Hi and welcome to my blog! My name is Karen and I love cooking simple, uncomplicated, flavourful food. My cooking is inspired by seasonal ingredients, punchy flavours, an awareness of sustainability and of course by the likes and dislikes of my family and friends that sit around my table as well as you, the virtual guests around my table!
I am a chef, recipe developer and food stylist and generate my own content. I am also completely addicted to recipe books, of which I have an extremely large collection but the essence of my food is about celebrating life and all the fabulousness that we can add by creating good food.
Thank you for reading my blog. Please keep on giving me feedback and may your kitchen, as mine, be filled with joy and the best tasting food!
These muffins are fragrant and cloudy and makes for a fabulous healthy snack. Keeps well in a sealed container – if you can restrain yourself from eating them all in one day!
375ml bran
125ml boiling water
60ml melted butter
190ml brown sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
200ml + 50ml buttermilk
6ml bicarbonate of soda
160ml flour
160ml wholewheat flour
2ml salt
5 very ripe bananas, mashed
Preheat your oven to 220℃.
Line a muffin tin with paper cups.
Add the bran to a mixing bowl and pour over the boiling water.
Melt the butter in the microwave and pour over the bran mixture. Give it a good mix so that the butter blends into the bran. Put aside.
Add 50ml buttermilk to a mixing bowl and sprinkle the bicarbonate of soda on top. Stir through and set aside.
Add the sugar, egg and 200ml buttermilk to the bran mixture.
Stir in the bicarbonate and buttermilk mixture.
Add the flour, wholewheat flour and salt to the mixture and mix.
Finally, add the mashed banana and stir through the mixture.
Spoon into the prepared muffin tins, filling about two thirds full.
Bake the muffins for 20 minutes and remove from the oven.
Cool the muffins on a cooling rack before serving or storing in an airtight container.
These canapès are quick and easy to make whenever you have fresh figs available and generally very popular. Your may replace the blue cheese with a pecorino for punch or a mozzarella for a more neutral taste.
Fresh figs
Streaky bacon
Blue cheese or pecorino or mozzarella
Olive oil
Honey
Preheat your oven to 190℃.
Cut a cross into the figs, about halfway through, so that the fruit opens up without falling apart.
Place a thin slice of cheese into the cross you have cut into each fig.
Now wrap a strip of streaky bacon around the outside of the fig, overlapping it, and then place the figs into an ovenproof dish.
Drizzle the figs with olive oil and a generous amount of honey.
Bake in the oven for 30 minutes, until the bacon is cooked and crispy on the edges.
I love baked feta cheese and olives, slightly warm, spread onto a slice of crusty fresh bread. It makes a great canapé or side dish to a casual lunch and is especially good with oven roasted vegetables!
2 blocks feta cheese
125ml dry white wine
a small handful of thyme
olive oil to drizzle
125ml black olives
Preheat your oven to 190℃.
Place the feta cheese into an ovenproof ceramic dish, add the white wine, thyme and drizzle with olive oil.
Scatter the olives around the cheese.
Bake for 25minutes or until the feta is soft and slightly charred on the edges.
Over the next few days I shall share these summer lunch mezze recipes: Bacon and Cheese Figs, Filled Mushrooms, Baked Feta and Grape Focaccia. These are all delicious served as mezze platters with cocktails or thrown together as a casual lunch, paired with ice cold wine.
Who can resist this simple dessert with its smooth mouthfeel and burnt sugar sauce?!
This recipe provides for one large crème caramel or 8-10 small, individual desserts, depending on the size of your moulds.
50g + 50g caster sugar
500ml milk
10ml vanilla
4 whole eggs
4 egg yolks
Caramel:
100g sugar
100ml water
Preheat your oven to 160℃.
Add 50g caster sugar and 500ml milk to a saucepan and put it onto medium-low heat. Stir to dissolve the sugar.
Heat the milk mixture to just before boiling point. (This is when you can see the heat coming from the surface of the milk and minuscule bubbles forming on the sides of the saucepan.).
Take the saucepan from the heat.
Add the whole eggs and egg yolks to a mixing bowl and sprinkle the last 50g of caster sugar on top.
Whisk the egg and sugar mixture by hand until fully blended.
Now, start adding the warm milk from the saucepan in a very thin stream while whisking vigorously. Remember: pour slowly, whisk quickly!
Add the vanilla to the mixture and stir through.
Strain the milk mixture through a very fine sieve and set aside.
Caramel:
Prepare a 22cm diameter solid cake tin or deep ceramic dish, or individual ovenproof bowls by spraying it with cooking spray. Put the cake tin/ceramic dish/moulds in a roasting tray – you are going to bake the custards in a Bain Marie .
Fill your sink with ice cold water – you will cool the sugar in it at a later stage but it is important to fill it now.
Add the sugar and water to a small saucepan and turn on the heat.
Stir the mixture until the sugar has dissolved and do not stir again!
Turn up the heat and wait for the sugar to start changing colour. Swirl the saucepan if you like but do not stir the mixture!
When the sugar has reached a beautiful caramel colour, remove it from the heat and immediately plunge the bottom of the saucepan into the sink with cold water. This prevents the sugar from cooking further and burning.
