Good Food and Wine Show 2013

I had the good fortune of obtaining 2 tickets to the Good Food and Wine Show.  Included were 2 complimentary tickets to the Woolworths Real Food Theatre and a choice of viewing any celebrity chef in person.  I invited Saaleha to join me and we opted to attend Gary Mehigan's show since we love Masterchef Australia and let's face it, the judges on that show truly make it wonderful.

Now I've never entered a cookoff before and even though I've watched it countless of times on Masterchef Australia and its South African counterparts, I still felt ill prepared.

When we finally got to Woolworths Real Food Theatre, I was excited to see that it was pretty well organised.  Kamini Pather, the winner of Masterchef South Africa 2013, was our host and she went around talking to all of us and made us feel comfortable.  I'm not used to a lot of chatting while cooking and I felt a bit out of my comfort zone when I had to talk into the microphone!

Anyway, our mystery basket was waiting for us.  Eggs were the main theme and we also had a block of cheddar and bok choy to go along with it. 

What on Earth is 'Bok Choy'?

I looked at this vegetable and I couldn't figure it out.  Apparently it's some sort of Chinese cabbage. Who knew?

Luckily Saaleha had a fantastic idea in mind and she got to it.  She came up with souffle's (genius!) and then we realised we didn't have any ramekin's, so we improvised with these little metal cups they gave us.  

We decided to do a second item, but I had an absolute brain freeze and couldn't think of anything.

Luckily I went over to the table filled with various ingredients and then decided to make Chocolate, Pecan nut and cranberry muffins...in those small tiny metal cups.  Some of our items didn't cook up in time, so we improvised and Saaleha came up with the most amazing soft, egg mixture which she dubbed 'soft tops'.  It melted in my mouth.  

Joy!

This was our result:

 Afterward we all gathered around with the other attendees and ate our food.  It was not a competition and there were no prizes, but it was a lot of fun and I now have loads of empathy for the Masterchef contestants!

Grater plate

Later on, we walked around a bit, bought a whole lot of goodies including this awesome grater plate for garlic, ginger, nutmeg, etc. and the most amazing toffee from Sweet Temptations.  I was also quite impressed by the Basilur Tea company.  I adore their packaging! 

Basilur Tea

Before leaving we just had to make a stop over at the Lazeeza's stand as their custard slices always make me salivate.  I grabbed some custard slices, and their must have burfee cupcakes.  Delicious! 

Sweet Temptations Toffee

If you follow Masterchef Australia, you would probably be quite appreciative of Gary Mehigan's humour, and wisdom.  He is brilliant in the kitchen and I am so glad I watched his show.  He made a delicious looking prawn ravioli dish with prawn oil.  Unfortunately I didn't get to taste it, but it looked amazing.  I love that he used simple and few ingredients to create a wonderful dish.

Gary Mehigan in action

Images courtesy of Saaleha from ShootCake (Thanks for coming with me Saals!)

I ♥ Books: Anjum's New Indian and Make it Moroccan

On Friday morning I was on my way to upgrade my cellphone (yes hello iPhone 5 FINALLY) when I stumbled upon the Exclusive Books sale.  I had a few minutes to spare before the cell phone retailer opened up and so I decided to browse the sale items while I waited.

I'm glad I did.

Look at what I scored: Make it Moroccan by Hassan M'Souli (Gourmand 2009 winner - Best African cookbook in the World) and Anjum's New Indian by Anjum Anand, host of 'Indian Food Made Easy'.

Make it Moroccan

Make it Moroccan

Anjum's New Indian

Anjum's New Indian

During a sale I tend to first check out the recipe section as it's a section that I both admire and fear at the same time.  I love food, but I balk at the idea of making complicated meals.  I try to keep my meals simple and focus on keeping it easy and stress-free and that's why I adore chefs such as Donna Hay.  Even though I bought these two books on a whim, I'm captivated by the colour of turmeric and the boldness of the tajine.  I can't wait to try these recipes out.

I ❤ Food: Roasted Sweet Potato and Coconut Milk Soup

I love, love, LOVEEEEE sweet potatoes and coconuts.  
After finding a recipe in Larissa Green's 'Love Green Food' which combined both these ingredients in a delicious soup, I decided to tweak it just a bit to suit my taste buds.

This is PERFECT for these chilly Winter evenings! This soup makes a great alternative to the traditional haleem that everyone drinks copious amounts of during Ramadan!

Ingredients:

•   2-3 medium sweet potatoes, diced.
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 1 Teaspoon honey
• 1 Teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon ghee
• Salt to taste
• Black Pepper to taste
• 1 Teaspoon ground red chilli (add a little bit more if you want a ‘kick’)
• 1 Teaspoon Robertsons Thai spice
• 2-3 leeks chopped – chop the white part only
• 2 cloves garlic – chopped
• 1 Teaspoon ginger – chopped
• 750ml – 1 litre vegetable stock.  This really depends on how thick you want your soup to be, I used 3 Ina Paarman sachets, and went according to the instructions, but added a little bit of extra water.
•  ½ cup  / small can coconut milk
• Parsley and toasted coconut shavings for garnishing (optional)

Method:

1)  Preheat oven to 220°C.

