Past Week's Highlights

  Top of the morning to ya!

   I'm not setting a very good record. It has been shamefully long since I have posted and I've already broken my resolution to be consistent. 

   It's been quite a busy week or so and we are currently honoured with the presence of friends who are expecting their first baby and daughter today or tomorrow. (I will make a post soon about them.) They say watch pots never boil... Try waiting for a baby!  Granted, it's only 16:15hrs and today is her due date; but I am impatient to see this gorgeous baby. (And I am positive that Sarah is even more ready to have her baby than I am.)  ... On top of that, I have added baby-holding competition because Grandma flew in from the states. I have a feeling I've been drastically bumped down in pecking order. ;-)

    In the meantime, I have preoccupied myself with different baking brainstorms. Besides their passion for meats and braais, South Africans (or at least Afrikaners) love their puddings and custards. They also eat a lot of cake. So, I decided to take it upon myself to come up with a vanilla cake with custard filling. So, I made a custard using a simple online recipe I found. (Tasted like glorified sweetened condensed milk.) Then I googled a good vanilla cake recipe. And finally, I just made some basic buttercream frosting with the usual butter, confectioner's sugar, milk, vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt for good measure. 

   This is how it went:

     

And we have the cake batter...

One of the two layers. I could already tell from the first one (I had to bake them separately because I only had one pan) that these were going to be pretty dense. A lot of factors contributed to it's texture and weight. Trial and error. Trial and error. I just have to remind myself of Thomas Edison.  ;-) 

Morgan - my darling perfectionist sister - did the honours of leveling the cake.

Voila! The final product. Strawberry formation is a courtesy of my brother, Craig. (He wants full credit for that one and rightly so.)

Oven oat pancakes with Bulgarian plain yoghurt (!!!!), strawberry jam, and honey or syrup. This was one of our breakfasts. I had to do the recipe from memory because I couldn't find it online. It comes from the *amazing* cookbook Hearth and Home. Excellent quick, healthful breakfast. A winner for our family and guests.

 And my personal favorite breakfast: cinnamon pancakes with sauteed cinnamon-sugar apples. 

"Well... that's all I have to say about that."

It's a Wonderful Life!

   Top of the morning to ya!

   

   It's no longer morning here; but tradition is tradition and I'm stickin' to it! ;-)

   This is the second to last day of a South African long weekend. Sadly enough, they have bought the feminist lie and we are "celebrating" Women's Day... for four days. The great side is that we were able to relax and enjoy great fellowship.

   We had a braai at our place and my photographer (*cough* Gabbi) lost sight of the goal and I am afraid that I cannot show you interesting photos from that. I'll give her some slack, though, because who could resist holding two brand new adorable babies in our fellowship??!! ;-)

    Even though this is primarily a food blog, I want to share our party/fellowship/braai photos and other shenanigans to give you a glimpse into our life here, as well. However, I did manage to take a few photos over the weekend that give an idea of what we've been up to.

Dad was brave enough to teach Mo and me how to drive his manual beastly vehicle... Mo did better than I did. I definitely am thankful for automatic! (I want to conquer this, though.)

I made some chicken and veggie curry Friday night. It was really good, if I might say so myself. I am not a huge fan of curry chicken because I've never really had one that made me just crave it. However, I wanted to make this taste as best as possible and I got good feedback from the fam. :-) Made my day!

I sauteed the veggies in a separate pan and then added the chicken and coconut milk to this. Let me tell you, butternut squash makes an excellent sweet contrast with this!

Pip chilling out on the couch next to me... Too funny!

Gab trying to take all the credit for the brownies. I was taking photos of each step and she ran up. She's a hoot! ... We had to improvise quite a bit since we're using what was already in the house to make everything. This tub-like mixing bowl was a blessing because every other bowl in the kitchen is not meant for cooking for a family of 7. 

These are not ribs... This is the delicious brownie batter. I folded in milk chocolate bar chunks since I have to find this baking store that supposedly has chocolate chips. They turned out to be delectable... Even to our Afrikaaner guests. :-)

Stole this finished product photo from my mom! So glad she took this because I had to leave the house before they were done in the oven and, therefore, did not get a photo.

This is the view once you step out of our back sliding doors. Spectacular... You see all kinds of gorgeous birds, various types of deer, the neighbours' dogs, men golfing, etc. We have one squirrel too. Ha! 

And of course it is the ideal reading spot.  I can't imagine the splendour of Eden, because this is absolutely breath-taking!

Soaking in the winter sun.

"Well... That's all I have to say about that."