A few weeks ago, I took photos at a wedding that was held at La Cucina da Ciros in Parkhurst, and I was most impressed with the food.  After discussing the experience with Madelein and Pierre one evening, we decided to make a booking for dinner.

Last night we had an grown up dinner with friends as a result

It was most amazing! We’re definitely going to go back.

This is what I ate…

Starters:  Parma ham with gorgonzola with shavings of watermelon…. totally yum and completely huge portion!!

Main:  Fillet steak with belgian chocolate sauce served with roast potatoes and roast veg.  Again, totally yum.  In fact I probably should have chosen something slightly less rich for a main course, but I just could not resist a chocolate sauce with steak… and it was so very worthwhile.

Dessert:  Thankfully Lance and I shared this one.  We ordered the vanilla souffle with chocolate and orange sauce. It went so very well with the awesome cappuccino that we ordered at the same time.

I literally rolled out of there!!

It was such an amazing evening, with loads of laughter and good conversation and fabulous food.

I attended a cooking evening this evening hosted by Canderel.  It was so much fun, and it was awesome to spend time with bloggers that I know… and to meet bloggers I’ve never meet before (so now I have more blogs to go and explore).

The cookoff took place at Salon de Culinaire in Fourways (they baked Tanya’s magnificent cake at the wedding a few weeks ago).  On the menu was a tomato tarts, then duck with plum sauce and ending with red velvet cupcakes.  There were 6 bloggers that attended, and we were paired to make one of the courses.  And the aim was to use the Canderel Yellow to replace the sugar.

Angie (@miss_luckypony) and I got to bake the tomato tarts.  Oh and they ended up being very delish, after we decided half way through the process that they would taste better with a bit of feta cheese… and thankfully Trevor from Salon de Culinaire had some on hand… and the recipe got adjusted.

I must say that cooking with the Canderel was quite something.  It’s so very light and so fine compared to sugar… and the food tasted as it should have so I’m assuming that it tastes close to real sugar.  And yes, I’ve never actually had Canderel before.

Alida from Simply-Delicious had the most incredible chopping skills!

Angie took more photos than me… was a little funny for me to have so many other people around with so many cameras

Tanya was also there, and got to bake the cupcakes











It was an awesome evening thanks so much to Canderel for inviting me (Tash from Raising Men has her blog post up too, so go see the pro photos taken during the evening).  Salon de Culinaire was awesome!! I would love to organise another blogging cookoff there… was so much fun!  They actually did a lot more of the cooking than we did, and we eventually ended up at the table drinking wine while the team made sure that the baking was completed properly and then they plated the food… Angie and I decided to plate our starter though, which was quite a bit of fun.

And here’s the recipe for the Tomato tarts that we made:

Mini Tomato Tart Tartin

This makes a stunning starter or could be served as a main course with salad. For ease it can be made ahead if required. The tomatoes turn wonderfully sweet and caramelised once cooked.

1 Serving

15 minutes preparation time 

30 minutes cooking time

Save 40 calories

7g fat (per serving of which saturates 3g)

144 calories (per serving)

19g carbohydrates (per serving – of which sugars 9g)

INGREDIENTS

3 tomatoes, cut in half

2 tsp granular Canderel Yellow

A few fresh thyme leaves (optional)

25g/2oz ready bought light puff pastry

Fresh basil leaves for garnish

YOU WILL NEED A 10CM ROUND FRYING PAN

METHOD

1 Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6

2 Add the tomatoes to a roasting tin and sprinkle over 1tsp of Canderel Yellow and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cook in the oven for about 15 minutes until they just start to soften and wilt a little. You want them to retain their shape.

3 Whilst the tomatoes are cooking, roll the pastry out on a lightly floured board to a 10cm round. Put to one side.

4 Now spoon the tomatoes out and sit them cut side down in a small pan along with the thyme if using, then add the remaining Canderel Yellow. Cook for a few minutes until some juices run then remove from the heat.

5 Sit the pastry over the tomatoes, tucking it in and around them. Put in the oven and cook for about 15-20 minutes until the pastry is golden.

