Khartoum Pumpkin Fritters and Caramel Sauce

Use hot oil to deepfry the pumpkin fritters (they absorb less oil this way) Drain on paper towel

Pumpkin fritters drenched in caramel sauce. Mmm...

As South Africans, Grant and I  love pumpkin as a vegetable on the dinner plate. As a vegetarian I know how to stew, roast, boil and make-into-delicious-soup this richly coloured and healthy vegetable ! Grant loves pumpkin fritters and seeing as I'd manage to buy a whole pumpkin at a reasonable price last week (Only SDG10/US$4) I decided to treat him to these over the weekend.

Back home in Marquard we have a few older farmer's wives who make the most delicious pumpkin fritters and serve them drenched in a sweet sauce. I searched the Internet and came across a recipe by a lady in Bloemfontein (our nearest city).

You can serve pumpkin fritters as a sweet vegetable with your dinner or as I did on Saturday: as dessert with icecream followed by a cup of black filter coffee! Yum!

Pumkin Fritters with Caramel Sauce - www.grouprecipes.com
375ml (1 1/2 cups) Self-raising flour
1ml salt (1/4 teaspoon)
10ml baking powder (2 teaspoons)
625ml (2 1/2 cups) cooked, mashed pumpkin
2 egg, beaten
Oil for frying

Sauce:
320ml (1 1/2 cups)brown sugar
125ml (1/2 cup) boiling water
250ml (1 cup) milk
50ml (4 heaped tablespoons) cornflour
A few cinamon sticks

Method
Fritters
Sift dry ingredients together
Add the pumpkin
Stir in the eggs
Mix to a soft but firm batter
Drop spoonsful into hot oil
Fry until light brown
Lift out and drain on paper towel
Place in a bowl

Sauce:
Bring all the ingredients to the boil except for the cornstarch
Cook for two minutes. Remove cinamon sticks
Make a paste of the cornstarch with a little water
Stir into the syrup and cook until slightly thickened
Pour over the fritters and serve

I've decided to add an Arabic word of the day following in the footsteps of my dear friend, Misalyn, who originally helped me with Arabic phrases and words when I first arrived in the Sudan. Thanks Missy! (You can read Misalyn's fascinating blog set in Al Ain, UAE here)

The Arabic word for pumpkin is gerrah.

Vegetarian Challah

The day after Christmas, I called my two older grandchildren into the kitchen and asked if they'd like to help me make bread. They both yelled: "Yes, please Gran!"

I gathered the ingredients together and with their "help" managed to make a new vegan recipe version of Challah. I had been motivated by my dear friend, Yvonne, with whom I spent many a lovely afternoon, watching movies. During our tea break, she always served delectable baked goods which often included Jewish treats. I wanted to try my hand at baking a Challah bread. I posted about my first attempt, which turned out reasonably well, which you can read here.

However, when I made that recipe, I used eggs which is quite normal (and I do eat eggs; no problem there) Personally though, I didn't enjoy the eggy taste in the bread and searched the Internet for an "eggless" Challah.

Not only did I find one, I also learnt how to plait the dough properly. My previous one had popped open at the end so I knew I was doing something not quite right. My granddaughter had the camera ready and took most of these photos. (I think her three-year-old brother took the above photo!)

Everyone enjoyed having a hand in the plaiting and painting with boiling water, not egg wash and helping to lay the creation in the baking tray.

And like children are, as soon as I placed the bread on one side to prove again, they dashed off outside to play. That evening when I served the Challah with our meal, they proudly told their parents that they had helped to make the "plaited bread"

The finished product. It was delicious!

Vegan Challah (http://lakitchen.blogspot.com/2005/07/vegan-challah.html)

Ingredients
2 1/2 Tbsp dry active yeast
1/3 cup warm water ("wrist" temperature)
6 cups flour

1 cup soy flour (I omitted this)
1 Tbsp salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup olive oil

2 overripe (mostly black) bananas
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup cold water
another half cup of boiling water for brushing braids
sesame seeds, poppy seeds, or sea salt to top

Method

1. In one small bowl, dissolve yeast in the warm water, put to the side to stand for 5-10 minutes.

2. Mash bananas in other small bowl.
3. In large bowl mix: oil, sugar, salt, and boiling water, stirring so it's all mostly dissolved.
4. Add the cold water to the large bowl (the mix should be warmish now but not hot). Stir in yeast mix.
5. Add bananas.
6. Add flour, one cup at a time.
7. Turn out onto lightly floured surface. Knead for 5-10 min, dough should be smooth, not too stiff or too runny.
8. Lightly coat the large mixing bowl in oil, turn the dough in it to just coat it with oil, place a towel over the dough in the bowl and let it rise for about 1 hr, till double in volume.
9. Punch dough down, turn out and knead again 2-3 min. Divide dough into 2 balls, divide each ball into 3 sections, roll each section into long ropes and make 2 braids. Preheat the oven to 350.
10. Let the braids rise 45 min. Boil a little more water. Just before putting braids in the oven, brush them with boiling water, then sprinkle with sesame seeds, poppy seeds, or sea salt.
Bake 30 min. You'll know they're done when you tap them on the bottom and they sound hollow. Allow to cool on a drying rack for 10 minutes before slicing. Enjoy!

Note: When we broke this bread with our evening meal, John spoke a blessing over the children. It's amazing to see how any human thrives on affirmation, let alone a child! The time I spent with the children that day (one of many during 2009) reminded me once again how important relationships are. I, for one, will continue to nurture these relationships.

Delicious Chillie Garlic Paste

I discovered this delicious piquant paste quite by accident. A friend brought a bottle to my hairdresser while I was in the salon. I asked her what it was and she told me how she made it.

Wash your chillies, dry on a paper towel and cut the stalks off. Peel quite a few cloves of garlic and place with the chillies into a blender.

Add enough olive oil and blits (blend) until at your desired consistency.

This paste is delicious with anything. Refrigerate after opening. I served it last month at my cell meeting with delicious vegetable soup and low GI bread.

Only one problem: I had made basil and garlic pesto a few weeks prior to this. I stored it in bottles in the fridge as well. One evening while I was out with the church band, Debbie made the dinner. We were going to have Pesto Glazed Vegetables with Feta Infused Polenta. Instead of glazing the vegetables with pesto, she added a healthy dollop of chillie garlic paste. Hoo-boy. She saved the day, by transferring the vegetables to another pan, adding some water and simmering it until it reduced. We managed to eat the vegetables, but they were very spicy! I subsequently wrote the names of the various pastes in indelible pen on the lids.

Feta and Baby Marrow Fritters

Feta and Baby Marrow Fritters

served with new peas and oven roasted tomatoes

While paying for my groceries at the checkout point in a large supermarket in the city, I spotted a magazine on the shelf above the counter. It was obviously a food magazine as the tasty looking photo on the cover caught my eye. (ha!) It is the new Pick n Pay FreshLiving magazine and is available every month at the low –low price of R9.95 (less than US$1) I picked it up and placed it with my other goods and ultimately read it from cover to cover. That was nine months ago and I’ve never missed an issue since.

It has the most delicious and easy-to-make recipes as well as tips such as “How to boil an egg” (huh?) This month’s issue has “The Green Issue: eco eating, recycling and more” which is something very close to my heart (more from me about this in a future post). It also has two pages of free Pick n Pay coupons which you can redeem when you next go shopping. The other article which caught my eye, was “Fabulous family food for under R50/US$3.92)

It has many other interesting articles with tips on how to choose seasonal vegetables (vegetables are horrifically expensive in South Africa at the moment) as well as pieces with gardening ideas and tips.

A really good buy for the busy and innovative housewife/family woman.

Last night I made Feta and Baby marrows (recipe below) and served them with peas and oven roasted cherry tomatoes. Baby marrows are also known as zucchini or corgettes and are very versatile. They can be sliced finely into a green salad, julienned and stir-fried with other vegetables of your choice, or chopped diagonally, simmered and served with sautéed mushrooms and a butter sauce.

