Category Archives for Recipes

Potato Cakes

I know I have shared this potato cake recipe with you before, but I just felt I had to update it a bit. I found that the egg binds it very well and the amount of flour needed is not much. You can also add anything you like to it. I have experimented with many different flavours but found what my family love. That is the trick. Stick with what your family loves…

Ingredients:
4 potatoes (cook well and then mash)
A pinch of salt
A pinch of smoked paprika, beautiful flavour
Teaspoon of grated onion (very fine)
Large hand full of cheese (cheddar, mozzarella, why not try blue cheese?)
Sliced salami or fried and finely chopped bacon
1 egg
1 tablespoon of flour (not too full)

Mix all the ingredients very well together. It will be like a soft mash consistency.. Use a tablespoon and spoon them into the pan. I can fit 4 at a time and do not use any oil in the pan. Just use a non stick pan, it works wonderful.

Leave them in the pan for a few minutes. Make sure you wait until the potato cake is not stuck to the pan anymore before you turn them over. They will be nice and brown on one side. Leave in the pan until brown on the other side as well before you remove them. Serve warm.

Please try these wonderful cakes and let us know how yours came out. What did you add that was special to you? What is your family’s favourite?

Giant Plaatkoekies

I always bake small plaatkoekies but decided to make them bigger this time. A bit thicker as well which means that they are more filling and wonderfully soft and fluffy 🙂 We bake gluten free so the recipe is gluten free.

Ingredients:
1 cup of water
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 and 1/2 cup of self raising gluten free flour

Method:
1. Mix the water and eggs together.
2. Add the sugar, salt and flour.
3. Mix well and place spoons-full in a pan….
4. Bake on both sides turning when little air bubbles appear on one side.

You can add chocolate spread (which is a lovely sweet option), cinnamon sugar, melted cheese or even meats like salami or ham… Our family love this and enjoy eating it even for breakfast with bacon and syrup….

Soentjies – just for you :)

Hi there everyone!!!!!

Today I will share with you our soentjie recipe. This is specially for Alison, so make sure you give us feedback once you tried the recipe please…. Photos, remarks, anything is welcome… I would love to see what happened…

Soentjies is a wonderful biscuit. They crumble in your mouth, almost disintegrate as you bite them. They are lovely and soft but also have a slight crunch at the same time. One of my all time favourites. The secret ingredient that makes this all possible is the cornflour…

You can halve the recipes if you want to make a bit less… This will make around 2.5kg.

Ingredients:
2 cups of margarine
2 cups of sugar
3 eggs
4 cups of flour
3 cups of cornflour
3 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt

Method:
1. Cream the margarine and sugar together and then add the beaten eggs. Mix well.
2. Sieve the dry ingredients together and add. Fist mix together with a wooden spoon.
3. Then use your hands and knead the dough together. Put through the mincer attachment of the Kenwood. Attach the cookie shape in the front.
4. Cut the dough into rectangular shapes with a pastry cutter.
5. Bake on the bottom shelve of the oven, pre-heated to 180 degrees celcius for about 10 minutes.
7. Move to the middle of the oven and bake for another 10 minutes. They stay white so don’t let them burn.

Filling:
1 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of margarine
1/2 cup of milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Boil all the ingredients together for 5 minutes. Stir while it cools down. It is a good idea to make the filling first before you bake the cookies….

Once the cookies are cold, spread some of the filling on one of the cookies, and stick another against it…

Enjoy with tea, coffee or just on the go like I do 🙂 If you don’t have a Kenwood, just take the dough and roll little balls… Place in a baking tray and lightly press them down with a fork. After they cooled down, stick 2 together with the filling. They might not look exactly the same, but they still taste great !!!

Rice – easy as that :)

Today I am going to share with you a recipe that my husband showed me. It is the easiest thing you will ever make. I never thought of cooking rice in this way, never ever 🙂 Amazing what there is out there still to be discovered by you. Maybe something that one person accepts as normal is totally unheard of for another person. So let’s all share recipes and ideas 🙂

This is how to make this wonderful easy rice….

First you have to decided what flavours you are in the mood for today. Curry, Chinese or whatever you like to eat. My whole family loves bacon and I just happened to have a few pieces in the fridge to use up anyway, so I cut the bacon into little pieces and fried it off with finely chopped onion in a little bit of oil. I also like smoked paprika so added just a little bit for taste.

Once the onion is see through and the bacon is cooked, you have to add your rice. We use 1 cup of rice for our family, so I added 1 cup of raw rice to the mix of onion and bacon…

You then stir the rice in the pan or pot, whatever you decide to use, for a few minutes. Not too long… Then it is time to add the liquid….. I used chicken stock. Take one chicken stock cube and add 2 cups (500ml) of boiling water and stir. Now it is ready to add to your rice mixture on the stove. Stir the mixture together… Remember you need 2 parts liquid for every part rice that you are using.

Then you have to find an oven dish or whatever you have lying around. I could only find our braai dish (a round one) and it worked wonders. I now use nothing else :). Pour the rice and stock mixture into the dish… Make sure you cover it very well. You want the steam from cooking to stay in the dish, not escape into the oven.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees celcius and then add the mixture to the oven. You need to let it cook for about 10 minutes. Then take it out of the oven and stir. Leave it another 10 minutes. It should be cooked after 20 minutes. If not, just cook a bit longer until the rice is dry.

