Ashleigh’s hot chocolate

Tonight I invented my own Hot Chocolate recipe… it was delicious!

So here are the ingredients:

• 500ml water (2 cups) boiling water
• 1 tin condensed milk
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder

And here is how you make it:

1. Put all the ingredients on a pot on the stove.
2. Heat to just before boiling point stirring continuously.
3. Pour into mugs.

Serves 2

Recipe: Crumbed Mushrooms

 

So here is the recipe for my crumbed mushrooms:

Ingredients:

• Button or brown mushrooms (quantity of your choice, amounts below are for 3 cups of button mushrooms)
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 egg
• 1 clove garlic
• breadcrumbs

Method:

1. Clean mushrooms well
2. Place in a bag with flour and shake well to cover mushrooms
3. Beat egg and add garlic
4. Add mushrooms to egg.
5. Place mushrooms in a bag with breadcrumbs and shake well.
6. Place on a tray and leave for 30minutes
7. Deep fry until golden brown
8. Serve immediately

Recipe: Chicken and Pumpkin Curry

I’m sorry that I didn’t take a photograph of this dish, but here is the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 50ml Rama (2 tablespoons)
• 2 large onions, sliced
• 10ml garlic, finely chopped (2 teaspoons or one clove)
• 10ml ginger, finely chopped (2 teaspoons)
• 25ml curry powder (1 heaped tablespoon)
• 1 chicken, cut into portions (or 4-6 chicken fillets)
• 2 large tomatoes, chopped
• 750ml pumpkin, peeled and cubed (3 cups… but I used 5-6 cups)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 25ml coriander leaves (optional – I left it out on the night I made this)

Method:

(HINT: Chop and cut everything you need before you start.  You won’t have time to cut the chicken pieces and tomato while the onions fry since you have to keep them moving!)

1. Heat the Rama and fry onions, garlic and ginger for 5 minutes
2. Add curry powder and fry for 1 minute
3. Add chicken pieces, tomatoes, pumpkin, salt and pepper
4. Stir well with a metal spoon
5. Cover pan and cook slowly for 30 minutes
6. Stir in coriander leaves and serve on rice.

Recipe: Apricot Cinnamon Cake

Ingredients:

• 250ml flour (1 cup)
• 5ml baking powder (1 teaspoon)
• 125ml castor sugar (1/2 cup)
• 2 eggs beaten
• 150ml Rama, melted (bit more than 1/2 a cup)
• 1 can apricot halves, drained
• 5ml ground cinnamon (1 teaspoon)
• Apricot jam to glaze

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC (356ºF)
2. Grease a 20cm round cake tin (7.8inch – just find the closes size doesn’t need to be exact)
3. Sift together flour and baking powder then add sugar
4. Add eggs and melted Rama to dry ingredients and beat well
5. Pour into cake tin
6. Place apricots, cut side up, on top of the mixture
7. Sprinkle with ground cinnamon
8. Bake for 40-45 minutes.  Glaze with warm jam.

Shell Noodle Salad

This recipe came from my cousin, Cindy, and is a dish that is made every Christmas.  It is necessary to make it the night before you are planning to serve so that the noodles draw in the flavour overnight.
Ingredients:

• 2 cups shell noodles
• 1 chopped onion
• 1 chopped green pepper
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 2 tablespoons sugar

Instructions:

1. Cook the shell noodles
2. Mix all ingredients together and leave in fridge overnight.
3. Mix again before serving

Potato Bake

Cooking in my oven today is a potato bake.  This is going to be taken to a Bring ‘n Braai at my good friend’s house tonight.  She just moved into a new place and this is the first time she is hosting anything for friends.  So I am taking around this dish to help out, it is a Bring ‘n Braai after all.
Ingredients:

• 5 large potatoes, boiled in their jackets until nearly cooked (increase the number of potatoes if the potatoes are small)
• 250ml ( 1 cup ) cream
• 250ml ( 1 cup ) milk
• 1 tablespoon parsley
• 1 packet of white onion soup
• 250ml ( 1 cup ) grated cheese (cheddar works the best)

Instructions:

1. Peel the potatoes and slice into an ovenproof dish
2. Mix remaining ingredients together, except the cheese
3. Pour over potatoes and sprinkle with cheese
4. Bake at 180C for about 1 hour – the cream will have set and potato bake will be golden brown.

Serve with meat cooked on an outside grill and salads OR with a roast chicken and vegetables.

Star Studded Hake

You need:

• Hake fillets (or other fish fillets common to your area)
• Mayonnaise
• Mustard (in a bottle - like you put on hot dogs)
• Salt and Pepper
• Grated Cheddar Cheese

The quantities vary upon how many people you are cooking for and the size of the hake fillets, so just read the method below to get an idea of the quantities you will need:

1) Grease a Baking tray and preheat the oven to 180ºC (360ºF)
2) Put Hake fillets on the baking tray

3) Sprinkle Hake fillets with salt and pepper (amounts at your preference)

4) Spread mayonnaise and mustard over the hake fillet (like you would make a peanut-butter sandwich)

5) Sprinkle grated cheese over hake

6) Bake in the oven for 30 minutes

I served this meal with steamed baby potatoes, carrots and peas.

