#RealFood For Kids: Low-Carb 'Grannies in Blankets'

This is a new twist on a beloved South African dish: Ouma Onder Die Komberse. Big, juicy meatballs are flavoured with nutmeg, onion and lemon zest, wrapped in soft cabbage ‘blankets’, then baked in a creamy lemon sauce.

The paragraph above comes directly from just-published Real Food: Healthy, Happy Children, by Kath Megaw (Quivertree, 2015), and I'm honoured to have been asked to contribute some of my low-carb recipes to the book.

South African paediatric dietician Kath Megaw is a leading fundi on low-carb and ketogenic diets for children. "Wait!" I hear you cry. "Low carb for kids?" Yes, that's right, but I can assure you that this is not some faddish, irresponsible book leaping onto the banting bandwagon. It's a painstakingly researched, well-informed, sensible guide that advocates a return to real, 'living' food using the wholesome unprocessed ingredients so familiar to our grandparents.

If you're looking to banish sugar, stodge and boxed foods from your family's diet, you've found the only guide you'll ever need, whether you're pregnant, or feeding a baby, or a coping with teens who have hollow legs. If you still need convincing, click here to listen to a podcast of Kath talking about her book, and here to read more about her low-carb philosophy.  

When I first picked up my copy of this hefty 300-page book at last week's launch, I was astonished at how much detailed information is packed between the pages. It's bursting with tips, tricks and accurate nutritional info, with lovely photographs and illustrations adding whimsy along the way. Journalist and cookery writer Daisy Jones, who wrote the text, has a chatty yet precise style, and she's brilliantly conveyed Kath's 20 years of clinical experience in this field.

What's pleased me so much about contributing to this project  is seeing my name on the same line as Phillippa Cheifitz's.  Phillippa, who wrote many of the gorgeous recipes in the book, is one of the grande dames of South African cookery writing, and I have greatly admired her since I cooked my way through her inspiring Cosmopolitan Cookbook in my twenties.

I hauled my tattered, cake-spattered copy of that book to the launch, and my day was complete when Phillippa graciously signed it for me, 29 years after I bought it.

I'm so looking forward to trying the recipes on my own family - specially the mouth-watering treats from the party food section.  (My beloveds feel so deprived of puds these days.)

Nutty Exploding Apples with Vanilla Custard: another of my recipes
from  Real Food: Healthy, Happy Children

Now to the recipe. I've used a Swedish-style creamy sauce to cloak these cabbage-wrapped meatballs, but you could also bake them in a fresh tomato sauce.  Meatballs tend to be a little dense when they don't contain breadcrumbs, but I've found that a big dollop of natural Greek yoghurt helps to tenderise them. This #LCHF recipe is suitable for diabetics.

Low-Carb 'Grannies in Blankets' 

12 outer leaves from a cabbage (or baby savoy leaves)
2 lemons
salt and milled pepper, to taste
1 large onion, peeled
900g beef mince
1 extra-large free-range egg, lightly beaten
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely grated
3 tbsp thick Greek yoghurt
1½ tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 cup cream
4 tbsp finely chopped parsley
butter, for greasing

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C (fan off).
2. Trim away the thick lower ‘ribs’ of the cabbage leaves. Bring a large saucepan of water to a
rolling boil, then add a wedge of lemon and a pinch of salt. Plunge the leaves into the water,
partially cover with a lid and blanch for 7 to 9 minutes, or until the leaves are wilted.
3. Drain (reserving the poaching water), then run the leaves under cold water for 3 minutes and
set aside to drain further.
4. Grate the onion on the fine tooth of a grater to create a soft, juicy pulp. Tip this into a large
mixing bowl and add the mince, egg, garlic, yoghurt, nutmeg and the zest of 1 lemon, plus
seasoning. Combine the mixture well using your hands., then roll the mince into 12 balls, each
about the size of a golf ball.
5. Heat a little olive oil in a non-stick frying pan and brown the meatballs on all sides, in batches,
over a medium-high heat – this should only take a few minutes per side as they should be nicely
caramelised, but still raw on the inside. Set the meatballs aside on a plate.
6. Turn up the heat and add the vinegar, plus half a cup of the cabbage poaching liquid. Let this
mixture bubble vigorously for 3 to 5 minutes, or until it has reduced by half.
7. Remove the pan from the heat, wait a minute, then stir in the cream. Return the pan to a
medium heat and let the sauce bubble for 1 minute, stirring now and then, until it has slightly
thickened. Now stir in the juice of half a lemon and the parsley and set aside.
8. Pat the cabbage leaves very dry on kitchen paper. Tuck a leaf around each meatball and arrange
in a buttered baking dish. Pour the sauce around and over the cabbage parcels and cover the dish
loosely with tin foil. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the ‘grannies’ are cooked right through.


