Meals On Speed

Scoop out melon balls and slice up the starfruit.

Nuke up a dressing from honey, lime juice and ground black pepper and pour over.

… also known as Butter Prawns.

My sister-in-law Fatima shared this recipe with me, and my mother-in-law often makes this dish when she wants to treat us.

My favourite part is schlurping in a very unladylike manner on each of the shells after I’ve pulled the meat out, trying very hard not to think about how much butter and cream went into the production.

This is the recipe for one kilogram prawns (deveined, with the shells on).

Marinate the prawns in 3 tablespoons of tandoori masala and half a brick of butter. Cook.

In a separate pot, combine the following;

• 1 tablespoon Wellingtons Sweet & Sour Chutney
• 2 tablespoons Nando’s peri-peri sauce
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1 teaspoon Aromat

Allow to simmer for a few minutes, then add a 250ml tub of fresh cream and the juice of 2 or 3 lemons.

Pour this over the cooked prawns.

(Full of bad stuff hey? But oh so very good. This must be what the devil eats when he’s run out of chocolate cheesecake.)

Serve on savoury rice or with pita bread and chips.

Another raucous production.

• Woolworths organic greens with edible flowers.
• Gooseberries.
• Apple slices (rubbed with a slice of lime so they wouldn’t discolour)
• Olives (I used these amazing ones that come pickled in some sort of blueberry marination. Yummers I tell you)
• Quartered figs
• Chunks of feta

Dress as desired. I used a bit of the juice from the flavoured olives.

Tags: feta, figs

I first sampled these when I lunched quite leisurely at Moemas in Parktown North (the joys of setting your own lunch hours).

So delighted by the fresh flavours and happy marriage, I set out to replicate this starter for a dinner I hosted for two of my dearest friends.

Four brinjals; that had been sliced into thick rounds, scored, drizzled with olive oil and scattered with ground salt and black pepper, went into an oven preheated at 180 degrees celsius for about an hour.

While that was getting on, I made up the dressing; plain yoghurt, honey, chopped garlic, torn mint leaves, sliced chives, some bits of parsley, half a pinch of salt and a little bit of ground black pepper.

Once the brinjals were out and cooled, I arranged them onto a plate and spooned the dressing over each round. I unabashedly stew pomegranate rubies over, totally copy-catting Moemas presentation. My only inspired move was to scatter a handful of Melissa’s seed and nut mix over the dressing.

I wanted to encore the kiwi and lime quencher for Naqiyah’s baby shower, but decided I really liked the look of two punnets of strawberries I saw sitting on the supermarket shelf.

So pretty much the same as before, only this time around, I decided to prep the cordial in advance so I wouldn’t end up lugging around litres and litres of a sticky accident waiting to happen.

In a 3.5l bowl with a fitted lid, I poured in two bottles of Roses Lime Cordial. In went the two punnets worth of chopped up strawberry, four sliced up limes and a whole lot of mint.

I covered the top of the bowl with clingwrap, closed the lid on it, and let it chill.

Later on, at the baby shower, all that was left to do was add 4l of Sprite (or any other fizzy lemon drink) to the premix. I didn’t use green tea with this batch. Instead I went with Naqiyah’s suggestion of the lime and lemongrass sparkling water from Woolworths. 

In a neat surprise, the strawberries had tinted the liquid a delicate pink that made me smile.

Tags: lime, strawberry

Dreamy dreamy creamy cheesecake, draped in butterscotchy beautification and garnished with baby apples and a sprinkle of cinammon.

I grabbed the recipe for this  from Lorraine Elliott’s blog Not Quite Nigella.

Her rendition was just perfect, and my only blasphemy to her genius was to use shortbread biscuits for my crust.

The butterscotch sauce will leave your tongue dangling at your knees. I saved the extra yield for ice cream topping.

Tags: caramel apple cheesecake

• One packet ready-mixed-greens
• blueberries
• rosa tomatoes
• pomegranate rubies
• pecan nuts
• organic cheddar
• avocado

Dress with avocado oil and lime juice.

Macerate mango cubes (especially if they’re not very ripe) and raspberries in castor sugar and some citrus sugar.

Beat mascarpone cheese with a tub of reduced fat cream. Grind in citrus sugar to taste. Grate a bar (220-250g) of dark orange chocolate and mix the shavings into the cream.

Stir in the macerated fruit and serve.

Here’s a quick one.

Heat up a little olive oil in a pan and toss in sliced golden peppadews, halved cherry tomatoes and your cubes/strips of haloumi cheese. Let it all soften, infuse and yum. Once done, spoon out. Toast a slice of bread in the same pan. There’s no need for additional oil or butter, and your toast will take on mix of flavours from the cherry/peppadew/cheese leavings.

Once your bread is nicely browned, top with the filling and sprinkle with parsley flakes, black pepper, salt and avocado oil.

Tags: haloumi cheese, peppadews

I love a prickly pear.

And yes, it is a love that hurts. Especially when you’re a bit lax with the handling. Even though these prickly pears came boxed de-thorned, there were still a few fine spines lurking seemingly innocuously, itching to puncture my sorry naked  fingers.

In all my google searches for prickly pear juice; lime, ginger and honey were recurring themes. I stuck to the prescription for the most part.

In your blender, blitz the following:

• lemon juice (I was all out of lime)
• honey
• peeled and chopped prickly pears
• water

Pass the mixture through a sieve to strain out all the seeds.

Jug and add in chopped up pieces of glacé ginger and pomegranate rubies.

If you have fresh ginger on hand, add a little to the blitz stage and leave out the candied root.

Tags: ginger, prickly pear juice