The taste of the rice is wonderful, so different from just boiling it on the stove in water like I have always done. Something to try…. Goes well with anything, even just on it’s own 🙂

Sweet Mustard

This is a wonderful recipe I got from my mother… Believe me, my son LOVES this recipe and eats it on everything. It is a bit sweet, but also sour at the same time. Goes well on pork and is a winner if you add a little bit to mayonaise for a chicken mayo toasted sandwich…. My favourite, add to a hot dog with melted cheese 🙂

Here is the recipe. I changes it a little bit because of availability of ingredients:

Ingredients:
1 cup of sugar (250ml)
25 ml of mustard powder. Use the English mustard
20 ml of cake flour. I add 20ml because I make everything gluten free, if you are using regular flour, start maybe with 15 ml.
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup of white spirit vinegar. I used apple cider vinegar, could not find white spirit vinegar… (the cider vinegar has a stronger taste than the spirit vinegar)
1/2 cup of water
2 extra large eggs

Method:
1. Mix the sugar, mustard, flour and salt in a bowl.
2. Microwave for 4 minutes on 100% stirring after 2 minutes.
3. Beat the eggs together and add some of the mixture, mixing very well… Add to the rest of the mixture and stir together…
4. Microwave for 3 minutes at 50% until it turns thicker.
5. Let it cool down. Place the mixture in a holder and store in the fridge. It tastes great when it is very cold 🙂

Gluten free fried potato balls

Like I mentioned last time, my children love potatoes. They don’t eat bread at school and it important for me to find something they will love eating that is also filling. Potatoes give me that possibility. They love it and it is filling at the same time.

Ingredients:
3 potatoes (raw potatoes that you grate)
pinch of salt
1 egg
2 tablespoons of brown rice flour (or regular flour if you prefer)

Method:
1. Make the balls as big or small as you like. I make it small, easier and quicker to cook and not too much to eat at a time.
2. Take a spoon full of mix and press together in your hand. Once it holds it’s shape, deep fry in oil.
3. I choose to deep fry them, but you can shape them and then bake in the oven without any oil.

Easy to make 🙂
Enjoy!!!

Potato Cakes, gluten free

My children are very fussy when it comes to eating at school. They do NOT like bread (only toast) so I had to come up with something else they will enjoy at school that is filling enough and NOT full of sugar and junk. So I tried these wonderful potato cakes. It only takes a few ingredients and are very easy to make. You only need the following ingredients:

Ingredients:
4 large potatoes (boiled and mashed with a little bit of butter)
1 extra large egg
pinch of salt
A large hand full of cheddar cheese (or whatever cheese you prefer). You can add as much as you enjoy.
Optional: add bacon, salami or ham.

Method:
1. First boil the potatoes and mash with some butter.
2. Add the cheese, egg and salt and mix well.
3. Add the bacon, salami or ham, whatever you are in the mood for 🙂
4. Mix well and heat up a pan. I use my pancake pan and don’t use any oil.
5. Form little balls and then press them flat in the pan. I bake 4 at a time.
6. Turn when one side is golden brown and cook on the other side.
7. Remove when ready and eat warm or cold as a snack…

Celiac breakfast

This is a wonderful breakfast anyone can enjoy. It is very quick and easy to make for people on the go and it tastes wonderful.

As you know my husband is a celiac and it is a struggle to get anything gluten free for him. South Africa doesn’t really cater for celiacs and I do not think that it is going to happen any time soon either.

Keep posted to see what else my husband will post. I will let you know as soon as he adds anything new to try 🙂

Visit his site and leave your comments about how you experience being a celiac, no matter where in the world you are… http://celiacguy.com/

Gluten Free birthday cake :)

Happy birthday love of my life 🙂 My wonderful husband’s birthday was this week and we baked him a wonderful Gluten Free sponge cake. It was great fun… Usually when you bake gluten free cakes, they don’t rise that well, but this cake did. It started off as a little bit of cake batter, in less than halve the tin we used and it filled the whole pan in the end.

I was so happy with the results we got… We also used butter for the icing rather than margarine because my husband loves butter. It was much thicker and harder than the margarine icing, but just add a spoon full of water and this will fix it very nicely.

We had a wonderful day together as a family and the children are still eating the cake. They decided that the gluten free cake is MUCH nicer than the regular cake with gluten. Wonderful for us all 🙂

Cup cakes

This mixture can be used to either bake one large cake or cup cakes. Depends on what you are in the mood for… This sponge cake is very light and tastes wonderful with the orange.

Ingredients:
1 cup of margarine or butter
1 ½ cups of sugar
1 cup of corn flour(maizina)
1 cup of milk
4 eggs
2 cups of flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
A pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of grated orange peel

Method:
1. Cream the butter and sugar together.
2. Mix the corn flour with ½ a cup of milk and add.
3. Beat the eggs very well and add to the mixture.
4. Sieve the dry ingredients together and add, taking turns with adding the milk as well.
5. Lastly add the vanilla and orange peel. Mix well and pour the mixture in a round cake pan.
6. Bake in a pre-heated Bak at 180°C for about 50 minutes until light brown.

If you are baking the cup cakes, you shouldn’t need to bake them for longer than about 20 minutes. Decorate them in any colour you feel like… Let the children help 🙂

If you live in Vereeniging in South Africa and want to order cup cakes instead, why not visit our Ouma’s Cookies site 🙂