Harvest of Hope (Potato Bake)

After about two years of procrastinating (and watching my friends receive weekly boxes of fresh veggies), I finally signed up for Harvest of Hope.

Harvest of Hope (www.harvestofhope.org.za) is a project by the non-profit organisation Abalimi Bezekhaya which supports residents of townships such as Nyanga and Khayeltisha to grow their own organic vegetables to support their families. Some of these microfarmers now produce enough to feed their families and sell to their neighbours but have little access to markets to sell the remainder of their produce.

This is where Harvest of Hope comes in. They help to distribute the extra vegetables through a box scheme where members sign up and pay for their boxes monthly and pick them up weekly at designated locations in Cape Town (these are distributed all the way across the Southern Suburbs from Tokai to Seapoint).

There are two sizes of boxes - medium and small. Although the small box would probably be enough for the two of us, I like the variety in the big box (and it pretty much forces me to make vegetables every day).

Last week we got a packet of lettuce, a large packet of basil (already in pesto form - will recorded and post recipe next time), 1/2 dozen eggs, butternut, 2 pretty red chillies, 2 eggplants, about 6-8 brown onions, potatoes, green peppers and leeks.

About 2 weeks ago when I got my first box, I had leeks and potatoes and decided to try my hand at a potato bake. I have always been a bit scared of potato bakes -perhaps because I made them with raw potatoes and then they take ages to cook.

But this time I hit on an amazing recipe which used just the ingredients I had in my fridge. As soon as I had tasted it, I decided it was definitely blog-worthy. So I waited for the next bunch of leeks to come along - and sure enough, last week I got both leeks and potatoes.

I happened to have The Photographers favourite sausages in the fridge at the time I first made this. But you can make a vegetarian version, substituting hard boiled eggs for the sausage(The Photographer likes that version too, but not as much as the one with the sausages , of course).

Ingredients

9 firm potatoes (e.g. Nicola)

½ packet of Mettenden or Chorizo

1 bunch of leeks

½ cup of cream cheese

1 cup of grated cheese (I use white Gouda from Woolworths)

1 cup of milk

1 tsp paprika powder

1 tablespoon of butter

1 tsp of flour

Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180ºC

Peel the potatoes. Place the potatoes in a microwave steamer with ½ cup of water on 80% power for 12 minutes or until a sharp knife poked into the centre of the potato goes in easily.

Alternatively place the potatoes into a heavy based saucepan and ½ cup of water and the lid partially on. Cook for 15-20min or until a sharp knife poked into the centre of the potato goes in easily.

Allow to cool.

Cut the some of the green off the tops of the leeks so that the softer green and white parts remain. Slice thinly. 

Place in a colander and rinse thoroughly.

Preheat a pan on medium heat. Place the butter in the pan. Add the leeks to the pan and fry until soft.

While the leaks are frying, slice the sausages into thin slices. 

Take the leaks out of the pan and place on a plate

Add the sausages to the pan and fry until browned.

Place the milk, cream cheese flour and paprika powder into a food processor. Process until smooth. 

 (If you don’t have a food processor, place the cream cheese into a bowl. Add the milk gradually stirring until all the milk is mixed in. Add the paprika and flour and mix in).

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Slice the potatoes into 1/2cm slices.

Place the potato slices into an ovenproof dish(approximately 10x20cm) in one layer until the bottom is covered. 

Evenly distribute ½ of the sausage and ½ of the leeks over the potatoes.

Pour 1/3 of the milk mixture over the potatoes. 

Sprinkle a ¼ of the cheese over the potatoes.

 

Repeat this to make another layer.

 

Spread the remaining potatoes over the dish. Pour the remaining milk mixture and cheese over the dish.

Bake in a preheated oven for 20min until bubbling and slightly browned on the top.

=

 Serve with a green salad and/or pan-fried chicken breast or steak. (I happened to have some lovely pieces of fried duck.)

(Plum jam) Tart

Summer is the season for stone fruit here in the Western Cape. I remember spending summers as a child on fruit farm in Franschoek where we used to eat beautiful Santa Rosa plums until our tummies hurt.

At the end of last year I bought myself the wonderful Bill’s Basics. Not only are the recipes simple and tasty but the photos are incredible. I have been drooling over the plum jam tart.

So when I recently, I managed to get my hands on some beautiful export quality plums straight from the farm I put on my apron and….

The results were a lovely soft base and a fruity but tart topping. I added lemon zest to the base and substituted lemon juice for the orange juice in the original recipe.

 I suggest you abandon any hope of removing the tart from the base and serve directly from the baking paper.

I would serve with ice-cream or slightly sweetened cream (if you can’t see any in the photos, it was because we didn’t have any L )

  

Ingredients

Pastry

100g unsalted butter

90g caster sugar

175g plain flour

25g ground almonds

Zest of ½ a lemon

Topping

800g plums

110g caster sugar

2 teaspoons cornflour

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 180ºC.

