Monday, 26 October 2015

'n Krismis storie

Ek het 'n Indoniesiese bruidskas. Dit is 'n driehoekige kassie met laatjies.

Die bruidegom gee vir die bruid die kassie as geskenk en dan sit hy 'n geskenk in elke laai, vir die week voor die troue maak die bruid elke dag 'n laai oop met 'n geskenk.

Elke jaar Kersfees maak ek al die laaitjies vol met verskillende lekkergoed. Ek hang 'n kersversiering aan elke knoppie en as daar kinders kom kuier dan help hulle hulself uit die laaitjies.

So besluit ek toe om een jaar candy canes aan die kassie te hang. Ek soek wyd en syd en kry uiteindelik  canddy canes wat klein genoeg is om aan die kassie te hang by 'n bekende supermark.
Ek gaan staan in die ry en toe ek by die toonbank kom sit ek my candy canes so selfvoldaan op die neer en glimlag vir die kassier.

Die kassier kyk my uitdrukkingloos aan. Sy sê vir my: "Smaak kak" My mond val oop, 'n honderd en tien gedages flits deur my kop, een is: iewers het iemand al vir my gesê die candy canes is nie altyd lekker nie. Ek sê vir die kassier: " Ag moenie worry nie ek gaan dit nie eet nie", sy kyk my nog meer uitdrukkingloos as die vorige keer aan: "Smaak kak" sê sy weer vir my. Ek sê: "Ja , ek weet dit is sleg ek gaan dit aan my Kersboom hang"...hoe verduidelik ek haar nou van die kas en die laaitjies en my liefde vir Krismis.

Sy kyk my weer 'n derde kyk; maar hierdie keer kyk sy diep in my siel en sy sê vir my: MEVROU! Ek vra of jy 'n Smart Card het!
Toe haal ek baie gehoorsaam my smart card uit en betaal vir my candy canes. Ek dink dit is nou vier jaar gelede en ek kon nog nie die candy canes eet nie, ek bêre hulle maar elke jaar en elke jaar hang ek hulle voor die kassie en lag oor hulle so sleg smaak....
 

Saturday, 6 June 2015

LCHF: Lamingtons - Ystervarkies - South African Lamingtons

Bazaar season:
It is Bazaar season here in Kimberley, South Africa where I live. Yesterday I went to two church bazaars and they had the most delicious treats for sale. Except for the very nice fatty chops which was sold at both bazaars non of the two had any banting treats.

At the second bazaar I saw packets full of Lamingtons and was tempted to buy this....I resisted in the end. However this afternoon after my afternoon nap I really craved something nice and sweet and remembered my Lamington recipe I used to make whenever my kids had to take something to school for a cake sale.

I stumbled across this recipe while paging through a magazine in a waiting room. I wrote down the recipe on a piece of paper the size of half a business card and kept it in my purse for all these years.

The original recipe uses one loaf of day old bread cut into blocks, 700 ml sugar, 200 ml water, 30 ml cocoa and 200g desiccated coconut.

Today I decided to convert this recipe into a LCHF treat. I baked my normal bread in a cup bread using the bread-in-a-cup recipe from the Banting 7 Day Meal Plan Facebook page:
http://doitthisweekend.blogspot.com/2015_02_01_archive.html

Recipe for bread-in-a-mug:
Ingredients:
3 Tablespoons Almond Flour
1 Tablespoon Coconut Flour
½ Teaspoon of Baking Powder
1 Egg
2 and ½ Teaspoons of Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons of Water
Mix the egg well, ad the other ingredients and mix well. Pour into a rectangular container. Microwave on high for 1 and ½ minute.
Turn bread out onto a cooling rack and allow to cool.




Ingredients for chocolate sauce:
100 ml Xylitol
75 ml water
10 ml Cocoa
Heat the ingredients in a saucepan on medium heat. Stir until the Xylitol is dissolved.



Cut the bread into 8 blocks.



Put 250 ml of desiccated coconut in a dish with a lid.




Take one block of bread and drop into your chocolate sauce. Turn until the block is completely covered with the chocolate sauce. take out of the sauce with a slotted spoon or a fork and put into the coconut. Close the lid and shake to cover the chocolate block. Place on cooling rack and proceed until all your blocks is covered with sauce and coconut.


