Desserts: 3 Festive season hits.

What would any festive meal be without a stunning dessert. If the hostess was a bit slow in bringing it to the table, someone would pipe up and ask… What’s for dessert? I am quite sure that if any of these desserts, posted today, were brought to the table, exclamations of, Wow! These are fantastic

Braai night…. A few hours before.

Mom walked into the TV room. Jason and Jude, her two sons of 14 and 16, lay on the sofas in positions that would only be found in yoga manuals. She stood, hands on hips, looking at the empty glasses, coffee cups, torn-open chip packets, half-eaten apples and smelly socks and shoes. She shook her

Chocoholic Desserts.

First it was chocolate ice-cream. As a five year old, eating chocolate ice-cream was equivalent to going to heaven. I used to ask my mom if it was a long journey to heaven and if it was, would she pack me a tub of chocolate ice-cream as padkos (food for the road). If my mom

Quick fix

OK, OK, don’t start criticising my heading if you have skimmed through the recipes. Let’s just say that these dishes are for the times you don’t want to spend more than a hour in the kitchen preparing them. These are perfect dishes when the wife drops a bomb and says you must prepare supper and

Make and Bake at a later date.

Sometimes when you feel like something nice to eat, you don’t always feel like making something nice to eat. We often had this problem. After a full day of cleaning pools, we were famished. When we arrived home, my daughter, who was helping me at the time, looked at me and I looked at her.

Weekend delights, aka Second helpings.

A friend of mine has three children, two girls and a boy. They play well together but often one of the children will ask if a school friend may be allowed to come for a sleepover. The girls are especially big on sleepovers. They don’t need much excuse to arrange something like that. My friend’s

A different little three course meal to impress your family or guests.

Cheesy seafood chowder Ingredients: 2 Tbsp (30ml) olive oil + extra for sauteing 1 fillet (about 200g) hake, skinned, deboned and cut into 3cm cubes 1 packet (500g) seafood selection, defrosted 2 onions, chopped 2 leeks, chopped (optional) 3 cloves garlic, chopped 2-3 (about 250g) potatoes, peeled and cut into 4cm cubes 3 Tbsp (45ml) cake flour ½ tsp (3ml) ground cumin ¼ cup (60ml) dry white

Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clements.

My earliest recollection of seeing huge yellow lemons growing on a tree, was when we visited my granny’s house in Pretoria. We were always given a bagful of lemons when we said goodbye. The fruit, although big and lovely looking to the eye, yielded only a small usable inner section which was very dry. This

All you need is love…. of Chocolate!

When I think of all the things in my lifetime, that tasted better with or flavoured with chocolate, my craving for chocolate mounts. I start creeping towards the goodies cupboard where I keep my private stash of dark chocolate. On my way I reminesce about chocolate milkshakes. Chocolate Easter eggs. Chocolate ice-cream sundaes. Chocolate slabs.

Round the world in a South African kitchen.

We have so many different types of restaurants in South Africa. Thai, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese and Korean restaurants to mention just a few. Recipes of favorites from around the world are also freely available. Here are South African takes on Thai, Indian and Italian dishes. I’ve also included a nice little dessert for you to