Chedene's Nachos

Ingredients:

2x 150g Big corn bites/ Nachos chips
1x Bottle( +- 450g) spicy salsa sauce
2x Tubs( +- 250g) plain cream cheese
1x Avg block(+-250g) of cheddar cheese
2x Avocado pears
1x Tub( 250ml) sour cream
Salt and Pepper

How to make:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees

1. Line casserole dish with corn bites
2. Spread salsa generously over crisps
3. Then spread cream cheese over the salsa
4. Add grated cheddar cheese to the top of the dish
5. Place in oven for until cheese is melted( usually about 10 mins)
6. Mash avocados in a small serving bowl to make guacamole
7. Add a tablespoon of sour cream to the guacamole and season with salt and pepper.
8. Remove Nachos from the oven and place guamole bowl in the centre and serve


Enjoy!!!!

Thai Noodles

Only need to cook the noodles, so I make this and take it to work for my lunch.

250g packet medium egg noodles
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp peeled and finely grated galangal ( I used ginger)
2 bird's-eye red chillies, chopped
2 tsp chopped fresh holy basil (not sure what holy basil is I used normal basil and tasted nice)
1 tsp chopped fresh coriander
1 lime, juice only (I used lemon juice and still tasted nice)
1 tsp clear honey
1 tsp sesame seeds (I did not add, as none in the cupboard).

Method
1. Cook the noodle according to the packet instructions.
2. In a large bowl mix together the remaining ingredients.
3. Drain and toss the noodles in the Thai mixture.
4. Serve. - Nice and quick

I also added cooked chicken to noodles.

Cauliflower, Bacon & Potato Soup

Cauliflower soup??? Sounds disgusting, but has been my best soup in the past few weeks.
You can tell it is now winter with all the pots of soup on the stove.

Ingredients
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 large or 2 small onions, chopped
8 rindless streaky bacon rashers
2 potatoes, chopped (I used one large)
1 small cauliflower, cut in florets, leaves sliced (I thin I used just 1/2 a caulifower)
570ml/1 pint vegetable stock
290ml/½ pint milk

Method
1. Heat the oil in a large pan, add the onion and fry for 5 minutes until softened. Chop bacon rashers, add to the pan and fry for a further 2 minutes.
2. Stir in the potatoes and cauliflower and mix well. Add the stock and bring to the boil. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes until the vegetables are tender.
3. Purée the soup in a blender or food processor, then return to the pan and stir in the milk. Reheat gently, taste and add salt and pepper.

I think this was from the good food magazine

Thai Beef Soup

This soup was amazing I think it was a Ken Hom soup:

450g/1lb fresh spinach (baby spinach would not work)
175g/6oz lean fillet steak, cut into thin slices about 5cm (2 in) long
For the marinade
2 shallots, finely sliced
2 tbsp finely chopped garlic
1 tbsp fish sauce
freshly ground black pepper
For the soup
1.2 litres/2 pints homemade chicken stock or good quality bought stock (I used homemade Veg Stock)
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp sugar
1 small, fresh red chilli, seeded and chopped

Method
1. Remove the stalks from the spinach and wash the leaves well.
2. Blanch the leaves for a few seconds in a large pan of boiling water until they are just wilted, then drain well and refresh in cold water to prevent further cooking. Drain again, squeezing out excess water. (if you over cook the spinach I think you may ruin the dish. It literally really does take 2 seconds).
3. Combine the steak with the shallots, garlic, one tablespoon of the fish sauce and some freshly ground black pepper, then set aside. (The soup can be prepared in advance up to this point.)
4. Just before you are ready to eat, bring the chicken stock to a simmer in a saucepan and season it with the remaining fish sauce, the lemon juice, sugar and chilli.
5. Add the blanched spinach and stir in the beef and its marinade. Bring the soup back to simmering point, add a few grindings of freshly ground black pepper to taste and serve at once.

Kaatjes Appel-Zuurkool ovenschotel (Original Dutch Apple - Sauerkraut oven dish – with a twist)

Ingredients: (Serves two hungry person as main dish – it’s always enough for us two)
Sauerkraut natural or in White wine (jar 680 gr, drained weight + 540gr)
4 – 5 reasonable sized potatoes (+ 900 gr)
1 jar of smooth applesauce (250 – 360 gr)
1 smoked (pork) sausages (230 gr – ready to eat variety,
like Unox rookworst

Empty sauerkraut jar into a large pan, add a tea-spoon water, place lid on pan and put pan on low fire on the gas. Stir regularly and add, only if really needed, more water to prevent the sauerkraut from cooking dry.

Peel potatoes and cut in small pieces. Boil in water with a sniff of salt added until done (kruimig).

Cut sausage, straight from the packaging, into small slices.
Pre-heat oven, gas mark 5
Wipe some olive oil into (glass) oven dish.

Just before potatoes are done, cover bottom of oven dish with the sauerkraut (don’t add left-over liquid in the pan with it) and cover sauerkraut with the sausage slices.

When the potatoes are really done, pour water from pan and put pan back on low fire to evaporate remaining moist until potatoes are crumbly (kruimig). Carful not to burn them!

Mash potatoes with the apple sauce (*) and spread over the sausage slice in the oven dish. (You can write a greeting or someone’s initials on the mash with a fork, surprise your guests!)
Place in gas oven for 20 – 25 minutes. Serve piping hot.
(Or place in gas oven for 10 minutes and switch to grill oven for 3 – 4 minutes to add ‘golden’ colour. Serve piping hot)

Eet smakelijk.

* = in the original recipe the potatoes are mashed with milk and the apple sauce is spread over the sauerkraut before the sausage slices are added. But since in our home we don’t drink milk, besides loads of coffee-milk, one day I forgot to buy milk for the mash. That’s why the applesauce now ends up in the mash, had to think of something!
To be honest, we both find my ‘twisted’ recipe better ;-)

Steak Casserole

From our new butcher we were sold some stewing steak, which was just one big piece of prime steak chopped up. No fat just pure steak cubes, which stewed amazingly.

This is what I did to to the beef:

Fried the beef along with 2 onions (sliced), added a beef oxo cube, fried some more then added a tin of sliced tomatoes (which already contained oregano and basil).

This was it, a let it simmer for a couple of hours and then served with some wild rice.

(The sliced tomatoes worked really well, I was supposed to buy chopped but we had picked up the wrong tin, although sliced were perfect as they clumped together nicely when cooking).

Springbok Sausage

This isn't really a recipe as you put the sausage on the BBQ (or braai seeing as it's springbok).
Then cut open a soft bread roll and put the sausage in.

We have just discovered a new butcher on Kloof which is looking like a great find. This is where the sausages came from.

Now every Saturday we take a drive to pick up the weekly meat, and mike gets treated to biltong.