! challenge hosted by LadyRaven from Add To Taste. How does this challenge work? Each blogger thinks up a list of 7 ingredients for another participating blogger. You have to create a 3 course meal with your ingredients as well as the allowed pantry ingredients. I got assigned the following ingredients from Ayeesha from Taste of Pearl City:

• Couscous
• Chickpeas
• Red Pepper
  
• Broccoli
  
• Walnuts
  
• Filo pastry
  
• Nectarines
  

So first thing I thought when I saw the chickpeas was "Yay, hummus!", but then I realised that tahini isn't one of the pantry ingredients, boo. "But wait", I thought, "tahini adds a nutty taste and I've got nuts man, walnuts!". So the hummus was back on, although I'll rather go with calling it a dip as it is rapidly straying from traditional hummus territory.

I decided to serve it with naan bread because I've wanted to try my hand at making it for a while now. Alas, another obstacle was in my way, after making the naan and taking photos I realised that I had used *gasp* a disallowed ingredient! Since baking powder isn't one of the pantry ingredients, I made the recipe again with self raising flour instead of bread flour and I am happy to say that it came out just as well. So with a clean conscience I can now present the recipes for Red Pepper Walnut Dip with Naan Bread!



Red Pepper Walnut Dip

• 1 can of Chickpeas, drained
  
• 1 large Red Pepper
  
• 50g Walnuts
  
• 2-3 Garlic Cloves
  
• Juice of 1 Lemon
  
• Salt, Pepper and Cumin to taste
  

1. Cut the red pepper into segments, roast in the oven until soft and cooked.
   
2. Roast walnuts under the oven grill for a few minutes.
   
3. Put the walnuts in a blender, blend until fine.
   
4. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth. Extra oil can be added if the mixture is too firm.
   

Naan Bread
Makes about 10 thin breads

• 3,5 cups Self Raising Flour
  
• 1.5 Tablespoon Sugar
  
• 2 Teaspoons Salt
  
• 1 cup Milk, warmed
  
• 60ml Oil
  
• Melted butter for brushing the dough (keep for later)
  

Note: If using bread flour, add 1 teaspoon baking powder.

1. Mix the dry ingredients together.
   
2. Add the wet ingredients and knead for 10 minutes.
   
3. Cover the dough and leave to rise for 1 hour.
   
4. Break off golf ball size pieces and roll out very thin into elongated oval shapes (some refer to this as teardrop shaped).
   
5. Brush the dough with melted butter and bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for about 2 minutes or until golden brown.
   

Gingered Turkish Apricot and Camembert Tart

Fairview has recently launched a competition for food bloggers to create a recipe with Fairview Camembert; this is my entry!

I got a couple of recipe ideas from browsing the Internet but in the end this tart was wholly my brain child. I first tried to make little individual pies but it didn't look (or taste!) as good as this open tart.


The final product was pretty damn tasty if I say so myself. The sweetness of the baked apricots go well with the creaminess of the cheese, the ginger biscuits add a nice spicy crunch while the honey just brings all the flavours together. The tart would make a nice sweet addition to a cheese platter and I am proud to present it for the Fairview Camembert Competition!


If you would like to vote for my recipe, head over to the competition page over here and select number 6 in the poll on the right hand side of the page.


Gingered Turkish Apricot and Camembert Tart
Makes 4 triangles

• 1 15cm x 15cm sheet of Puff Pastry
  
• 10 Turkish Apricots
  
• 0.5 Wheel of Camembert
  
• 4 Ginger Cookies
  
• Honey
  
• 1 egg for brushing the pastry
  

1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius.
   
2. Roll out the puff pastry slightly on a floured surface. Put the pastry dough on a tinfoil lined oven pan.
   
3. With a knife draw a 1cm border around the pastry (be careful not to cut through!).
   
4. Cut the apricot length-wise, pack them so that they overlap slightly on the pastry within the border.
   
5. Place about 1cm thick slices of Camembert on top of the apricots.
   
6. Brush the pastry border with beaten egg and bake for 25 minutes.
   
7. Break the ginger cookies into small pieces and sprinkle over the tart after it has been in the oven for 25 minutes.
   
8. Place the tart back into the oven and grill it for a few minutes. (Keep your eyes on the tart in this step, it burns very quickly!)
   
9. Generously drizzle honey over the tart, cut into triangles and serve.
   

My cheese slices in the photos were a bit thin, I corrected it in the recipe.

Sticky Balsamic Reduction Tomato Relish

The first time I heard of Verlaque was at the South African Food Bloggers Conference earlier this year where I received one of their products in my goody bag. I've posted about using Verlaque products on my blog before(Rasberry Balsamic Roasted Butternut) and I will probably post again, but today is a special post. Verlaque is having a competition to see who can come up with the tastiest original recipe using one of the products from the "Balsamic Reduction" range.