Serves 4-6 Per serving: energy: 514 kcal protein: 33g fat: 39g carbs: 7g ratio: 1.0 :1

Recipe courtesy of Quivertree Publications. 

More of my meatball recipes:

• No-Carb Lemon Turmeric Meatballs in Lettuce Cups 
• Low-Carb Swedish-Style Meatballs in a Creamy Lemon Sauce
• Meatballs in a Spicy Tomato and Yoghurt Gravy
• Mini Pita Breads with Spicy Meatballs and Hummous
• Quick Oven-Baked Meatballs with Tomato & Spag

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Cheesy Tuna and Sweetcorn Lunchbox 'Muffins'

Cheesy Tuna and Sweetcorn
Lunchbox 'Muffins'

I have no talent whatsoever in the lunchbox department, no doubt because I was traumatised by the healthy lunches packed for me by my own sainted mother.

Making lunchboxes is a chore I hate, because I'm just too disorganised in the mornings to cut fruit and veggies up into pieces or make little dips or energy bars or the three-course designer meals that nestle smugly in the lunch boxes of some of my kids' friends.

It would help if my children all liked the same things, but of course, they don't. So I got to thinking, what snack could I put into their lunchboxes that they all like, that can be made in a jiffy, and that packs some protein, energy and fibre?

Here is my solution. These  muffin-like savoury bites are ridiculously quick and easy to make, and you can add anything you like to them. Fresh sweetcorn cut from the cob would be lovely, if you have it, and you can use wholewheat (Nutty Wheat) flour if you'd like a more substantial muffin.

Cheesy Tuna, Sweetcorn and Courgette Lunchbox 'Muffins'

1 x 170 g tin solid-packed  tuna, drained
1 x 210 g tins sweetcorn kernels, drained
1 cup (250 ml) coarsely grated courgettes [zucchini]
1 cup (250 ml) grated Cheddar
1 cup (250 ml) flour
1 cup (250 ml) milk
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) baking powder
3 extra-large free-range eggs, lightly whisked
2 Tbsp (30 ml) finely chopped chives or spring onions
juice of half a lemon
½ tsp (2.5 ml) mild mustard
cherry tomatoes and extra cheese for topping
salt and milled pepper

Heat the oven to 180°C. Generously grease a large, deep muffin pan (or use paper muffin cups) with butter or oil. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.

Fill each muffin cup to the brim, and press half a cherry tomato, cut side up, into the surface. Sprinkle with more Cheddar.

Bake at 180° C for 30 minutes, or until puffed and brown. Run a knife around the edge of each muffin while it's still hot. Store, covered, in the fridge.

Makes 12 muffins. 

Cook's Notes: 

• Season these muffins generously with salt - they need more than you would think.
• A cube of feta cheese pressed into the top would be nice.

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Let's Puke Well: how Adelle Davis helped a rose bush grow

I mentioned in an earlier post that my parents, some time in the late Sixties, got their hands on a copy of Adelle Davis's Let's Get Well. This book was nothing short of revolutionary in those days, when healthy eating meant having a bit of grated carrot or bottled beetroot once a week, and health food, whole food and organic food hadn't yet been invented. The parents read the book from cover to cover, and were converted. The creamy, mashed-potato-topped fish pies vanished off the menu, and so did the bangers and mash, the bacon and eggs, the crumpets with whipped cream and syrup, and all the other heavenly home-cooked delights. Cornflakes were replaced by All Bran Flakes (Old Brown Flakes, I used to call them), and packets of linseeds and sunflower seeds appeared on the shelves of the pantry.

