I ❤ Food: Chocolate Macarons

A client ordered up some chocolate macaron's from The Lucky Packet.

At first I was not too certain if I should make them as I'm not really in the business of making macaron's for people as I find that some clients can be quite finicky.

Nevertheless, I thought I'd give it a go...

Nutella is my trusty sidekick in all of this, of course :)  

The client requested that one batch be made up as a gift for a friend.

The leftover buttercream that was there for me to lick :)

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: 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!