Vanilla cupcakes with pistachio praline and whipped icing or butterscotch and cream icing

Okay so it took a bit longer tan expected! I only managed to make these on Sunday as got back late from the Stellenbosch Slow Food Market. Bought some lovely king oyster and shitake mushrooms which I sauteed with thyme and garlic and had for dinner with sourdough bread.
Bad news tache lovers - Joa has shaved off his Mo-vember moustache mid mo - I kindof hoped he'd make it till the end so I could see the full Magnumness of it but I guess it wasn't meant to be - apparently it itched...

So anyway I made the cupcakes on Sunday and took them to our friends Tessa and Ken who have just brought home new baby Justin for the first time. This cake is quite dense so depends what you like. I also think I would add more sugar (and not use Castor) for the whipped icing. On the plus side I've kept this Donna Hay entertaining recipe for at least 2 years and never actually go round to making it. The cake base is from a different source.

Praline attack!

Embarrasing but true I have managed to get a praline cut! Who knew that was possible but while breaking my pistachio praline into shards I managed to slice myself with it - luckily only a flesh wound!
This praline is part of my preparation for the cupcakes I plan to make tomorrow, which somehow I didn't have time to make today. Recipe and cupcake pics will hopefully follow tomorrow. Off to buy sushi takeaway to be followed by Ugly Betty season 3.....mmmm.

Much rain & baby potato salad

Will this rain never end! Cape Town is supposed to be experiencing the start of summer and it just keeps raining dammit! Plus got stuck in just about every possible traffic jam today with all the roadworks related to making the place extra pretty for the World Cup - lots of tree planting and sign erecting.
Anyhoo thought I'd post the salad we had last night. I think it would also be a winner with quartered roasted baby potatoes - in fact probably more of a winner - I am a big fan of roasting!

Baby potato, asparagus, runner bean & hazelnut salad

5 layer salad.. sortof

Okay not exactly 7 layer salad but it does have layers! I'd never actually heard of 7 layer salad until a few weeks ago on 'How I met your mother' - I think that one involved a lot of mayonnaise, gummy bears and potato chips - clearly not the original.
This is a really nice quick and simply recipe and relatively healthy.

Scottish smoked salmon, avocado, Nicola potato and creme fraiche salad
Serves 2

Seared beef carpaccio with roasted beetroots and horseradish

Modified from Jamie Oliver's recipe this was delicious with some sourdough bread.

Seared Carpaccio with Roasted Beetroot and Horseradish Cream

1 matured beef fillet (600g)

4 baby beetroots, washed

150ml creme fraiche or sour cream

30ml creamed horseradish
Lemon juice
Salt (whenever I use salt I use some kind of natural salt like Maldon or from our recent eating trip to France - Fleur De Sel de Camargue or Guerande salt (which was one of the ones used at 3 Micheline starred Guy Savoy when we went) - never regular old table salt. It actually really tastes much better if you just try it on its own. Iodated salt tastes like acid and kondof fizzy. Plus someone from my old office did a whole project on salt and apparently the reason its bad is really a lot to do with all the additives in regular old table salt.)
Black pepper

Balsamic vinegar

Extra virgin olive oil
Wild rocket
Shaved Parmesan (Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padana)

Marinade:

7 ml coriander seeds

10ml herbs such as rosemary and thyme

Black pepper

Pinch of salt

Balsamic vinegar

Olive oil

First make the marinade by grinding the first 4 ingredients in a pestle and mortar. Add the balsamic and the olive oil and mix. Coat the meat well and marinade for at least 30 minutes.

Moro for dinner

I hadn't planned to post again so soon - seeing as my goal was once a week - but dinner last night was something different for me as it all came from some Moro recipes I'd found on the web.
The other thing I should mention is that I've been trying too cook healthier food as my husband recently had a cholesterol test and it came out as 5.5 (apparently should be below 5 for those not in the know). That doesn't seem so high - and I think compared to the test he had a few years ago (when he was eating a bacon and egg sandwich every morning!) it wasn't - but one of our friends mentioned it was a killer so now he is really freaked out and wants to eat better. Another point you should know about me is that my big skill is in fact cooking very unhealthily. Not lots-of-deep-fried-things-and-super-greasy-pizza-unhealthy but sauces-with-butter-and-cream-unhealthy (if there is in fact a difference?) and my version of a light meals always has cheese (Parmesan, buffalo mozzarella, goats cheese etc.) and my 'vegetarian' type salads always have either said cheese or prosciutto or bacon - who could live without pork! Unfortunately these things from a cholesterol point of view - where you shouldn't eat a lot of saturated fat - are not good. So this Moro stuff is an attempt to cook less red meat - hence the chicken ( I kind of went off chicken after my varsity digs mate told me i always make it - need to revive that trend), and vegetable dishes and salads without cheese.

So here are the recipes. Only thing I would say is way too much garlic in the tahini sauce (try put in 1/2 clove instead) - I wouldn't want to by the guy having a 7am meeting with my husband today!

Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

Well they worked! Very yummy but maybe a bit too much molasses flavour.





Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

1 1/2 cups flour
1 tbsp good cocoa
1 1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves