All posts in Cuisine and Beverages

With the mercury well and truly rising around SA, our hot summer days call for frequent refreshment! Spatula Magazine has brought out some fantastic recipes for healthy juices (great for those who are holding fast to their New Year’s resolutions) and some scrumptious ice-pop ideas.

Exotic pomegranate, mango and coconut squeeze

Veggie booster juice

Applegrass juice

Spatula uses the Oscar DA900 juicer to make these beverages.

If ice cream or ice-pops are more your thing, feast your eyes on the treats below.

Rosé and kiwi fruit ice pops

Smarties and vanilla pops

Dark chocolate and peanut butter pops

Trifle pops

Ice-pops are made with the highly desirable Zoku Pop Maker.

Find recipes for the juices and ice-pops (and more delicious images) at Spatula Magazine.

Christmas cooking and baking can be fairly stressful, especially when you’re feeding a crowd. Enter: Pick n Pay’s website, with a series of easy-to-make (and impressive) Christmas dishes. Have a look at these:

Kettle-braaied turkey with stuffing

Glazed gammon

Christmas pudding

Trifle

Fruit mince pinwheels

Soetkoekies

More recipes include lamb, pork, Christmas cake, fruit flan, cassata and ginger biscuits.

It’s also worthwhile to browse the Christmas tab for festive inspiration. There are activities for kids, a how-to for making your own crackers, cocktail recipes and suggestions for creative ways to wrap Christmas presents, etc.

Visit the PnP website for more useful Christmas ideas!

All images from www.picknpay.co.za.

Awesome, awesome, awesome, Nespresso have just launched three brand spanking new flavors: Dark Chocolate, Vanilla Blossom and Cherry. As always, Nespresso have rolled out an incredible Flash website, which really does make these brands look quite incredible.

Dark Chocolate – Dark and bitter chocolate notes meet the caramelized roast of the Livanto Grand Cru. A rich combination reminiscent of a square of dark chocolate.

Cherry – The sweet and fragrant notes of ripe cherries awaken the toasted ones of the Livanto Grand Cru. Together they create a fruity and full-flavoured taste.

Vanilla Blossom – A delicate harmony capturing the roundness of the Livanto Grand Cru and the velvety taste of vanilla. A smooth blend distinguished by light floral notes.

If the words don’t catch you, take a look at the pics:

Keen on winning a dinner for you and 5 friends, cooked in the comfort of your home by a brilliant chef? Well Nando’s is giving you a chance to do this, but you have to visit the www.mealfor6.co.za website and enter, but to get you started, here’s a hint:

Big thanks to @BangersandNash for my Nando’s goodies this morning:

Are you a Nutella fan? And are you handy in the kitchen? You may want to get out your apron. This home-made Nutella recipe comes from the good people at babble.

Homemade Nutella

• 1 1/2 cup whole hazelnuts
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 3/4 cup powdered milk
• 1 Tbsp. mild-flavored honey
• pinch salt
• 1 heaping cup chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, or chips
• 1 scant cup chopped milk chocolate, or chips

On a rimmed baking sheet, toast the nuts in a 400ºF for 10 minutes, or until fragrant and their skins begin to pop. Transfer to a tea towel, gather into a bundle and rub together to remove as much of their skins as possible. While warm, transfer to the bowl of a food processor and blend until they go from finely ground to pasty and thick, like natural peanut butter.

Meanwhile, warm the milk, powdered milk, honey and salt in a small saucepan just until it starts to boil. Remove from heat. In a glass or stainless steel bowl set over a pan of simmering water (or in the microwave), melt the chocolates, stirring occasionally until smooth.

Add the melted chocolate to the ground nuts and continue to process the mixture, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add the warm milk mixture and process until everything is well blended and as smooth as you can get it. Makes about 2 cups. Visit the website for more delicious recipes and let us know if you give this one a bash!

Oenological is the study of all aspects that involve wine and wine making, for those of you who don’t know (wiki). So, what happens when you bundle up the science and study into a mobile application? Well, you get an incredible application that turns us all into connoisseurs.

Hello Vino is an awesome iPhone and Android application that assists you in pairing your wine with the meal at hand. So, if you’re cooking some fish for dinner and you want to know what wine would go best with it, this application would assist you in figuring it out.

The application also comes bundled with all sorts of other cool features, one feature will assist you with the pronunciation of wine names!

Here’s a video of the application:

There are all sorts of goodies on their website, so if you want the application or perhaps a widget, click here and take a look for yourself.

Let us know what you think of it!

Recently I took part in yuppiechef’s Enkosi Cookathon, described as “a celebration of South Africanness”. There were seven South African recipes to be cooked (or baked) and each participant who sent in a photo of their completed dish would receive something from yuppiechef.

The recipes included:

• Lamb curry
• Bobotie
• Phuthu and relish
• Spicy chicken livers
• Malva pudding
• Milk Tart
• Koeksisters

yuppiechef was gracious enough to allow me to make a vegetarian version of all the meals and substitute the spicy chicken livers with another of their recipes.

Here are a few of my entries:

I didn’t win the cookathon, but a short while after the event a Berco man knocked at my door and delivered this!

I was gobsmacked.

Thank you to yuppiechef for

1. Providing their followers with fun, positive-about-SA competitions.
2. Including the minority (in this case people like vegetarians).
3. Rewarding brand fans so richly.

yuppiechef, for the win.