If you have ever run out of syrup in the middle of a baking session, I share your frustration. It looks like there’s enough syrup, and it turns out it’s not enough. You have two choices – put the baking on hold, or run out to the shops. Here’s a simple recipe that will solve the problem, and save you a buck while you’re at it!
Ingredients
3 tablespoons water
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup boiling water
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 lemon slice
Instructions
Pour 3 tablespoons water and 1/2 cup sugar into a saucepan or pot.
Bring to a simmer over medium heat.
When the mixture turns a caramel colour, slowly and VERY carefully add 1 1/4 cups boiling water.
Add 2 1/2 cups sugar and bring to a low simmer.
Add a slice of lemon. The lemon will keep the syrup from crystallising as it simmers. Turn the heat down to low and let the syrup simmer for about 45 minutes.
Remove the candied lemon slice. Let the syrup cool down for a few minutes before pouring it into a sterilised glass jar. The syrup will be thin, but will thicken up as it cools in the jar.
Anyone who reads my blog will know that I constantly try to find ways to re-use what would ordinarily be thrown away, and to save a buck or three.
Something as delicious as Tepache is a terrific example; not only you do use the pineapple peels that you would normally throw away, you get a great tasting drink that saves you money, and best of all, is actually is good for you.
Tepache originated in Mexico, and was originally made with maize. The recipe has changed somewhat over time, but now is made with pineapple peels, sugar, water, cinnamon and usually cloves. It has vitamin C, vitamin B, vitamin A and magnesium, probiotics and acts as a diuretic too.
Ingredients:
Peels from one pineapple, and top and bottom. Wash the pineapple thoroughly before peeling!
250g sugar
2 litres water (filtered or boiled and cooled)
One stick cinnamon (optional, but I like the light cinnamony taste it gives the drink)
2 cloves (optional)
Method:
Place all ingredients in a glass jar. Stir to ensure the sugar dissolves. Place something on top to keep the peels submerged – I use a ziplock bag, or plastic bag, filled with water to keep my peels under the water. Cover the jar with a clean tea towel or paper towel, secure with an elastic. Now let it ferment for three to five days. Strain through a sieve, and take the peels and blend in a blender or food processor with some of the liquid. Strain, and bottle. Serve on ice, or refrigerate to cool.
Earlier this week, I posted a recipe for lemon and herb sauce, and as promised, here is the hot peri-peri sauce for those who like it hot. The sauce works great for chicken, fish, chips and just about anything you can think of. When making my Nando’s fake-away, this is the hot sauce I marinade the chicken in before cooking. If you baste the chicken while cooking, you get an even hotter version.
INGREDIENTS
300 g red bell pepper, chopped
100 g onion chopped (red onions, if you have them, otherwise, use normal onions)
50 g African Birds Eye Chilli (Use any other spicy variety if these are not available) If you want the sauce milder, use less, and use more to make a hotter sauce.
10-12 cloves garlic (one teaspoon crushed garlic equals one clove, if you don’t have any fresh garlic)
1 tbsp paprika (smoked, if you can get it)
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 cup white vinegar
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup olive oil (if you don’t have, use sunflower or canola)
1 tbsp dried origano (origanum)
1 tsp lemon zest
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
INSTRUCTIONS
Add all the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth.
Transfer the sauce into a pot and cook for 15-20 minutes on medium low heat.
Remove the pot from heat and allow to cool.
Pour the sauce in a glass jar and refrigerate for up to 15 days.
Use as required.
***To store for longer periods, sterilise jars, and pour the sauce into the jars, then seal.
On Monday, I did a post on Nando’s style lemon and herb sauce. Here is the perfect side dish for the meal – a take on Nando’s spicy rice. I have to say that I am not really a huge fan of rice, but I love this rice. I always make extra, because hubby loves having the rice for lunch the next day. Every time I cook this, I have a good giggle. I have a friend who told us that when she was newlywed, she called her mom to ask for dinner ideas. Her mother suggested she make Mexican spicy rice. She then made the rice. That night at dinner, her husband, eating the rice, said it was nice, but very crunchy. She didn’t realise that the rice needed to be boiled after being fried! Now I can’t make spicy rice without thinking about her:)
Ingredients: *1/2 finely chopped onion *1/2 finely chopped red pepper (you can leave this out, but I think it just adds to the taste) *2 chicken stock cubes OR chicken stock OR chicken bone broth (you would use 4 cups, and then just add more as needed) *A handful of frozen peas (or you can just use drained tinned peas, and add it towards the end of the cooking time – say around five minutes before the rice is done). *1/2 teaspoon cumin *1/2 teaspoon turmeric *1/2 teaspoon paprika (I have used cayenne pepper as well, with no real taste difference) * 4 cups water if not using stock or bone broth *Chilli powder – depending on how spicy you like it (I have used whole chillies too – we like it spicy, so I add two whole medium chillies)
***Most recipes like this don’t call for garlic, but we love garlic, so I add a quarter teaspoon of crushed garlic to it.