You can allow it to cool or you can proceed and enjoy immediately!





How did Lamingtons originate?

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamington

Most accounts of the creation of the lamington agree that it was named after Lord Lamington, who served as Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901, although it might have been named for his wife, Lady Lamington. One account claims the dessert resembled the homburg hats that he favoured.[citation needed] Another claim has them named after the village of Lamington, South Lanarkshire in Scotland.[2] As the title Baron Lamington itself derives from the village, however, the question of this connection is merely whether it is direct or indirect.
Even among those who attribute the name to Lord Lamington, there are different claims as to the exact location and creator of the cake itself.[3] According to one claim, Lamingtons were first served inToowoomba when Lord Lamington took his entourage to Harlaxton House to escape the steamy heat of Brisbane.[4]
In another claim, Lamington's chef at Queensland's Government House, French-born Armand Galland, was called upon at short notice to provide something to feed unexpected guests during the busy period leading up to Federation in 1901. According to the Melbourne newspaper The Age, Galland cut up some left-over French vanilla sponge cake baked the day before, dipped the slices in chocolate and set them in coconut. Coconut was not widely used in European cooking at that time, but was known to Galland whose wife was from Tahiti where coconut was a common ingredient. Lady Lamington's guests then asked for the recipe.[5]
A further alternative claim is that Lord Lamington's cook, presumably Galland, accidentally dropped a block of sponge cake into a dish of chocolate. It was later discovered that desiccated coconut, sprinkled over the top, made the cakes more appealing.[6]
Most of these claims are based on relatively recent reports. First known mention of "Lamington cake" appears in an 1896 newspaper account of a "Lamington Function" at Laidley in Queensland. The event was in honour of Lord Lamington (although it appears he did not attend) and also featured "Lamington Tea", "Lamington Soup etc, so, in the absence of any description of the cake, the name of the cake might signify nothing more than the name of the event.[7] A 1900 recipe for Lamington Cakes has been found in the Queensland Country Life newspaper.[8] While the recipe appears to originate in Queensland, it spread quickly, appearing in a Sydney newspaper in 1901[9] and a New Zealand newspaper in 1902.[10] However, none of these recipes indicate the creator of the recipe nor the reason for its name. The earliest reference located so far to the naming of the lamington is in June 1927, where the name is linked to Lord Lamington. [11]
It was claimed in 2007 that Lord Lamington did not like lamingtons and that he referred to them as "those bloody poofy woolly biscuits", but it is not known if there are any contemporaneous sources that can confirm this.[12]

Turn your can'ts into cans, and your dreams into plans.


Sunday, 1 March 2015

LCHF - Sorbet Lollies

LCHF - Sorbet Lollies 
I bought an ice lollie set at the the http://www.crazystore.co.za/
and decided to try it out.


I used: 
Two limes
Xylitol
Fresh Cream
Water

Cut the limes in half.

Squeeze the juice from the limes.

Fill up the juice with water until you have one cup. Pour into a pot and bring to a boil with half a cup of  xylitol.



Grate the rind from one of the limes.

Mix the lime juice, one cup of cream and the lime rind together with a hand blender.

Pour the mixture into the mould.

Put the ice cream sticks into the mixture and freeze for a day. Run some warm water over the mould to loosen the lollies,

Enjoy your lollie!


Turn your can'ts into cans, and your dreams into plans.




STUFZ - American Style Burger


STUFZ - American Style Burger
(Manufactured for and distributed by: Verimark(Pty)Ltd. https://www.verimark.co.za/products/stufz)
I recently saw a few posts on the Food lovers Facebook group as well as the Banting groups, everyone is going crazy about STUFZ, the stuffed burger patties made in the STUFZ Burger Maker.

I found my little STUFZ gadget at CHECKERS this week and got round to testing it Friday evening. It sells for R99.90 and you get a 15 day money back guarantee.
What you need is a basic hamburger mix, I just grate one onion into 500 g of mince and ad salt and pepper and a bit of mixed herbs to taste.

Fry some mushrooms in butter and add two slices of chopped ham.
You can use whatever you like as a filling.  I fried some chopped mushrooms in butter and mixed it with two slices of chopped ham and a cup of grated cheese.
Add one cup of grated cheddar cheese.
Mix filling ingredients together.
Make your favourite mince mix. I used 500g mince, 1 grated onion, mixed herbs and salt and pepper to taste.