Carefully pour the caramelised sugar to a depth of 3mm in each mould/tin and put aside for about 5 minutes. Check whether the caramel has set by touching it lightly with the back of a wooden spoon.
Now pour the custard mixture into your moulds and place them back into the roasting tin.
Fill the roasting tin with enough very hot water to come about two thirds up the side of the moulds.
Place the custards into the oven and bake for 45 minutes.
Remove the roasting tin with the cremes and cool completely before refrigerating for 2 hours.
Un-mould the caramels by place a serving dish onto the mould and then flipping it. Allow it to stand for a few minutes if it does not slip out immediately.
More of a throw-together than a recipe, this filled sweet potato is utterly delicious!
4 large or 6 medium size sweet potatoes
45ml Harissa paste
1 X can black beans
salt and pepper
olive oil
Preheat your oven to 180℃.
Wash the sweet potatoes and place them in a roasting dish. Place in the pre-heated oven and bake for about 25minutes or until a toothpick can be inserted into the flesh.
Remove the sweet potato from the oven and leave to cool slightly.
Cut off a “lid” of skin to open up the sweet potato and scoop out about two thirds of the flesh. Take care not to leave the bottom and sides too thin.
Add the scooped flesh, harissa paste and black beans to a small mixing bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
Mix through and scoop the mixture back into the sweet potato shells.
This is one of my all-time favourite snacks: roasted carrot hummus on a slice of fresh sourdough! The flavours are intense, slightly smoky from the char on the carrot and tastes utterly delicious and more-ish!
about three average sized carrots
1 X 400g can of chickpeas
60ml tahini paste
3 cloves of garlic
juice of two lemons (about 60ml)
5ml salt
45ml olive oil
Peel the carrots and chop them into even sized chunks. Place on a roasting tray, drizzle with olive oil and roast at 190℃ for about 20 minutes, or until the edges of the carrot are slightly charred. Remove from the oven and set aside.
Add all the ingredients and the slightly cooled carrots to a blender (or use a stick blender) and blend together.
You will now have a hummus with a very dense consistency which may be thinned down with more olive oil or by adding small amounts of ice cold water. I prefer this hummus with its thick, dense consistency and the intensity of carrot flavours!
The hummus can be kept in the refrigerator for a week.
These fudge little cake slices is an all-time South African favourite and can be found in almost every school’s tuck shop. If it was up to me to name them it would have been called biscuit fudge. They are quick and easy to make with no baking involved!
125g butter
15ml cocoa powder
500ml icing sugar
2,5ml vanilla
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 X 200g packet Marie biscuits, crushed (or digestive biscuits)
Line a 18cm X 28cm baking tin or ceramic dish with baking paper.
Add the butter, cocoa powder and icing sugar to a saucepan and put it on VERY low heat.
Stir the ingredients around until the butter has melted – do not be impatient!
Take the melted mixture off the heat and stir in the vanilla.
Beat the egg with a fork and add to the mixture. Mix well.
Add the crushed biscuits and mix until all the biscuit bits are covered in the cocoa mixture.
Scoop the mixture into the prepared tin, press down onto the mixture and level the top.
Allow to cool completely in the refrigerator.
Cut into squares and store in a sealable container.
I make these potato balls when I have leftover mashed potato and serve them as a light lunch with a salad. They are however so good it is worth making some mash especially to make them! Add a dipping sauce and you have yourself a canapé as well!
750ml mashed potato (If you are making the mashed potato from scratch, remember to season!)
250ml grated cheddar cheese
250g diced bacon
125ml chives, finely chopped
2 eggs
250ml breadcrumbs
vegetable oil for frying
Cook the diced bacon until crispy and chop into smaller pieces.
Add the mashed potato, grated cheese, bacon and chives to a mixing bowl and stir to combine.
Scoop a spoonful of the mixture into your hands and press together into a ball, slightly smaller than a ping-pong ball. Keep going until there is no potato mixture left.
Break the eggs into a shallow bowl and beat lightly with a fork.
Measure the breadcrumbs and add to another shallow bowl.
Heat about 5cm deep vegetable oil in a heavy based saucepan.
Now dredge the balls in the egg and then cover them with crumbs.
These old fashioned treats have been around for ages!! Easy, quick and truly delicious! The recipe makes about 30 balls and should be stored in an airtight container at room temperature.
250g pitted dates
120g butter, cubed
180ml caster sugar
a pinch of salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 X 200g pack of Marie biscuits or digestives
250ml desiccated coconut
Chop the dates into small pieces with a knife.
Add the dates, butter, caster sugar and salt to a saucepan and put it over low heat until the sugar and butter has melted.
Cook the mixture on medium-low heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Break the egg in a small bowl and lightly beat it with a fork. Put aside.
Add the biscuits to a plastic bag and smash it to rough crumbs with a rolling pin.
Remove the date mixture from the heat and allow to stand for a few minutes while stirring – bring down the intensity of the heat.
Now add the egg, stir it through and then the crushed biscuits and mix really well.
Scoop some of the date mixture into your hand and make a ball slightly smaller than a ping-pong ball. Keep going until all the mixture has been rolled into balls.
Spread the coconut in a tray and roll each date-ball in the coconut to cover completely.
Store in an airtight container, at room temperature.
My Whisk and I 