Method: There are two ways to do this: you can fry the onions and peppers with the spices, add the rice once the onions are translucent and fry the rice lightly. Then add water and your stock cubes, and bring to the boil. Simmer for around 20 minutes, or until all your water or stock is absorbed. You need to keep a fairly close eye on it for the last five to ten minutes, as it does burn easily. Once the water is absorbed, check the rice to see if it is cooked. It should be soft, but not mushy. If it is still a little hard, add some more liquid to it, and cook for a further five minutes or so, until it is cooked. Method number two: We like the onions and peppers still fairly crunchy, so I fry the onions and peppers, then remove from the pot. Fry your rice and spices in a little oil, and continue with the recipe as above. When the liquid is almost all gone, add the peppers and onions and finish off the rice as above. Serve with your lemon and herb or peri-peri chicken and a green salad. Yum!
We all have our weaknesses – that one thing we absolutely crave. We never eat out, simply because we can’t afford it, and I have an objection to spending 300 bucks on one meal, when I could feed my family for a week on that same amount, or less. Hubby, however, has a huge weakness – NANDO’S! He absolutely loves their food, the hotter the better. He will sit there, sweat pouring off him, and declare the food delicious. While I too have a masochistic streak, it does not extend to having the living hell burnt out of my mouth!
Kiddo and I lean towards the lemon and herb chicken, or the medium for me ( I too like hot food, but not hot enough to kill – I am sure there are less painful ways to commit suicide!:) I have done the whole take-out-fake-out thing, where you try to recreate your favourite take out meal. This is the answer to the Nando’s problem. I usually marinade the chicken overnight (just chuck it in the sauce frozen, place in fridge), and then cook it when I get home from work the next night. I usually serve with my fake-out rice or chips. Hubby gets his Nando’s (his is hot – recipe will be posted later in the week), and I am happy because I don’t have to fork out a small fortune for one meal.
Ingredients:
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 large chilli (de-seeded)
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 medium onion, finely chopped
Juice of 1 lemon (or two tablespoons lemon juice)
Juice of 1 Lime (or two tablespoons lime juice)
1 teaspoon dry or three teaspoons fresh coriander
1 Teaspoon dry or three teaspoons fresh thyme1
1 Teaspoon dry or three teaspoons fresh marjoram
1 Teaspoon dry or three teaspoons fresh oregano
1 teaspoon dry or three teaspoons fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon of wine (good quality – taste it first, around half a glass – it it’s drinkable, then it’s good for food!)
1-2 tablespoons of water (Depending on the thickness you like)
Method
Blend everything together in a blender/ processor or with your hand blender. If necessary, add a little more water until you reach a consistency that you are happy with.
***The chicken takes on the flavour better if marinaded overnight. You can then pan fry, oven bake or even use the indoor grill to cook the chicken. For the really authentic taste, feel free to start a fire and flame-grill away:)
Spring has finally arrived! I love this time of year, when all the green on the leaves of trees and plants is a beautiful, fresh green, flowers are blooming, the sky is brilliant blue, and we can finally stop wearing our entire wardrobe in one go!
In case you hadn’t noticed, this is my favourite season:)! Along with the warmer days, the kiddos think this is the start of ice-cream and ice-lolly season.
Here is a super-easy recipe, no ice-cream maker required.
Ingredients:
500 ml full cream milk
5 tablespoons sugar
Vanilla to taste
Method:
Place the milk in glass jars, filled no more that three- quarters full. Allow to freeze for around four hours. Take the jars out, and let them stand out of the freezer for a half an hour. Place all the ingredients in a food processor or blender, and blend for no more than two minutes, until creamy. If it is set enough for your liking, you can eat it right away, or pop into the freezer for another half hour until set.