6 Remove and leave for a few minutes then invert onto a plate, be careful as the pan handle will be very hot. Garnish with basil leaves.

Tip: If you haven’t got a mini pan, you can transfer the tomatoes to a mini tart tin or oven proof dish before covering with pastry     

You know how I love wine right?  Well, this wine tasting experience on Sunday after the breakfast at Tokara was actually the first time I’d done it! Yip, that’s right!! Whenever we go to the Cape, we’re alway is a hurry and kids and wine farms don’t exactly go (or so I thought, this trip taught me otherwise).

Anyway, on our way back down the hill to Somerset West, we climbed up another hill to get to Uva Mira.

I loved it!! My mom and I did all the tasting, while Kathy chatted with friends that she bumped into there, and Ian had a nap on the couch

What a gorgeous place!! It has the most amazing view, and whole vibe is just incredible!

We  did the full tasting and because it was the Helderberg Wine Festival over the weekend, it only cost R20!.  After trying the cellar selection and the vineyard selections, I bought 3 bottles.  I bought 2 bottles of the Vineyard Syrah and 1 bottle of the cellar Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot.  I almost bought some of the Chardonnay, because it was that good, but I know that I never drink white wine at home, so it would be a waste.

On Sunday morning we had the most incredible breakfast.

Kathy booked a table at the Tokara Deli, which is a wine and olive farm high in the mountains behind Stellenbosch.  The weather was pretty grim, and even though it’s summer, they had a fire going… so very awesome!! Anyhoo, this place deserves a blog post on it’s own because of how amazing it was.

The next time we visit the Cape with the kids we’re DEFINITELY going to make a plan to get there for a meal.  They had the most incredible jungle gym outside which looked so organic.  It looked like a carefully designed pile of tree trunks with a slide emerging from the middle.  The kids that were there were having a ball on it.  Not only that, but there was a tree house made from what looked like a type of wicker! Very very cool!!

And as for the food… it was too delicious.  The cappucino’s were just perfect, the coffee was yummy.  I order the baked eggs with spinach and parmesan served with brown toast for breakfast.  It was so very yummy, and was ideal for the crappy weather because the pot that the egg came in stayed hot so I had hot food throughout!

Oh and… their kiddies menu looked amazing too!! Definitely going to have to make a plan!

Photos:  iPhone with iCamera and Diptic apps

The location for Kathy’s cancer photoshoot was the Idiom vineyards in the Da Capo wine estate in Stellenbosch.  My mom’s cousin is the farm manager of the vineyard, and Kathy loves going there so the shoot was organised there.  My mom’s cousins and aunt waited for us to finish the shoot, and then we all had a picnic… on the edge of the vineyard.

Sounds fantastic right?  Well, it was a brilliant idea, except the weather didn’t exactly play along.  The rain started during the shoot, and by the time we finished it really was miserable! We ended up huddling around a table under a lapa.  What a beautiful place though! It’s high up in the mountains close to Sir Lowry’s Pass, and overlooks the whole valley…. you can see Strand and Gordon’s Bay etc from the deck that’s been built on a rocky outcrop.

Anyhoo, because of the shoddy weather, we were much more interested in having some red wine and cheese well… not really… any excuse for a good wine!

It was so special having a meal with the guy responsible for the vines! Tim told us that the vineyard that we used for Kathy’s shoot was a Sangiovese lot, and that it had just received Gold Veritas status! How cool is that?!

And in fact, we drank a bottle of Sangiovese 2007… oh wow… what a gorgeous wine… especially with strong cheeses! I have to find that now, and buy some!

We also had a 2007 blend of Cab Sauvignon, Cab Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot… OMW you should taste that with chocolate!! This one wasn’t that great with cheese

It was such an amazing few hours on top of the hill… and so nice to see family that I haven’t seen in very very many years.  It was the perfect way to end a perfect day… even though I froze my butt off (I was wearing 2 jerseys, and rain jacket and a K-Way jacket and I was still cold!)