I came up with this tomato relish just a few days before the challenge was posted (just in time). I was having dinner at my mother's house, we planned on making salad but when we got home from the shop the baby tomatoes we bought were so bland and flavourless that they just wouldn't cut it in a salad. And so my recipe was born...

My mother was very sceptical when she saw how much balsamic vinegar I added to the tomatoes but after she tasted it she was an instant fan! She even got all enthusiastic about buying salad stuff for when I made the relish again with the Verlaque Balsamic Reduction!


Enough about my family, by now you must be wondering what flavour I used? Originally I wanted to use the Fynbos/Wild Flower Honey Balsamic Reduction but unfortunately I couldn't find any in the Woolworths stores near my home. Second choice was the Sundried Turkish Figs Balsamic Reduction which I luckily did find in store (but in all honesty, I think you can use any flavour that tickles your fancy). The fig flavour turned out pretty tasty, especially when I served it with blue cheese and glazed figs on some rocket leaves. The tomato relish would also work nicely on some bread, perhaps with some cheese and...let me rather stop there and let your imagination dream up the ideal accompaniment to this tomato concoction!


Sticky Balsamic Reduction Tomato Relish
Serves 2 as a salad topping

• 17 Baby Tomatoes (more or less)
  
• 50ml Balsamic Vinegar
  
• 25ml Verlaque Sundried Turkish Figs Balsamic Reduction
  
• 25ml Chutney
  
• Salt and Pepper to taste
  

1. Cut the tomatoes in half, place cut side down in a pan.
   
2. Mix the rest of the ingredients together and pour over the tomatoes.
   
3. Simmer on a medium heat. Don't stir the tomatoes while cooking, just move them around from time to time so that they don't stick to your pan and that they stay intact. Your relish is done when the tomatoes are cooked through and the sauce had become nice and sticky.
   

Meaty Slow Cooker Bean Soup

I made this bean soup for a challenge at the Kleine Zalze For The Love Of Wine website. The soup is very economical, the beans and the eisbein cost me about R40 and the soup was enough for 8 hungry students!

Meaty Bean Slow cooker Soup
Serves 8 hungry male students

• 2 Packets Red Speckled Sugar Beans
  
• 1 Smoked Eisbein
  
• 2 Mutton Stock Cubes
  

1. Put the beans in a pot. Add water to the pot until the beans are covered with at least 5cm of water. Soak overnight.
   
2. Drain the beans and put them in a slow cooker with the eisbein.
   
3. Add enough water to cover the beans and the eisbein.
   
4. Put the slow cooker on auto and let it cook for at least 8 hours.
   
5. When the beans are soft add the stock cubes and salt to taste. At this stage I like to mash some beans so that the soup becomes a bit thicker.
   
6. Remove the eisbein bone from the soup and serve.
   

Homemade Chive and Peppadew Cheese: JessiKaas!

Homemade cheese! And it tastes good! I feel so chuffed with myself! Okay, enough exclamation marks already. Making cheese sounds hard, people look at you in awe upon hearing that the tasty cheese is your own creation but really the process is quite simple; all that you need is a little bit of patience and something heavy. (The patience is for waiting while the milk boils and the curds drain and the heavy object is to compress the curds to get all the whey out.) The cheese has the texture of cream cheese, it is tasty spread on bread and a great conversation topic in a crowd!

For the non-Afrikaans readers, "kaas" is Afrikaans for "cheese", and my name is Jessica so I cleverly combined the two to create JessiKaas! (Creative genius am I right? Right? Yes I'm here all week folks. *ba da dum*)


Homemade Chive and Peppadew Cheese aka JessiKaas
Makes about 1 cup of cheese

• 1 litre Full Cream Milk
  
• 250ml Buttermilk
  
• Chopped Chives to taste
  
• Chopped Peppadews to taste
  
• Salt (plain or flavoured) to taste
  
• Cheesecloth
  

1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until it just starts boiling.
   
2. Remove from the heat and stir in the buttermilk. White clumps should start forming, this is the curds. The liquid is the whey, it should become clearer as more curds form.
   
3. Leave for about 10 minutes for the curds and whey to fully separate.
   
4. Line a colander with cheesecloth and pour in the curds and whey. Rinse the curds with water for a few minutes to remove all of the whey.
   
5. Knot the cheesecloth with the curds and place under a heavy object for an hour. I placed the cheesecloth under a cutting board and weighed it down with a box containing six full wine bottles for this step.
   
6. Remove the curds and place in a mixing bowl. Work the curds (knead) with your hands until the texture changes from rubbery to creamy and smooth. This takes about 5 minutes.
   
7. Add flavoring to taste, place the cheese in an airtight container and refrigerate.