Cosmopolitan Cocktail and Cosmopolitan Mocktail

This is a drink recipe for those who are not opposed to alcohol in small quantities.  This is an absolutely delicious and light drink.  You can increase or decrease the alcohol amounts according to your tolerance level, but this quantity works well if you are only drinking one during the course of the evening.
Mark and I made these a week ago instead of going out.  The total price to buy the ingredients (enough to make about 16 of these drinks) was R225-00, where buying 1 of these drinks at a cocktail lounge is about R35-00 - so I'm saving about R20-00 a drink by making them at home.  Naturally we didn’t make all 16 in one night, and still have a lot of the ingredients left over for another time! (so when am I getting visitors?)

For a virgin drink (safe for children):
Replace the Vodka and Triple Sec with Sprite or Lemon Water. 

Ingredients:

• Vodka
• Cranberry / Cherry / Wild Berry Juice (cranberry is the best, but others work alright too)
• Lime juice
• Triple Sec
• Cherries
• Ice to chill

Method:

1. Mix 1 part Vodka to 3 parts cranberry juice in a shaker. (or 1/4 cup vodka, 3/4 cup cranberry juice)
2. Add Ice, a tablespoon of lime juice, a tablespoon of Triple Sec and shake well.
3. Pour out into glasses (strain out ice), add a cherry and an umbrella!

 The meal I served with it will be coming out on my blog at a later date!

Macaroni Cheese

This is a really easy recipe and because it serves so few people it is easy to double or triple the recipe to serve as many as you need it to serve.  I’ve been using this recipe for Macaroni and Cheese since I moved out of my parents house and I have never needed to try another one.

Serves 2 – 3 people my size.
Ingredients:

• 250ml (1 cup) macaroni (uncooked)
• 1ml salt (1/5th teaspoon)
• 25ml Margarine (2 tablespoons)
• 25ml flour (2 tablespoons)
• 250ml Milk (1 cup)
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 250ml grated cheddar cheese (1 cup)
• 1 tomato, sliced

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (360­°F). Grease an ovenproof dish
2. Cook macaroni in fast boiling, salt water until tender and drain in a colander (approx. 15 minutes).
3. Place Margarine, flour, milk, salt and pepper into a microwavable container (a glass measuring jug works well) and cook for a minute on high. Stir and cook again. Repeat until the mixture is thick but still runny.
4. Mix half the grated cheese into the milk mixture.
5. Mix macaroni and cheese sauce, pour into a greased ovenproof dish.
6. Place sliced tomato on top and sprinkle grated cheese over tomato.
7. Place in the oven for 10 minutes. Brown under the top element for 2 minutes. Garnish with parsley.

Pancakes (South African Style)

Makes: 12 – 20 (depends on the size of your frying pan)
Ingredients:

• 4 eggs (beaten)
• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons margarine (melted)
• 1 teaspoon salt

Method:

1. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl
2. Add the wet ingredients and mix together until lump free. Leave to stand for 20-30 minutes.
3. Heat a frying pan on a medium heat. Use a non-stick spray if needed, or heat a little oil in the pan and pour it out between pancakes.
4. Pour enough batter so that there is a thin layer (1mm – 2mm thick) of batter over the bottom of the pan.  These pancakes won’t rise like the American style pancakes.
5. Leave batter in pan until air bubbles start to form.  Then use an egg-lifter to turn the pancake over.  If the pan is properly coated with non-stick spray or oil and the pancake is ready to turn this should be easy.  Sometimes it will take 1 or 2 attempts to grow accustomed to when to turn the pancake.
6. Once turned, leave the pancake to cook on the other side. Once the second side is ready there should be some brown spots on the second side of the pancake. Once cooked the pancake should still be soft and easy to roll up (like one would roll a newspaper).
7. For savoury pancakes, turn the pancake onto a plate and put cooked minced  meat(with tomato and onion sauce) in the middle, sprinkle with cheese. You can use Chicken and Mayonnaise. Have fun experimenting with different fillings.
8. For classic South African sweet pancakes, mix cinnamon and sugar together in a bowl and sprinkle over the whole pancake.  A dash of lemon juice can also be added if wished (some people like it, others don’t).
9. Roll the pancake like a newspaper and serve.  Some shops serve the pancakes with a spoon of cream or ice-cream. Below are the rolled versions of the Minced Meat pancake and the Sweet Cinnamon pancake.

The batter can be stored in a fridge overnight.  I have also heard it can be frozen, but I have never tried this.

The sweet pancakes are so cheap and easy to make, they are often sold at church/charity/school fund-raising events here in South Africa.  4 outdoor gas stoves, 4 pans, and 2 cooks can make a lot of pancakes quickly.  Wrap them up in grease proof paper for eating with ones hands while walking around a flea-market.  They are normally sold for R3,50 (US$0.50) each over here in South Africa.