You can add other ingredients before blending, such as cocoa for chocolate ice cream, or even fruit pulp for a fruity ice cream.
**using milk instead of cream will not produce as smooth and creamy final product, but it’s still good.
Bone broth is something that is well worth making. It is easy, very cheap and really, really good for you. It offers a number of health benefits, including collagen, calcium, vitamins and minerals. Sound good? I use bone broth as the base for soups, sauces and drink it on it’s own. As soon as I start feeling like I am coming down with something, I start drinking lots of bone broth (or chicken soup made with bone broth), and it really does seem to help with recovery. My family have also noticed that soups and stews taste better when using the bone broth as the liquid instead of water.
Okay, so this habit has earned me some funny looks from friends and family – I have a bag (several!) in my freezer, that all my vegetable peelings, carrot ends, celery ends, some eggshells and bones end up. I use this as the basis for the bone broth.
What you need:
1 – 1.2 kg chicken, turkey, pork, beef, lamb, or other bones (try to get bones that have lots of connective tissue—feet, knuckles, necks, backs, etc.) I generally use a mix of bones – chicken, pork and beef – whatever we ate that had bones in!
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
4 cups roughly chopped carrots, onions, and celery (or scraps). I use scraps for this, unless I have too many of one kind of vegetable, and not enough of another. My bone broth has potato peels, tops of tomatoes, carrot peels and tops, bits of green pepper that may have been looking a little wrinkly, but are not rotten, just not as firm as desired. You get the idea – anything goes, just not anything that is actually rotten or bad.
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns
1 teaspoon sea salt
water
stems of herbs for flavour – I use thyme, rosemary etc, – after stripping the leaves, I throw the stems in my broth bag, or keep them in a container.
INSTRUCTIONS
In a large soup pot, place the bones, apple cider vinegar, carrots, onions, celery, bay leaves, peppercorns, herbs and salt.
Fill pot with water until it covers the bones by about 2 cm.
Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, then reduce heat to as low as your stove will go. It must be just barely bubbling. Cover with the lid slightly ajar and cook for 24 hours for poultry bones and 48 hours for red meat bones.
When cooking time is up, strain through a fine mesh sieve, and transfer to jars for storing in the fridge or freezer.
Once chilled, the broth should be jiggly and have a layer of fat on top. Scrape off the fat and use it for other purposes.
***You can also cook this in the pressure cooker or slow cooker. In the pressure cooker, cook on pressure for three hours and allow to cool and depressurise on it’s own. Once cool, strain and store by either freezing in jars, storing in the fridge (it will keep for around a week in the fridge), or by freezing in ice trays until solid and then placing the cubes in plastic bags in the freezer. To cook in the slow cooker, cook on low for 18 – 24 hours, and strain once cooled. Store by freezing as per above instructions.
***If your bone broth is not gelled once cooled and refrigerated: it is preferred that it gels, because it means that the collagen amounts in the broth is high, but it isn’t the end of the world if it doesn’t. It is still highly nutritious, so don’t toss it. Just try using bones with more connective tissue next time. Or if it really bugs you, you can try cooking it for longer to make it more concentrated. PLEASE NOTE – THE BROTH WILL NOT GEL IF IT IS STILL WARM OR AT ROOM TEMPERATURE!
As you know, I recently had a pantry emergency. I ran out of everything! If you’re anything like me, Worcester sauce features heavily in the cooking scheme of things, and I go through the stuff like nobody’s business. I began wondering if you could make it yourself, so I did some research into this – I simply could not believe what went into Worcester sauce! Sardines, for starters – the list of ingredients was extremely long, and I definitely didn’t have most of the ingredients on hand, so what was I to do? The answer of course, was experiment!
I am not saying it’s identical, and it tasted like there was something missing in the first batch, which I suspect is the tamarind extract, but it’s pretty darn close. And it works, as I have gone through two bottles already, and the results with meat are great. So here goes:
INGREDIENTS
1 small peeled clove fresh garlic or one teaspoon of crushed garlic
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar; 1/4 cup malt vinegar; OR 1/2 cup white vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon molasses
1 tablespoon tamarind paste- I didn’t have, so I left this out on the first batch. It tastes fine without, but more authentic with the paste
1/2 an onion, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon chilli powder
1/4 teaspoon ground clove or two whole cloves
INSTRUCTIONS
Cook all the ingredients together until the onion is soft. If you like, you can blend everything together before straining with a stick blender or immersion blender, just to extract the maximum flavour. Strain and pour into a bottle (I love using old soy sauce bottles that I washed and kept for this, it works really well). Refrigerate, and shake before using.
