recipe

Looong ago I told you about the amazing food blog The Forest Feast and I just saw the bread sticks and since it’s so easy, I’ll make it soon. And what about you?

This must be the best salad dressing I have ever made and now I make it all the time. I found the recipe here.

Ingredients

7 table spoons olive oil
2 table spoons balsamico
2 minced garlic cloves
1 table spoon honey
1 table spoon mustard
salt and pepper

Enjoy!

lettuce picture found here

Check out the awesome blog figandfauna and get inspired with recipes and stunning food photography.

ROSEMARY & BASIL FOCACCIA

Adapted from The Herb Bible – Jennie Harding

Serves 6

• 2 2/3 cups White Whole Wheat Flour, plus extra for dusting
• 1 envelope active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 1/4 cups hand-hot water
• 3 tbsp EVOO, plus extra for greasing
• 4 tbsp finely chopped Rosemary & Basil
• Polenta for sprinkling

Combine flour, yeast and salt in a bowl and make a well in the center. Gradually stir in the water, 2 tablespoons of EVOO and honey to make dough.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead. Sprinkle herbs into the dough and work through until soft but not sticky. Shape dough into a ball and place in a oiled bowl – cover bowl and set in a warm place to rest until dough has doubled in volume. Sprinkle polenta over a baking sheet.

Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and lightly knead. Let stand for ten minutes. Roll out and at dough into a circle about 1 inch thick and carefully transfer it to the baking sheet, placing it on top of the polenta.

Using a lightly oiled finger, poke indentations all over the surface of the loaf. Drizzle remaining EVOO over the top and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake in a preheated oven, 450 degrees for 15 minutes or untill the top is golden and it sounds hollow when tapped. Let cool on a wire rack and devour quickly!

Not too long ago I told you about my bread rolls, now I’m baking bread. I got the recipe on Kobus van der Merwe’s blog Sardines on Toast. It’s yummy, yummy,yummy. Enjoy.

‘What you need
1kg of white bread flour
700ml luke warm water
1 packet of instant yeast
5ml salt
A handful of each chopped sun-dried figs and pitted olives
A large sprig of thyme

Follow the normal method for making white bread, mixing the flour, salt, yeast and water. Knead until you have a firm, soft dough. Leave to rise overnight.

Strip the thyme leaves from the sprig, and roughly chop the olives and figs. Add it to the white bread dough as you start knocking it down, gently folding the chunks of olive and fig into the soft dough and making sure that it’s evenly spread throughout.

Shape into a large ball, then lightly score a cross on top using a very sharp knife. Allow to prove for approximately 15-20 minutes, then bake for about one hour in a preheated oven at 200°C. When done, it should be nicely browned on top and sound hollow when you knock on it.’

At my last job I reviewed numerous of restaurants and was obviously spoilt with all things good. Yes, one can say I’m pretty much into good food (but aren’t we all?).
I decided to eat less and work for myself and leave the tasting and testing of new places to others – but the love for good food, of course, remained. So these days I try something new every once in a while and the other day I gave it a try and made my own bread rolls from scratch. It’s pretty easy, you only need a couple of ingredients and a bit of patience as there are three waiting periods (for the dough to rise), that’s it.

Bread roll recipe for 10 rolls (my bread rolls tasted and looked a bit like ciabatta rolls)

Ingredients
500g flour
300ml lukewarm water (add more if you need)
20g yeast (2 small packets)
1/2 table spoon salt
2 table spoons sugar

Make it, bake it
1. Mix the dry yeast with the lukewarm water and mix with flour. Add the salt and sugar and mix it (2-3 mins with electronic mixer).

2. Leave the dough in the bowl for 20 minutes (cover it with a kitchen towel).

3. Make 10 balls (put flour in your hand so it’s not that sticky) and place them on flour so later on you can pick them up again (you are working with sticky dough :).

4. Leave the 10 dough balls for 15 minutes  (cover them with a kitchen towel).

5. Cut the rolls open and give them another 15 minutes rest  (cover them with a kitchen towel).

6. Put baking paper on your baking tray and spray it with a little bit of water. Put the rolls on the baking tray and spray them with water. Bake the rolls for 20 minutes (210 degrees).

And voila, enjoy the rolls – they are flippin’ amazing and it’s so simple, you just need to wait a few times :) Enjoy.

The other day I made a yummy Crème brûlée for the first time ever and it was very successful, so let me share this easy recipe with you.

Ingredients:
400 ml cream
200 ml milk
90 g sugar
4 egg yolks
1 vanilla pod
brown cane sugar/icing sugar for sprinkling

To do:
1. Scrape the vanilla pod and mix the vanilla caviar with a little bit of sugar in a mortar (I just did it in a small bowl).
2. Add the cream, the milk, the sugar, the 4 mixed 4 egg yolks and the vanilla caviar (with the little bit of sugar) and mix it briefly with a hand blender.
3. Put the cream in the fridge over night (or for a few hours).
4. Put the cream in 6 separate dessert bowls.
5. Put the six dessert bowls in a container. Add water to the container so that the dessert bowls are half-covered in water.
6. Bake the Crème brûlée in the oven for about 45 minutes (150 degrees air circulation oven, I baked it in 180 degrees in a very old fashioned oven) until it’s not liquid anymore.
7. Let the dessert bowls cool down.
8. Put the dessert bowls in the fridge for a couple of hours.
9. Just before you serve the Crème brûlée, sprinkle it with brown cane sugar/icing sugar, put it under the grill or use a Bunsen burner (also known as torch) to get what makes a Crème brûlée a Crème brûlée .

P.S. I love the Vanilla pods! My neighbour gave me the tip to keep the rest after you scraped it and put it in your sugar bowl so you’ll have Vanilla sugar! Enjoy!

Creme Brûlée pic found here, vanilla pod pic found here.