2)  Mix olive oil, honey, vinegar and sweet potatoes in an oven proof dish.

3)  Roast in the oven until it caramelizes.  +/- 10 minutes. 

4)  In a pot, heat the ghee on medium heat and add the leaks. 

5)  Add ginger, garlic and the rest of the spices.

6)  Add the vegetable stock and bring to the boil.

7)  Reduce heat.

8)  By now the sweet potato should be done.  If it is still a bit hard, not to worry, add it to the pot and cook until the sweet potato is softer.

9)  Switch off the heat and leave to cool for a bit.

10)  Puree with a stick blender or regular blender.

11)  Reheat in the pot and add coconut milk.

12)  Garnish with fresh parsley, toasted coconut shavings and crackers (optional).

13)  Enjoy!

I ❤ Food: Breakfast - Poached eggs and then some (salmon).

In my attempt to eat a bit healthier, I've recently delved into the world of poached eggs.

In my first attempt I tried the poached-in-a-pod method (cheat method), which I didn't enjoy the taste of very much, and today I tried the popping-the-egg-directly-in-the-water method.  After all, how can I go to cheat method without trying out the original method?
So I read up Smitten Kitchen's tutorial on poached eggs and tried it out one Sunday.
It was pretty simple enough and it came out exactly like SK's picture.

Ok so I didn't want just an egg on toast, I decided that my egg needed a friend.  
So I popped over to Woolworths, bought two freshly made croissant's from their bakery section (it tastes different to their prepacked croissants), sliced them open and prepared to add some fishy bits to it.
By fishy bits, I meant smoked salmon slices, of course.  Since I use any and every excuse to add smoked salmon to something, this was no exception.

I added some smoked salmon slices to the croissant, then topped it off with low-fat cream cheese, bits of rocket and sliced onion with just a sprinkle of lemon juice, black pepper, salt and a hint of dijon mustard.

Yet, here I was, still felt like something was missing.  

Then it hit me.  Fruit!

I added a bunch of gorgeous blueberries to each plate, and it was perfect!

Did I mention that it tasted good too? :)

I ❤ Food: Ramadaan - Done. Eid ul Fitr - Done.

The burfee didn't make me do a barf-ee.

A lone lamington and a single tiramisu cupcake found themselves coupled.

The strawberries jumped for joy when they realised they weren't being turned into pavlova, but split themselves up when they found out they were being creamed.

Ramadaan came and Ramadaan went.

Eid came and Eid went.

So the month of fasting was good - but then Eid came at the end of it and  even though I said I wouldn't, I ATE and ATE and rolled over and ATE again on Eid day.  Terrible.

(why do you think there's only one of each item left?  There's a lot of other things that you can't see because...they're in my belly! ahhah! psssh...I made it all AND ate it all!  SIES!)

All in all, it was a good Ramadaan - istighfaar (prayers for forgiveness from sins) dhikr (prayer), sabr (patience) and shukr (gratefulness) was a constant thought/action :) I had a lot of time to do some thinking, doing and less procrastinating.  I'm doing a mental 'WHOOP!' just for the latter :)  Let's hope I can keep it up now  :)

Sorry for the cheesiness in the captions.  I couldn't help myself :)

I ❤ Food: The temptation of the Eclair

Ramadaan.  A month of 'fasting, not feasting', as the cliche goes.
We're supposed to control our appetite, worship our Creator in abundance and think of those who have less than us by abstaining from food and drink from sunrise to sunset.


After sunset, this Muslim Woman had a moment of weakness.

Hello Eclair, what are you doing here on your lonesome?

It seems like your friends don't want you around.

How sad, nevermind, I've found a better place for you...in my tummy! Nom, nom, nom!

I ❤ Food: Salmon Kick

I never was a 'fish lover' as a child.  On a family holiday, we went to the Eastern Transvaal (Mpumalanga) region of South Africa.  We visited a trout farm and as a 4 yr old, my curiousity got the better of me and I insisted on watching how they 'cleaned' fish.  I was horrified and refused to eat any sort of seafood from that moment.  Of course my mother lamented the fact that she had a crazy daughter and would sneak it into meals without me knowing ('It's chicken, Fatima, have some' *bite* 'Mummy, this tastes funny' *mum giggling to herself*).  However, it took me many years to finally develop a taste for seafood, and finally, when I was a teenager I had my first bite of a perfectly grilled prawn.  I was hooked!


My current favourite is the delightful Smoked North Atlantic Salmon.  It tastes quite different to its counterpart that we buy in South Africa.  Needless to say, I've become addicted!


Some of the salmon treats I just love to make:


Breakfast Salmon:  Smoked salmon, peppers, scrambled egg, salt, pepper, coriander powder, a dash of cumin powder, chilli powder, lemon pepper, mixed herbs, and melted cheddar all scooped onto buttered toast.


Salmon Snack:  Low fat sour cream on crackers, smoked salmon, slice of carrot, olives and onions (i forgot about the tomato) seasoned with salt and pepper with a dash of lemon pepper and chilli powder.


Salmon is good for you, so I don't mind taking an indulgent plunge for my taste-buds.

Update:  Unfortunately, Blogger has deleted the images here! I'm really quite upset as I don't have them anymore!