Don’t you hate it when you order something on a menu, and you get something that’s only remotely like what was on the menu?  Drives me batty.  I wasn’t actually going to blog about this, because I’m doing something that you shouldn’t do as a blogger, and that is complain about something that happened in a cafe/restaurant/store without raising it with the restaurant management first… but bugger it, it’s been bugging for me for hours.

And no, I’m not expecting a reply from them… I’m just trying to prove a point

I worked from home today, and Connor was at home sick too… and we popped into Design Quarter to do some photo printing at lunchtime, and while we were there we decided to go to the Food Bar for lunch.  Now I LOVE their coffees so any excuse to go there is a good one in my opinion… and they have a kiddies menu.

Well, apart from the cappuccino’s, I was completely disillusioned by the experience.

If you read the following on a menu what do you expect? “Baguette with roast chicken and avocado with mustard mayonnaise”

I did change it a little because I asked for rye bread instead.  But what I expected to get was a rye sandwich, with sliced roast chicken and sliced avo drizzled with a mustard mayonnaise.

What I got was a rye sandwich with chicken mayonnaise (made with LOADS of mayonnaise with a hint of mustard because I could see the mustard seeds) and topped with sliced avo.

I didn’t want a chicken mayo sarmie.  It was a damn expensive chicken mayo sarmie actually.

Oh well, it was actually nice, and I did eat it, but not as nice as I had imagined.

Now is this just me?

The way in which menus are written should seriously reflect the meal that you actually get in the end.  It just leaves you disappointed if it’s not the same.

Secondly, Connor’s meal, which I actually did tweet about too, but the waiter did fix.  I ordered him a hot dog (and yes, I’m THAT bad mother that feeds her kids viennas on occasion).  It arrived.  It was on a plain Woolies hot dog bun.  No butter.  A vienna straight from the fridge plonked on top, with a side bowl of tomato sauce.  Yuck! Anyhoo, waiter proceeds to warm the entire bun and vienna in the microwave to sort the issue out… but by then I was too annoyed to do anything because I was now running late… I needed to get to Bradley’s school.

Oh well, we did get to eat I suppose, and it was nice sitting outside… but still… I hardly ever get to go out with Connor alone and I wanted to have a quick nice meal.

One of my colleagues, Ross, came around bearing gifts this afternoon. He’d baked… yes, he actually baked… for his dog’s 7th birthday and he brought in some yummy baked cheesecake for the humans, and some pupcakes for everyone’s dogs!!

How cool is that?!

The pupcakes are banana cupcakes with honey creamcheese frosting based on a birthday cake recipe in the Modern Dog Magazine

It was quite funny watching them trying to eat them.  They didn’t guzzle them down at all.  First they tried biting them, and then decided otherwise.

Then they both licked off all the topping,

Then once they were clean, they chomped until they were done.

Not sure how much they really liked them actually, but they like any kind of treat!

And the recipe for those not bothered to click the link above

Banana Birthday Pupcake
2 bananas
1 3/4 cups water
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 Tbsp baking powder
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 egg
2 Tbsp honey or molasses

Preheat oven to 350˚ F. In a bowl, combine bananas, water, vanilla, egg, and honey or molasses and mix well. Add flour, baking powder, and cinnamon and mix well. Pour mixture into an 8-inch greased cake pan. Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out dry.

Frosting
In a mixer combine the following:
12 oz cream cheese (room temperature)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp honey
For carob frosting, add 3 tsp of carob powder to the frosting recipe.

We went out for dinner tonight to John Dory and I ordered prawns.

They were yum but the kids were funny . We don’t often go to fish restaurants and Connor couldn’t remember me ever eating prawns before.

So when they arrived at the table Connor looked at them very skeptically. After a while he piped up…

“My granny had prawns in her garden”

Lol I had to explain that these came from the sea and weren’t quite the same as the parktown prawns (which are the ugliest scariest looking insects ever). He wasn’t impressed and eventually asked to switch places with Bradley because he didn’t like the smell or the looks of the feelers.

Then when I’d finished he looked at the shells on the plate strangely and said “why didn’t you eat the prawns?”

