Scrumptious in Garden & Home magazine

A few months back South African Garden and Home magazine asked me if they could come and photograph a relaxed 'summer luncheon' at my house, featuring some of the recipes from my book.  The idea filled me with horror - I'm a known camera-dodger, and can't bear lifestyle magazine features filled with fabulous people fabulously eating fabulous food - but I could hardly say no without seeming very ungrateful, could I?

Anyway, I'm pleased with the resulting article (one page here), and with Greg Cox's lovely photographs. The text was written by Hout Bay journalist Diana Wemyss, in a strange little twist, because the last time I saw Diana was 20 years ago when I edited a book she wrote about gardening.

Instead of inviting the usual suspects (my collection of louche old friends) I asked some of my favourite Cape Town food bloggers, a talented bunch who are also a damn sight better looking than my personal posse. They happily obliged by dressing up in summer clothes on a chilly late-winter day, petting my basset hounds, and making a valiant stab at being fabulous.

My guests were Ishay Govender from Food and the Fabulous, Fritz Brand from Real Men Can Cook, Matt Allison from I'm No Jamie Oliver, Ilse van der Merwe from The Food Fox, food-and-wine social media specialist Linda Harding from The Squashed Tomato, my son Luke, and my book's firecracker publicist Kim Taylor, of Random House Struik.

Ishay helped me in the kitchen (thanks, Pushy!) and I styled the food and table for the shots, sticking to the magazine's request for a blue-and-white theme.  For the table, I used white damask with an overlay of  indigo Shweshwe cloth, which I love because it has a fascinating history, smells delicious when new and doesn't need to be hemmed (it's starchy when you buy it, so all you need do to make a runner is fold up the edges and run an iron over them). For flowers, I chose sweet-smelling white jonquils and lavender in glass vases with mirrored rims.

I was also excited to use, for the first time, the beautiful cake stand given to me for my 50th birthday by my friend Lisa Key of African Relish.

And, on the menu:

White Gazpacho with Tomato Granita

Griddled Courgettes with Mint and Mozzarella

Quick Tomato, Fennel and Thyme Bread

Crumbed Linefish with Whipped Caper Butter
Buttermilk Cheesecake with a Granadilla Topping

Because it was a cold day, I also made a giant tray of Mike's Youvetsi, which is one of my all-time favourite recipes for feeding a crowd. It's also in my book, and here's a version I posted here on my blog three years ago. 

All the recipes above are in the November issue of Garden and Home.

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My Easy Rum-and-Raisin Chocolate Truffles

Photograph by Nina Timm

One of the unexpected pleasures of writing a food blog is that you get to meet all sorts of interesting, like-minded people from all over the world: food bloggers, chefs, cooks, gardeners, farmers, restaurateurs, hoteliers and food producers. Some of them you meet in a virtual way, via Twitter, Facebook and similar social- media platforms, and others you befriend in real life. One such person is Nina Timm, the cook, stylist and photographer behind the award-winning blog My Easy Cooking.

Nina is one of the grande dames of South African food blogging, and she's made her mark over the years by posting accessible, well-tested recipes accompanied by excellent photographs. Nina's weekly cooking slot on the Afrikaans radio channel Radio Sonder Grense (RSG) is bringing her fame in South Africa, and recently I accepted her invitation to join a small group of bloggers for a morning's cook-along.  The theme of the recipes was South African dried fruit, and I prepared two dishes, one using juicy dark raisins, and the other dried apricots. Click here to read Nina's post about my truffles.

Photograph by Nina Timm

I had the pleasure of cooking alongside fellow bloggers Ishay Govender of Food And The Fabulous (here's her post about the event) and Ilse van der Merwe from The Food Fox (her post here). While we cooked, we were interviewed by the effervescent Marthelize Brink, an RSG presenter and professional motivational speaker. We had plenty to taste once we'd finished cooking all our dishes, but the winner for me was Ilse's sublime malva pudding with dates and pecan nuts - a sticky, deeply comforting take on one of South Africa's favourite desserts.

I made two dishes with dried fruit for this cooking challenge: one, my Moroccan-Spiced Chicken Pie, to which I added dried apricots, and the other sweet chocolate truffles filled with rum-soaked raisins.  These are not true chocolate truffles of the sort you will find in a chocolate shop, but a quick, homely version so easy to make that even a child could manage this recipe. If you're not a fan of rum, try another version of this recipe: my Whisky and Orange Dark-Chocolate Truffles.

Rum and Raisin Chocolate Truffles

1/2 cup (125 ml) raisins or currants
4 Tbsp (60 ml) dark rum
350 g dark chocolate (70 per cent cocoa solids)
1/2 cup (125 ml) cream
3/4 cup (180 ml) icing sugar
1/4 cup (60 ml) cocoa powder, sifted, for coating

Put the raisins in a bowl, pour over the rum and set aside to soak for at least an hour, preferably two. Place the chocolate, broken into pieces, in a glass bowl and melt in a microwave oven or over a pan of simmering water. Stir until smooth, then beat in the cream, the soaked raisins and any rum left in the bowl. Sift the icing sugar into the chocolate and mix until smooth. Press a piece of clingfilm onto the surface of the mixture and place it in the fridge for about an hour, or until firm enough to handle.

Tip the cocoa powder onto a plate. Dig out spoonsful (each about the sized of a large marble) of chocolate paste and roll quickly between your palms to form rough balls resembling real truffles. Place the balls on the plate of cocoa powder and roll them about so that they are well coated. When you've made all the balls, place them in a sieve or colander and shake gently to remove any excess cocoa powder. Cover and place in the fridge for two hours, or until firm. These freeze very well.

Makes about 35 truffles. 

Note: The basic truffle recipe is adapted from Phillippa Cheifitz's The Cosmopolitan Cookbook (1986) Print Friendly