Line the base of a springform pan with baking paper and grease the sides lightly with butter.

For the pastry, melt the butter in a heatproof bowl in the microwave until just melted. Set aside to cool.

Place flour and sugar in the bowl and add the melted butter and lemon zest. Mix until you form a soft dough.

 Turn out into the lined pan and press evenly across the base with your fingers. 

Prick several times with a fork. 

Bake in the oven for 15-20 min until the pastry starts to become slightly golden. 

Remove from oven and sprinkle the ground almonds over the base.

While the base is baking, pit and quarter the plums.

Mix the cornflour and lemon juice and pour over the plums with the sugar. 

Toss until the plums are coated. Arrange evenly over the pastry base.

Place in the oven for 35-40 min until cooked through and bubbly.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 5-10min before serving.

Serve with cream or ice-cream.

For the birthday boy II

  

And if you're wondering what The (spoiled) Photographer's real birthday cake looked like.....Anita made him an absolutely wonderful photography inspired cake and cupcakes. And if you think that it looks good, wait till you taste them! Amazing!(the cake is made up of about 6 layers of cake sandwiched together with chocolate ganache).For more info visit http://www.kokengeniet.co.za/.

 

[Disclaimer: I like Anita. She is a very good friend. She bakes me birthday cupcakes. She bakes my husband birthday cupcakes. But I only recommend her cakes because they are truly amazing.]

For the birthday boy (chocolate and raspberry cake)

Last weekend it was The Photographer’s birthday. One of his favourite things is to lie in bed on his birthday morning and eat birthday cake.

So, even though the amazing cake artist, Anita, from Kok ‘n Geniet (www.kokengeniet.co.za) was making The Photographer a cake for a little gathering in the evening, I decided that I should bake something small to tide him over.

Unfortunately it was a surprise (and I have some difficulty with all the settings on the camera) so there are no process photos. But the end product was so pretty, I had to share.

Probably serves four but tastes better for only two

Ingredients

Cake

(Easy-mix Chocolate Cake from Bill Granger’s Simply Bill – I quartered the recipe)

70g cake flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

15g cocoa powder

55g caster sugar

60g very soft butter

1 egg

45mL milk

A pinch of salt

Extras

100g milk or dark chocolate

100ml cream

About 300ml ready made chocolate mousse (or you can make your own if you are not laai-zy like me)

About 4-5 tablespoons raspberry jam

3 tablespoons frozen raspberries (optional)

1 punnet fresh raspberries

(you also need a wooden skewer, baking paper, cartridge paper)

 

Preheat the oven to 180ºC.

Grease 3 ramekins with a little soft butter. Cut out small circles of baking paper (the same circumference as the inside if the ramekin) and place into the base.

Sift the flour, baking powder, cocoa and sugar together into a bowl. Add butter, egg and milk and mix with an electric mixer for 1-2 min on low until smooth.

Spoon the mixture into the ramekins. They should be about 1/3 – ½ full. You may need to grease and line an extra one if they are too small.

Bake for 15-20min until a wooden skewer poked in the centre of the cakes comes out clean.

Leave in the ramekins for 5 min and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

If the cakes are quite pointy (as mine were) then use a knife to cut off some of the top so the cakes can balance on each other. Then cut the cakes horizontally so each cake yields two round disks

Place the frozen raspberries in a pan and heat on medium heat until melted (you can do this in the microwave too). Add raspberry jam a teaspoon at a time until the berry mixture just looses its tartness.

Place the first disk of cake onto a plate (preferably the one you plan to serve it on). Spoon 1-2 teaspoons of raspberry mixture onto the cake. Spoon 1-2 tablespoons of chocolate mousse onto the cake and spread gently over the surface. Add the next disk of cake and repeat the raspberry and chocolate mousse mixture until you have placed the last disk on the cake. Cut (or break) the wooden skewer to the height of the cake and insert it vertically into the centre of the cake.

To make the collar: take a piece of cartridge paper. Cut it to the following size: the width should be long enough that you should be able to wrap it around the cake with about 1cm overlap. The height should be about 4cm above the top of the cake. Cut a piece of baking paper the same size and staple them together at the top edges.

Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and microwave 1 minute at a time on medium power until the chocolate is melted.

Spread the chocolate onto the baking paper side of the paper collar in a rectangular shape leaving a 1cm border around the edges. Place in the freezer until the chocolate is set slightly. Remove from the freezer.

Wrap the chocolate collar around the cake (chocolate side should be against the cake). At the seam, pull away a centimetre of the baking paper at the start of the collar and lay the other edge on top. Staple the top(above the chocolate line). Cover if possible and put in the fridge for an hour (or overnight if you want to serve the cake for breakfast ….)

When you are ready to serve, place the cream into a bowl. Whip with an electric beater until stiff peaks form. Add raspberry jam a teaspoon at a time until the cream has a slight raspberry flavour but isn’t overly sweet.