Feta and Baby Marrow Fritters (From Fresh Living, Oct 2008 – Pick and Pay Magazine

1 Cup (250ml) Self Raising Flour
½ Tsp (3ml) Sea Salt
3 Jumbo Eggs beaten
½ Pkt (150g) Baby Marrows
1 Bunch (5-6) spring onions, chopped
1 tub Feta cheese, crumbled
1 Tsp (5ml) Paprika
½ Cup (125ml) fresh parsley, chopped
½ Cup Fresh Mint, chopped
Olive Oil for frying

Mix flour salt and eggs in a large bowl until smooth
Add remaining ingredients and mix to combine
Heat a little oil in a non-stick pan.
Fry dollops of mixture until golden on both sides
Serve with lime wedges and roasted cherry tomatoes
Serves 4-6

Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding

In the old days, when families were larger than they are today, Yorkshire pudding, drenched in gravy, was served as a tummy filler before the main meal

I had young guests for lunch the day made these Yorkshire puddings, so I baked them in muffin pans which worked very well

Growing up in a predominantly Afrikaans household, it was quite a culture shock when I married into an English family. However, I've always ejoyed and met challenges head-on, so this didn't faze me too much. From a young [wife's] age, I learnt all about English traditions especially their way of cooking and eating.

One tradition I especially enjoy is the fact that you eat roast beef with something called Yorkshire pudding. To my simplistic young mind, way back in the seventies, I couldn't imagine eating "pudding" with meat. (I soon discovered the difference and loved this new type of fare) I made a point of standing at my mum-in-law's elbow and watching while she cooked. For Yorkshire pudding she never used a recipe; it was all in her head, she said. Nevertheless, like with many other things over the years, she showed me exactly what to do.

Last week I looked up the recipe on the Internet and lo and behold, exactly what mum-in-law told me, still holds today. Reading up Delia Smith's recipe, she said a classic Yorkshire pudding is not difficult to make provided you have the right recipe, the right size baking tin and the correct oven temperature.

In the days when large families were the order of the day, Mother baked the Yorkshire pudding in a pan under a grill on which the piece of beef was roasting. All the fat and meat juices dripped into the pudding making it rich and tasty. Before the main meal, each person would be served a healthy slice of Yorkshire pudding drenched in gravy. This helped to fill the tummy so that when the meat was carved and shared among everyone, you didn't need so much and meat helping did not seem so meagre. Later on in the afternoon, the leftover puddings were eaten with honey, jam or sprinkled with sugar.

When I had guests for lunch a while ago, I decided to make roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Because there were quite a few young people at my table, I used muffin tins which worked very well.

While preparing dinner, make the pudding batter and allow it to rest in the fridge for about an hour. When your meat is just about done ( my family eats beef rare/underdone - so this is a tricky time - ha!) drizzle olive oil (or beef dripping if you can get it) into each muffin pan and place in oven to heat very well. If you pour the batter into the oil and it doesn't splatter and sizzle, stop and return the pan to the oven to heat up some more.

Now for the recipe, or rather, further instructions on how to make perfect Yorkshire pudding a la Mama-in-law with a slight adaption to Delia Smith's recipe.

Yorkshire pudding

4 eggs

300 gr (12oz) plain flour

300 ml (12 fl oz) milk

220 ml (8 fl oz) water

2 tbs dripping (olive oil works just as well)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Beat eggs well and add the milk.

Gradually add the flour, and using an electric handheld beater, mix well

Add the water to form quite a runny batter

Leave in fridge for about an hour

Place enough olive oil or dripping in a baking tin, 11 x 7 inches (28 x 18 cm) and heat very well in oven.

Whisk batter once more and working carefully, remove the pan from the oven and pour the batter into the hot oil. (It should splatter and sizzle else the oil is not hot enough and the pudding will be stodgy.)

Replace baking tin in oven and bake at 220 ° C or gas mark 7 (425 ° F)

The pudding should rise and become crisp and golden within 25-30 Minutes.

Serve as soon as possible while it is still crunchy. Makes 24 muffins.