NOTES: This should last up to two months in the fridge, but if you’re like me, it will only last two weeks!
Did you know that it is actually very easy to make your own plain yogurt, without any special equipment? Sounds to good to be true, or very complicated, right? Nope, it’s not!
Ingredients
1 litre / 4 cups pasteurised full cream milk
1 1/2 teaspoons unflavoured gelatin
1/4 cup plain yogurt – here I have to note that the only yogurt I have had success with is the Woolworth’s plain yogurt; it seems like it is the only yogurt that has LIVE, active cultures; it has to have live cultures, or this will NOT work. This is going to be your starter culture for your yogurt.
Instructions
Heat the milk gently to 82 degrees Celsius. Do not allow the milk to come to a boil!
Once the milk comes reaches 82 degrees, remove the pot from the heat. Allow milk to cool to between 41 and 43 degrees Celsius.
When milk reaches the required temperature, thoroughly whisk in the gelatin for about one minute. Then add the yogurt starter and continue to whisk until completely combined, (about one minute).
I don’t have a yogurt maker, so to incubate my yogurt, I pour the yogurt into a glass jar that I warmed by keeping hot water in it until I was ready to pour the yogurt in. Pour out the water, fill the jar with your yogurt. I then line a large bowl with towels, put the jar in the bowl, and cover the yogurt with more towels, to keep in the heat. This seems to work pretty well for me, but you can also use a yogurt maker, or a slow cooker that has a yogurt setting. Allow yogurt to culture for 8-12 hours, depending on taste preference. The longer you culture, the more tangy the taste. Mix the yogurt thoroughly to combine ingredients again, and transfer to the fridge.
Notes
*Only use pasteurised milk for this, but do NOT use long-life milk, it will not work!
** It’s normal to see small clumps of yellow liquid when using gelatin to thicken yogurt. It is the whey that has separated from the milk solids. Just use a whisk to gently blend it back into the yogurt.
**Remember to keep some of your yogurt for the next batch. Note, however, that using a commercial yogurt as a starter works, but you will not be able to use the yogurt you made as a culture for new batches indefinitely.
Hello, macaroni, my old friend… those of us on a tight budget have probably at least thought along those lines at some point. Pasta is reasonably cheap, quick to make and filling – and above all else, highly adaptable. It can be a quick, cheap meal, or a very decadent meal. Above all else, it is a life-saver for when you just don’t know what to make!
My daughter loves Tuna Mate, but to feed my family, I have
to buy two boxes of the kit, not counting the other ingredients. This is way
too steep for my liking, so I have developed a ‘fake-out’ version of this. It
works out much cheaper, and we have left-overs for lunch the next day.
It is actually quite simple and quick to make:)
Ingredients:
2 x tin shredded tuna, drained.
1 x packet macaroni
2 cups milk
4 tablespoons flour (or a packet of instant cheese sauce + 1-2
tablespoons flour)
Four tablespoons margarine
Sauce:
There are two options here – you can either make a white sauce from scratch, or use the “cheat” version that allows you to cut back on the amount of cheese added. If using regular white sauce, use four tablespoons flour instead of the instant sauce. If you want cheese flavour, add cheese as desired.
If I am making garlic tuna-mate, I normally just use regular
from-scratch white sauce, but if I am making cheese flavoured, I use a packet
of instant sauce as my base.
Version 1:
Melt four tablespoons margarine. Once the margarine is melted, add the contents of one packet of instant sauce (I normally use the four cheeses or the three cheeses flavours). (If making white sauce, use flour). Stir into the margarine, then add a tablespoon or two of flour, and stir that in. Gradually add your milk, stirring constantly to prevent lumps. Once all the milk has been incorporated, add the macaroni and allow the sauce to simmer until the macaroni is cooked. This should take around 20 minutes. Add the tuna, stir through until the food is warmed through out and serve hot.