LOL I explained again that I set the meat inside the shell and you can’t eat the head, eyes, shell and tail.
Bradley rolls his eyes and retorts “That’s not a shell that’s an exoskeleton”

And when we got home, I googled photos of both to show them the difference because it turned out that he wasn’t happy with any of my explanations, and he was still convinced I’d eaten Parktown prawns for dinner.

OMW I have a busy weekend coming up… starting today.

I’m going to be:

1.  Having a dinner party at our house for 11 people tonight… I’m going to be cooking 2 curries… Sandi‘s awesome Butter Chicken recipe, a beef Bombay curry recipe from the most awesome curry cookbook from Woolies that now out of print, and then for dessert it’ll be Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Chocolate Brownies (Lance is shopping so I can just cook when I get home)

2.  Delivering 2 photoshoots

3. Taking the kids to Pretoria at sparrows fart tomorrow to watch Cars2 at a special screening, because I’m taking photos of the decor etc.

4.  I’m going to do my level best to get to the Tranquil Body Treats 1st year celebration tomorrow

5.  I’m taking photos at a kids birthday party tomorrow

6.  A maternity shoot on Sunday

And between all that I need to fnd time to take the dogs for a walk, they’re destroying my garden again

What are you up to?

I’ve seen the Wonderbag being used before… in fact, last year my mom blogged about how she used one to cook my birthday dinner because the power went out on the day we celebrated my birthday at her house… so, I was intrigued when I got invited to Microsoft for today’s launch.  But the launch ended up not being about the bag… but about how the company intends distributing it to communities.

Oh and we got to eat lunch that was cooked in the bag!!

Before I start, it probably makes sense to explain what it is.  It’s a bag that looks almost like a duvet with a cushion that you tie around the top.  The way you use it, is to boil your food in a pot, and once the cooking process has started, you take the pot off the stove and put it in the bag, seal it, and leave it.  And the bag’s insulation acts like a slow cooker and cooks the contents of the pot.

So, as you may think, this save electicity or fuel or whatever it is that you cook with, and is good for the environment… and effectively saves you money if you use it regularly.

What’s interesting about this product though, is the way in which it’s being “sold”.

Natural Balance has now reached agreement with some municipalities to distribute/sell the bags to the residents to reduce the power consumption as well as household costs.  The mayor of Newcastle spoke at the launch today and told us how 22000 of these bags will be distributed to the residents of the town who are on the ingident register (those households registered as only earning < R1900 income per month.  And then other residents will get bags if they prove that they pay their electricity bills for 3 consecutive months… as an incentive to paying for electricity.  They’re hoping to encourage the use of the bags to reduce power bills… and effectively giving the residents more disposable income to spend on other things.

Interesting hey?

I really hope that the community project is successful, because I think it’ll really help those that are struggling to pay for electricity… and to keep their consumption under the minimum “free” limit. In fact, there was a guy from the Ekhuruleni municipality at the launch trying to understand how he could get the concept working in his area… good sign!!

What was also interesting was that a product design agency Frog has built a mobile USSD application for field agents to capture basic information about the people that use the bags (and the data is then sent real-time to a cloud based database and system provided by Microsoft) in order for the company to monitor the use of the bags… and then enabling them to claim carbon credits.  Carbon credits are tradeable in Euros and will essentially mean that that money  received from the sale of the credits will be plugged back into the project enabling more bags to be produced and distributed.

Some facts about the bags which I found quite fascinating:
- The Wonderbag saves approximately 0.5 tonnes of carbon per year if it is used 2 or 3 times a week.
- With regular use, the Wonderbag can save at least 15kWh of electricity and 1.6 litres of paraffin a week, and as much as 50% of the energy needed of cooking.

Oh and it’s pretty!
I think it’s a really worthwhile project they’re embarking on… I think I want to get one for my domestic worker… I’m sure it’ll save her some money.

However, even though it’s so cool, I’m not sure how often I would use it… other than what my mom did… use it when the power goes out and you want to cook something for a long time.  We don’t really eat a lot of stewy stuff.  But if we did… this would make a huge amount of sense

PS. Some of the images taken with iPhone and Instagram and the others with my DSLR