Hello everyone
I hope this week has been treating you well.
This week marks our first month living in Oudtshoorn as well as the first month I've been posting here on Hive. The month has gone very quickly.
Traditionally all around the world, noteworthy events are celebrated with food and we celebrated in true Karoo style. So to share with you, be warned that this post may make you hungry, but if you're vegan, then it probably won't.
In South Africa we have our version of the barbeque - known as the "braai" which is pronounce "Bry". We love braaiing so much in this country, we even celebrate Heritage Day with a braai - in 2005 the holiday was rebranded as National Braai Day - 24th September each year.
We are still exploring the town in amongst our work and homeschooling commitments, but we found a lovely little butcher and we stocked up on some delicious pork chops and riblets as well as Texan steak. A South African braai would not be complete without sausage, which we call braaiwors or boerewors - pronounced "vors".
For our first braai my daughter and I made a potato salad while my hubby cooked the meat.
We made it using fresh organic home grown parsley from our own garden. Our daughter doesn't like raw onions so I had to fry them a bit and we didn't have sour cream so I mixed double cream plain yoghurt in with the mayonnaise, chopped up boiled egg, tomato puree, Worchester sauce, a spoon of barbeque sauce, salt and pepper.
It's an interesting fact about Oudtshoorn, almost all the houses have indoor braai areas. It's actually better than having a standard fire place as you have much more room. My husband decided to go all-out and bought a freaking industrial sized braai grid, it's about half a meter wide.
The end result of this braai was fantastic and we ate cave man style, fingers dripping with sauce and grease. Not bad for our first braai here. Chargrilled yum.
For the next one we decided to do some pork chops. We marinated and seasoned them with salt, pepper and our organically home-grown thyme.
These were absolutely delicious! The thyme really added an extra flavour to the meat.
My hubby and daughter also got quite adventurous with the braai and decided to make a "potbrood" which is bread cooked on the fire coals in a cast iron pot.
They mixed onion, green pepper and sesame seeds into the dough before putting it on the coals.
You need to oil the pot a bit to prevent sticking and once the dough starts cooking, adding a small amount of water to the pot to limit burning and drying out on the bottom.
Apart from the smell of fresh bread cooking in your home, it makes for some pretty epic photos.
The end result is thickly sliced crusty, soft bread that you can just lather up with butter. Hmmm so good.
And of course, what would this post be worth if we didn't include some form of dessert in it? Oh the horror if my daughter reads this post one day in the future and we didn't include a favourite of hers.
So if you want something simple to add the lovely finishing touch, why not sparkle pancakes with syrup, lemon juice, cinnamon-sugar with chocolate chip filling and glitter decadence?
1 cup of cake flour
1 cup of milk (or half milk half water if you prefer)
1 egg
2 tablespoons sugar
Mix the egg and milk in a bowl until light and fluffy, add the sifted flour and mix well. Mix in the sugar and let it stand while you heat your frying pan. Pancakes have this weird thing where the mixture thickens as it stands, so you may want to add a touch more milk or water once your pan is hot.
I use a basting brush to brush oil onto the pan. Someone I knew once used to use cotton wool but it's really not advisable.
Scoop in a ladle worth at a time and cook until golden brown. I promise you, you will be your kid's hero whenever you make pancakes. Make sure to use edible glitter :)
I think we succeeded in celebrating our first month in Oudtshoorn in Karoo style (even though I know that we should have used Karoo lamb chops - we're braaiing those tonight so there's still time). Hope you've enjoyed this and that your mouth is watering now.
If you have any questions, give me a shout :)
