Celebrating life with food, wine, friends & happiness! Writer, cook and blogger. Author of four cookbooks. Passionately South African, proudly Capetonian.
Baking a cake for a friend's birthday is a special task and not one you want to fail at. This recipe is incredibly easy and straightforward and takes next to no time to prep.
If I recommend a cake recipe, you can be sure it works, because like all nervy...
Growing up in the Free State and visiting our Cape relatives during school holidays, I was always struck by the sheer exoticism of the people down south. The Cape air smelled damp and salty. There was sand instead of 'grond', meaning earth. People spoke in a peculiar vernacular, mixing...
The best way to learn to make something perfectly is to put it on a catering menu in such large quantities that you can't afford to fail. While I wouldn't necessarily recommend this method to anyone else, it appears to be one that works for me.
I've made gravlax -...
Quince trees were a dime a dozen in the backyards of the little Freestate dorp I grew up in, except ours, for some reason. My mom had a sizeable backyard orchard with apricots, plums, peaches, apples and even a walnut tree, but no quince. Nada. Niks, Zero. And she...
The first step to making a meltingly tender, fall-off-the-bone lamb shoulder is obvious: find a decent butcher, who won't sell you feedlot lamb. This recipe relies on minimal seasoning and precious little effort from the cook's side, since all the lovely rich and herbal flavours infused in your free-range...
Plaatkoekies are the boerekos version of American breakfast pancakes. Except they are about a million times better, of course, and we don't have them only for breakfast, but for brunch, teatime and supper too. In fact, plaatkoekies make one of the finest Sunday suppers any child could wish for -...
The best bobotie ever...that I made myself.
Of course many other boboties exist, many of them are spectacularly good, but this recipe comes from my sister-in-law and it's truly the best I've ever made. Yet.
Because left to my own devices, I can wreak utter havoc upon bobotie like you can't...
A while ago I gave a recipe for raisin bread toast with honey figs and ricotta, and promised a post on making ricotta. It really couldn't be easier and since it's not always to be found in the shops when you most need it, why not give it a...
This simple and easy dish combines some of my favourite ingredients in most delectable way. I LOVE ricotta and am always looking for new ways to use it. For this, you'll need to use it when it's super fresh, and still has that 'barely set milk' taste. There are...
I love cooking with yoghurt - and eating it as is, too, of course - so I was well chuffed to receive a cooler bag of Fairview's new full-fat yoghurt last week. It's deliciously creamy and rich, with almost double the protein content of standard yoghurts, since no stabilisers...