Open your STUFZ gadget and fill with a hand full of mince.  Close and press down to shape the bottom part and sides of the burger.  Spoon your filling mixture into the bottom part of the burger. press together. Shape another patty with more of your mince mix and place on top of the burger and filling. Twist the top part of your gadget and press down to seal your patty.


Remove patty from STUFZ gadget and fry in a pan.


You can serve your STUFZ burger patty on a burger bun or make a bread in a cup if you are banting.
I found the patty to be very filling and did not have anything with it.


My son insisted on wrapping his patty in streaky bacon.
                                                     

Turn your can'ts into cans, and your dreams into plans.




Sunday, 8 February 2015

LCHF - Bread in a cup


The Bread in a mug is one of the most versatile recipes I came across when I started following the LCHF lifestyle. You can use it for a number of dishes.

I am a member of the Facebook Group Banting 7 Day Meal Plans and got this recipe on the group.

Ingredients:
3 Tablespoons Almond Flour
1 Tablespoon Coconut Flour
1/2 a teaspoon of Baking Powder
1 Egg
2 and 1/2 Teaspoons of Olive Oil or Melted Butter
2 Tablespoons of water

Mix the egg well, ad the other ingredients and pour in a well greased mug.
Microwave on high for 1 minute.

I find that one must take the bread out of the mug as soon as you take it out of the microwave as it does sweat if you leaf it to cool in the mug.

I've used my bread in a mug for a number of different options. Three weeks after starting the lifestyle I really needed to have some bread, that was when I was added to the group by a friend and it was the first recipe I tried.

One of the admin ladies on the group said that she made the bread and crumbled it and used it as "krummelpap".

I tried the recipe the other weekend with kaiings and tomato and onion. It was divine.

Bake your bread in a mug and allow to cool for a minute or two. Crumble and serve.

The"kaiings" was made by using lamb fat which I've cut into cubes and fried. I kept the fat aside and is using it to fry my eggs and whatever I need to fry. I made the tomato and onions by frying tomatoes and onions together and added a tablespoon of xylitol for sweetness.



Today I made a chicken curry and used the bread in a mug as a bunny chow(also a suggestion by the group admin).


I also baked the bread in a mug in a square container to give it more of a bread like appearance and made nice sandwiches with it.



If you are looking for versatile and quick LCHF bread in a mug is your answer.






Turn your can'ts into cans, and your dreams into plans.

LCHF - Chicken Schnitzel


We've recently started following the Low Carb High Fat Lifestyle.
I am constantly looking for ideas and recipes in order to keep the lifestyle exciting. I my quest I joined a number of Facebook pages and groups where I get a lot of ideas.
I recently stumbled across this Coconut covered Chicken Schnitzel.
It takes the same amount of time as a normal chicken schnitzel to prepare and I used the same method I used to use for normal high carb schnitzels.


Ingredients:
4 deboned chicken breasts
200 ml coconut flour
100 ml flaxseed power
2 eggs
30 ml milk or cream
100 g fine desiccated coconut




4 Deboned chicken breasts.


Flaxseed Powder
                       
                               Fine Desiccated Coconut
Coconut Flour

2 Eggs and 30 ml of milk


Instructions:
Butterfly the chicken breasts.

Slice down in the centre of the chicken breast.

Turn knife sideways and slice through the breast untill you reach the edge of the breast, taking care to not slice through. Keep the edge intact and open the breast on that fold. 




Pound the chicken with a mallet until the required thickness is reached.
Lay breast flat and prepare all breasts for crumbing.


Mix the coconut flour and flaxseed powder together.
Beat together the eggs and milk.




Cover the chicken breast with the flour mixture.

Dip the floured chicken breast in the beaten egg. Ensuring that it is well covered with egg.

Cover the chicken breast with desiccated coconut. Set aside.

Heat up a pan and add coconut oil to the pan.






Fry and turn often in order to brown evenly.

Fry until golden brown. Allow to cool on a cooling rack.

You can serve your chicken schnitzel with a mushroom sauce, if you prefer that. I made a cheese sauce with cream and melted cheese and topped my schnitzel with a slice of bacon.

Turn your can'ts into cans, and your dreams into plans.