R12 a day: Day 3

I have new empathy with those who live on less than R12 a day and have to visit the shops. Last night, I went in to PnP to buy a sachet of mix-up juice powder, which we decided would be better than tea (seeing we haven't budgeted for milk). They cost R2.50 and make 1litre of juice.

It was before we'd started cooking supper (homemade potato gnocchi with tomato and onion sauce) and I was hungry. And now I understand just a little bit of how hard it must be to only have enough money on you for a loaf of bread, but to be standing among these shelves filled with delicious ingredients and smelling the hot food and the bakery. Wow. My heart is really starting to ache for the poor, which is the point of this whole exercise.

I've just finished my leftover gnocchi and let me tell you - hunger is a great chef! I picked my mom and gran up at the Gautrain Sandton Station today and we went to Sandton City to Nino's so they could grab a bite to eat (my gran wasn't feeling great). My mom ordered a succulent chicken breast and my gran had chicken strips with sweet chilli sauce. It smelled amazing! I had water. By the time I got home, I was ravenous. And I really enjoyed my leftovers.

Here's the recipe for the gnocchi. It's super easy to make, absolutely delicious and goes really well with bolognese or a bacon and tomato sauce. Or any sauce you like, really. I make this fairly regularly because the gnocchi are much fluffier and lighter than the shop-bought stuff. This is a recipe from one of the first editions of Fresh Living magazine and it has served me well. I just change the cake flour to self-raising flour because it aids the fluffiness.

Gnocchi

• 500g potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 extra large egg, beaten
• Salt (I use about 1 tspn)
• 1.5 cups of self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting

Boil potatoes in salted water until tender. Drain and mash coarsely. Using a large spoon, rub the mashed potato through a sieve. Mix in egg and salt. Add the flour and mix to make a dough, but don't over-mix. Roll the dough into long 2cm thick sausages. Cut each roll into 3cm lengths and press each piece lightly with a fork. Set aside. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Add the gnocchi and cook until they float to the top. Scoop out with a slotted spoon and serve with your sauce of choice.

Realisation and a recipe

You know what I realised last night?

I don't get that heavy Sunday afternoon depression anymore because I don't have to face the PR job on the Monday morning. That's a very cool little piece of enlightenment for me.

It helps especially on weekends that have been really hectic and that just fly by, like this one. We had friends over for supper on Friday night, then another load of people to watch the (so-called) rugby on Saturday morning with a braai afterwards (which meant two sets of catering within the space of 24 hours). On Sunday we saw my folks for breakfast and then had a church meeting at lunch and then we were on duty at church from 5pm and did coffee with friends after that.

So much for a chilled first weekend without hosting World Cup guests!

When things are busy, it's funny how there are always precious little "ordinary" moments that stand out as highlights... sharing jokes with my parents, seeing everyone enjoying both puddings I made for Fri and Sat (chilled lemon cheesecake and chocolate marshmallow tart), watching a brilliant episode of Hustle with TSC and even realising that the lettuce from my garden tastes infinitely better than the lettuce from the supermarket (especially seeing all my lettuce-growing attempts before this have been dismal failures). I love little things like that.

Here's the recipe for the chocolate marshmallow tart. I think it originally came off the back of a Romany Creams box, but I lost the actual recipe years ago and now make up my version from memory...



Chocolate marshmallow goodness:

• 1 packet Romany Creams or similar biscuits
• 250 ml cream
• 1 packet marshmallows
• 75g melted butter
• 200g milk chocolate
  

Crush Romany Creams (I use a stick blender). Mix with melted butter and press into a tart tin to make crust. Melt the chocolate with the cream on medium heat. Stir until smooth. Add marshmallows and stir until they melt into the chocolate mixture. Remove from heat and cool for a few minutes. Pour chocolate mixture over crust. Refrigerate for a few hours until set. Decorate with grated chocolate or a light dusting of icing sugar with a sliced strawberry in the middle.

Yum!

Yet another veggie-praising post (plus recipe)

Last night I made my easy-peasy fairly healthy vegetarian cannelloni baked pasta dish using fresh spinach from my garden. That pleases me on some deep level. I'm not quite sure why.

In fact, it's quite bizarre and even disturbing how much I love my veggie garden. I rush outside in the mornings before work to check on my seedlings and I want to cry when I see my baby Asian greens have been the victims of a seven-course snail supper.

When I get home, the first thing I do is kick off my shoes and do a garden walk-through to enjoy the green-ness of it all. It's actually a little embarrassing. But my garden just doesn't cease to amaze me. Seriously! Planting seeds and watching them grow into big, healthy plants that give me delicious food is an awesome process indeed.

We have been our house for almost a year now and in that short space of time, my veggie garden has given me the following:

• Green beans


• Tomatoes (cherry ones and the juicy big ones)


• Spinach (two different varieties)


• Peppadews (before Ches craps on me, the plant was there when I arrived. It was a present from the Peppadew folk. Apparently.)


• Carrots


• Mielies (or corn, for non-South Africans)


• Kale


• Peas


• Celery


• Sweet potatoes


• Lettuce


• Asian greens


• Radishes


• Assorted herbs (mint, thyme, lemon thyme, parsley, various types of basil, sage, bay leaf, chives, chamomile and fennel)

I have also recently planted baby marrows, asparagus, eggplant, strawberries, beetroot etc, along with lots of non-foodie but useful plants (like comfrey, catnip, artemisia and marigolds) and am waiting (not very patiently) for them to grow up ;-)

But I digress...

The point of this post was actually to write down that recipe for vegetarian cannelloni. So here it is (Tamara-style, which means there are no proper measurements. Sorry):

Forgot to take a picture, but it looks something like this. Pic from here.

Ingredients:

• Bunch of spinach, washed thoroughly (gritty spinach will ruin the nicest of meals) and cooked


• Half a readymade box of cannelloni pasta (normally about 8 - 10 tubes)


• 250 ml tub of fat-free smooth cottage cheese


• 1/2 teaspoon of grated nutmeg


• 1 teaspoon brown sugar


• salt and pepper


• 250 ml tomato pasta sauce (I make my own by cooking fresh skinned tomatoes with a little salt, pepper, spoon of sugar and Italian herbs like oregano, basil and thyme)


• A little bit of grated cheese to top

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Mix cooked spinach with the cottage cheese, nutmeg and sugar. Season with salt and pepper. Pop this mixture into a food processor and blitz for a few seconds (I prefer to just use a stick blender - less mess, IMO).

Now, the fun bit: Line up your pasta tubes in an ovenproof dish and fill each one with the spinach mixture (it will be messy, but I find that using my piping bag is the easiest way of doing the filling. Just make sure your spinach is finely blitzed, or it will end up on the ceiling when you squeeze the bag. Trust me on this).

Top the tubes with your tomato-based pasta sauce and sprinkle with grated cheese. Cover (either with a lid or tin foil) and pop in the oven. Bake for 35 min. Serve with a green salad and some nice wine ;-)

Yum!