My mom started to bake her own wholewheat bread, using stone-ground flour. (It was delicious and cakey when hot out of the the oven, with lashings of farm butter, but by the next morning it had solidified to a solid brick. Undaunted, my mom hacked off slices, buttered and marmited them, and put them into our lunch boxes. Mom, sorry to tell you this, but we couldn't eat those sandwiches. We tried swopping them for the fluffy government-loaf peanut butter sandwiches that other girls brought to school, but there were no takers. We put them in the Poor Box - it was a convent school - and the Poor Box threw them back at us).

Very soon after that, my parents got their hands on another of Adelle Davis's books, Let's Have Healthy Children. My sisters and I were presented, at breakfast, with a glass of what my father christened 'Bull Juice'. This elixir, he promised, would make us strong, healthy, fit, hale, hearty and pink-cheeked. Downing a glass of it every morning was compulsory from now on.

I have no idea what this foul concoction (the forerunner of the smoothie) contained but, believe me, it was vile. Wheatgerm, I think, a banana or two, Brewer's Yeast, and possibly cod liver oil or the skin secretions of a sewer-dwelling rat. It was pale brown, thick, slightly foamy and - most yetchy of all - it was warm. It left a frothy moustache on your upper lip.

So we each took a few polite sips (while holding our noses and making ostentatious gagging noises), waited until the parents were out of the room, and tipped the Bull Juice out of the dining-room window, which overlooked three handsome rose bushes.

When spring came, the rose was the size of a sequoia tree. I gave a secret laugh when my mom said, with a wink, 'I just can't understand why this red rose bush is so much bigger than all the others, and why there are brown streaks all over the wall outside the dining room.'

I am interested to read that Adelle Davis was discredited and criticised in certain scientific and medical communities during her life, but that recent studies have vindicated her, and she is now considered a pioneer of the health food movement. (More here, from Wikipedia).

Whatever the case, I have had the most excellent health all my life (which I haven't deserved, considering my hedonistic ways), and I think it has something to do with the Bull Juice.

Does anyone remember this concoction? Print Friendly

Potatoes and kids: needn't be a match made in McDonald's

I am in awe of potatoes. What I mean is that I think that, with their skins on, they are a most fantastical family food: wholesome, filling, comforting, cheap, easy to prepare and crammed with good things (Vitamin C, Vitamin B6 and, believe it or not, almost double the potassium content of a banana).

Kids don't automatically like potatoes (unless, of course, they're skinned, deep-fried and come in a red box emblazoned with a yellow double arch) and it takes a bit of low cunning to convince them to eat them, skin and all, every day. Over the next few days, I'll be offering some wily strategies for potatofying your children.

Baked potatoes
They always turn out okay if they're slashed, tossed onto the rack of a hot oven and baked for an hour or so, but they're indisputably crispier and tastier with a lick of oil and some salt. After many years of experimenting, I've settled on this clean-hands method. Cut a cross in the top of each potato. Place on a baking sheet (a muffin tin works even better; stand the spuds up in the muffin tins and they'll bake very quickly). Spray with a light film of olive oil, from a spritzer or aerosol** can. (I keep a can of olive oil in my cupboard specifically for baked potatoes; you don't get your hands oily and you use only a tiny bit of fat). Dust with a pinch of salt. Bake at 200 C for an hour, turning and tossing the spuds once.

** I am reminded of a wonderful joke. You need to tell this in a thick Swedish accent:

A man walks into a chemist in Sweden.
Man: 'I'd like a can of deodorant, please.'
Chemist: 'Ball, or aerosol?'
Man (cheerfully): 'Neither! I'd like it for my armpits.'

Tomorrow: Perfect mash from unpeeled potatoes. Print Friendly