Remove the cake from the fridge. Carefully peel off the baking paper from the chocolate. Try not to touch the chocolate as your hands will leave marks.

Spoon the cream onto the top of the cake until it is ½ cm away from the top of the collar. Arrange the raspberries on the top and around the sides.

Bring to your husband in bed on his birthday…..he will never leave you (or so I hope).

Home is where the (Minestrone Soup) is

I crave this soup every time I am away from home for a while.

Because it is healthy. And it is filling. Not in the way fish and chips is filling and makes you want roll around on the floor and groan about how full you are. In the good way of “I don’t need to eat for the next 5 hours because I am truly satisfied” way.

I usually make this soup with sausages that we get at the local supermarket. They are german style smoked sausages called Mettenden. This time I used bacon. If you are vegetarian, super-low fat or freaked out by eating pigs you can leave it out. I like to add a bit of meat so the Photographer still thinks he is eating some from time to time.

Makes about 8 meal sized portions.

Ingredients

2 onions

3 carrots

250g bacon or smoked sausages e.g. mettenden/ chorizo

1 pepper/capsicum

4 zucchini

8 baby potatoes

1 can butter beans

1 tin tomato paste

1 large jar of Passata (600mL) or 2 tins of chopped tomatoes

½ cup pearl barley

8-10 teaspoons of chicken or vegetable stock powder

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Chop the bacon, onion, carrots, pepper and zucchini. Quarter the potatoes. Drain and rinse the beans in a colander.

 Heat the soup pot over medium heat. When the pan is hot add the bacon and fry until cooked. Remove the bacon and set aside.

Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the pan and add the onions. Fry until transparent.

 

 Add the carrots and potatoes and cook for a further 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and the pearl barley. 

 Add the passata. Boil 3.5L of water in the kettle and add to pot.

 Place the lid on the pot and bring to boil.

Once the soup is boiling, turn down the heat and let simmer for 30min (the pearl barley should be almost tender and the soup should have changed from a bright red into a deeper red).

Add the pepper, zucchini, beans and bacon. Add 6 tsp of stock and stir until dissolved. Taste and continue to add additional stock powder to taste.

Add salt and pepper. Cook for a further 10min or until the zucchini are tender.

(I like to serve mine with grated cheese on the top – parmesan if you have it otherwise any grateable cheese will do!)

Teleporting (Carrot Cake)

I must have loved food from an early age because I remember chatting to my best friend at the age of 8 about what we were eating (often we would make it up) and then pretend to send the imaginary food down the phone line. The person on the other side's job was to suck in really hard and imagine that you could taste whatever was sent down the line: usually a big moist piece of chocolate cake with icing.
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This carrot cake recipe has made the modern equivalent of such a journey: the Photographer and I were living in Germany for 6 months at the end of 2009. During this time, a friend in South Africa emailed me and asked whether I had a good carrot cake recipe. I didn't, but I remembered a cookbook at my mom's place which I had used to make carrot cake several times while growing up.So I popped off a quick email to Australia. Within a few hours, the recipe arrived via Germany in South Africa.

(I have a suspicion that once I post this recipe on the blog, the recipe will "travel" to all sorts of other destinations as well).

This recipe comes from "My Way With Food" by Pamela Shippel.This is one of the cookbooks which I learned to bake from.

You will not regret making this cake (unless you really dislike carrot cake, and even then, you will probably like it).

Note: This recipe makes a lot of cake so I usually use half the recipe.

Cake

 4 extra large eggs

310 ml (1 ¼ cup) castor sugar

310 ml (1 ¼ cup) oil

5ml vanilla essence

625 ml flour

10 bicarbonate of soda

5 ml baking powder

10ml cinnamon

625 ml grated carrot (tightly packed)

100g pecans nuts, chopped

Zest of half a lemon

Preheat the oven to 160º C

Beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the oil to the egg mixture.

Sift the dry ingredients

Add the dry ingredients, nuts, and grated carrots to the egg mixture in 3 batches and fold in gently.

Pour the dough into a large square dish or two 20 to 25cm round tins lined with baking paper.

Smooth the top and bake for 45 minutes in the square dish or 23-35 minutes in the two round tins.
The cake is ready when a skewer poked into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Ice when cold

Icing

90g butter

500ml icing sugar

3 ml vanilla essence

125g smooth cottage cheese ( approximately)

Use a food processor* to cut the butter into the icing sugar until it looks like course bread crumbs. 

Add the vanilla and cream cheese and use the food processor to mix it in. Do not overmix.

  

Spread over cake when cold.

Garnish with lemon zest.

*If you do not have a food processor, cut the butter into small pieces and use your fingers (not your palms) to rub the butter into the icing sugar. Then mix about 1/3 of the cream cheese in with a wooden spoon. Then add the remaining cream cheese until just mixed through.