Summer berry sorbet

Summer is a time of relaxing and eating refreshingly delicious light meals that reflect the brightness, the abundance of life and capture the happiness in the atmosphere. I in particular love everything and anything fruity for my desserts. I enjoy delving into all the summer berries and sometimes I mix all the berries I have in my fridge just so I can enjoy the burst of flavours in my mouth; Ahh, gorgeous ( my mouth is watering already).

This beautiful sorbet is a mix of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries. You can tell the sweetness of strawberries, the tanginess of raspberries and the deeper sweet notes of the blackberries. It's as delicious as it looks.

Recipe:

200g strawberries
150g raspberries
100g blackberries
150g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Clean all the fruits and allow the water to drain. Now put all the ingredients in a blender and blitz for a good 2-3 minutes.
Strain the mixture through a sieve and discard the peeps.
Transfer the mixture in a sorbet machine and churn as per machine instructions. Transfer sorbet onto a clean airtight container and freeze until needed.

Chicken Salad

This meal was put together using everything leftover from the salad leaves to the dressing and the 3 asparagus tips and 2 carrots. There is nothing, however that screams; SCRAPS!! when you look at the plate. It's beautiful, it's healthy, it's delicious and I could have happily served it to a guest.

Recipe:
1 chicken breast diced into big chucks or strips
1/2 a cucumber thinly sliced into discs (you can peel it if you like).
1 medium sized tomato thinly sliced
3-4 cooked asparagus tips halved
Baby carrots cooked
Handful green salad leaves

Mint dressing:
Handful fresh leaves leaves finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1/4 teaspoon crushed chilli flakes

Mix all the dressing ingredients and allow to rest for a few minutes.

Place your salad on a plate starting with the green leaves then cucumbers, tomatoes and so on.
Spoon the dressing on top then drizzle the juices around the plate onto the salad.

Enjoy

Honey and soy chicken

Honey and Soy chicken

This dish tops all the Chinese dishes I have attempted at home.  It's also very easy to make meaning you can even have a go making it during the week and really is delicious.


Ingredients:
400g chicken breast cut into bite sized chunks
1 cup corn starch

1/2 cup runny honey
2/3 cup chicken stock (low salt)
3 tbs soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp white vinegar
1 small onion finely chopped
1 clove garlic finely chopped
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tbs corn starch plus 1 1/2 tbs water
Vegetable oil to fry
1 tsp baking powder
2 large eggs beaten
1 tbs sesame seeds
2 green onions chopped

Method:
Mix chicken stock, soy sauce, honey, ginger, garlic, onion and  vinegar together and bring to a boil
Mix the 1 tbs of corn starch with the water and mix well, add to the honey mixture, reduce heat and and cook for about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and cover to keep warm.

Add baking powder and corn starch together and mix well.
Dip the chicken pieces into the beaten egg then coat with the corn starch.
Pour oil into a skillet or heavy based pan (oil should be around 2/3 of the skillet)  and heat.
When oil is very hot; drop 1/3 of the chicken pieces into the pan and fry for 4-6 minutes. Continue with the rest if the chicken until all has been cooked.

Add the fried chicken to the reserved sauce and cook on low heat for about 3 minutes making sure that all the chicken pieces are coated well in the sauces.

Enjoy with some egg fried rice.

Summer Cooking: Grilled nectarine with ice cream.

I am enjoying the warm weather, I love the wide variety of foods one can rustle up in no time at all feast on with family and friends. Desserts at this time are not disappointing.  Anything will do as long as it's teamed up with soft fruits.

Grilled Nectarines

2 Tbs pure honey
1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1 tbs caster sugar

4 scoops of ice cream (your choice)

Heat oven to 180C on grill
Cut the fruits in half and remove stones
Drizzle fruits with honey the. Sprinkle with sugar
Place on grill cut sides down and grill for 5 minutes, then the fruits to skin down and continue to cook for anouther 3 minute till the fruits are ready
Use the juices or syrup rendered from the fruits to decorate plates, place the fruit onto plate followed by a scoop of ice cream. Drizzle with fruit syrup and enjoy.

Happy Chickens

So I have been busy feeling lazy and only cooking when I really really have to. I am busy enjoying the weather and grabbing each opportunity to eat outside in the garden as much as I can and making full use of the warm sunshine.

One thing for sure is that I'm enjoying the light and easy meals and playing in the garden. Oh, I have six beautiful girls who will soon be gracing my garden soon. They are super cute and beautiful. There is Chirpy, Trouble, Thobekile, Silky, Pinky and Princess.

Quail egg and courgette fritters: starters

Quail eggs are finicky if not a pain to work with but very delicious indeed. The painstaking effort you put in just to peel those tiny gems is well worth it. They are gorgeously delicious; team them up with homemade hollandaise sauce and asparagus spears (or in this case, courgette fritters) and you've got yourself a winning starters. Today I did not bother with the hollandaise sauce because the yolk was perfect and I used that as both sauce for salad and dip for the fritters.

My absolute delight is when the egg has been left with a runny yolk that oozes out when you cut the egg open 😍.

Breakfast in the sun

Seeing that the sun has blessed us again and the kids woke me up early, like 7:30! Their breakfast request was to have Chicken noodle soup in exchange for being good and help tidying up the kitchen. I couldn't say no.

So noodle soup it was 😁

Picnic breakfast; soup, fresh mango slices and orange juice

Noodle soup 

In case you decide to make yours, this is what you need:
1.5 litres chicken stock
100g medium egg noodles cooked as per packet instructions  (I used fine vermicelli because that's what was in the cupboard)
Cooked chicken stripped or roughly chopped into huge chunks
Chicken bones or carcass (leftovers from Sunday roast are perfect)
5cm fresh ginger sliced thinly (with skin on)
3 cloves garlic bruised (unpeeled)
1 medium onion quartered with skin on
Dash soy sauce
2 red chillies sliced into medium chunks (I use crushed chilli because my children are not into heat)
Fresh coriander chopped (about 1tsp)
2 large pack choi or 4 small ones
Star anise
(Throw in some parsley, thyme odd chopped carrot and a bay leaf, if you have these)

Here's How

Add the onion, garlic, ginger and all the odd throw- in bits into the pan with the stock and boil for 10 minutes. Simmer uncovered for 20-30 minutes (most recipes will call for over an hour of simmering but I'm a mom and time is precious).
Strain into a clean bowl and discard all the solids, return the stock into a clean pan and simmer, add the pack choi leaves and shred the stems and add them in.
Add the spring onions and soy sauce and chicken and simmer for 3-5 minutes.

Divide noodles into 4 serving bowls and then paddle the soup on top.
Garnish with the chopped coriander and some chillies.
😋😋