Chicken Liver Pâté

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Tandy

When Jamie posted the challenge to the Monthly Mingle I was stumped. I thought long and hard about what French food meant to me. And once I thought of all the real French dishes I love, I had to think which ones I could make and blog about. Last year we were in France, barging the Canal du Midi and we were in duck country. This meant cassoulet, fois gras and duck rillette. Yesterday I realized that I had a post in my draft folder, just waiting to be a part of this monthly mingle. This is my ultimate snack food, and something I used to have in the fridge at all times. It is easy to make, and even easier to eat. Dave decided a few years ago that I needed to stop making this pâté as he was snacking too often and he wanted to lose weight. So, for a very long time this lovely dish has not been in my fridge. A few weeks ago friends of ours were coming over for a braai (barbecue) and I knew we would sit around chatting and drinking wine, before we got to supper. So, I decided to make a few snack items to have before the main meal. Something we could eat easily, with a few crackers. One of the starters I made was my chicken liver pâté and as you can prepare it ahead of time, it makes a great dinner party dish. Just don’t make it too far in advance, as temptation may get in your way, and there might be none left to share.

CHICKEN LIVER PÂTÉ

Ingredients:

125g butter

1 onion, sliced

1 clove garlic, sliced

2 chillies, seeded and chopped

250g chicken livers

1 teaspoon brandy, port or sherry

2 tablespoons thick cream or crème fraîche

2 tablespoons melted butter

1 tablespoon chopped chives

Method:

Melt the butter in a sauce pan

Add the onion, garlic and chilli and cook on a low heat until the onion is soft

Add the chicken livers and cook until done

Remove from the heat and cool

Add the alcohol and the cream or crème fraîche

Blend until smooth

Spoon into a dish and pour the melted butter over the pâté

Add the chives

Refrigerate until set.

CHICKEN LIVER PÂTÉ PRINTABLE VERSION

(you will see from the photograph that I did not add the butter and the chives to the top of my pâté – it was a time issue

Tandy

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Fettucine With Ground Beef And Roasted Red Pepper Alfredo Sauce For The Secret Recipe Club

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Tandy

When I joined The Secret Recipe Club, my first post was a slight let down, as the person I was assigned did not bother to come along and comment on my post. Well, déjà vu struck when I moved to group C, and my assigned blogger not only did not comment, she did not post! But, I am loving my new group and I have met so many great new bloggers. This month, Mother Thyme is my assignment – don’t you just love that blog name? Jennifer looks like the person whose home you could arrive at unannounced, and she would welcome you in with pleasure. She is a stay at home mum of twins who uses their down down time to create wonderful dishes using fresh ingredients that we can all afford.

As Dave and I are on a restricted diet, I am now making pasta once a week, and I want it to be a special dish. I chose her recipe for Steak Fettucine With Roasted Red Pepper Alfredo Sauce as rib eye steak is my favourite cut of meat. However, after shopping for all the ingredients, we ended up eating the rib eye for dinner the next evening. I could not get another rib eye steak and so I had to decide whether to adapt the recipe, or choose another one. At the same time, Dave and I were booking our trip to Venice, and my mind turned to traditional Italian meals. They always start with anti pasti and then move on to the primi of pasta and then secondi of meat and vegetables. So, I decided that as we had already had the second course, I would change up the recipe by making a first course pasta with a sauce of ground beef and follow the rest of Jennifer’s instructions. We loved the result.

FETTUCINE WITH GROUND BEEF AND ROASTED RED PEPPER ALFREDO SAUCE

Ingredients:

200g fettuccine

1 tablespoon olive oil, plus olive oil for drizzling – I use an olive oil spray

1 red onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, sliced

250g ground beef

Salt and freshly ground black pepper for seasoning

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

1 medium orange pepper, cut into large wedges

1 medium red pepper, cut into large wedges

½ cup crème fraîche

½ cup grated hard cheese, plus additional for serving

Method:

Preheat the oven to 220° Celsius and put your water for the pasta on to boil

Cook the pasta as per the packet instructions

Heat the olive oil in a pan and sauté the onion and the garlic until soft

Add the ground beef and brown

Season to taste and add the Worcestershire sauce

Leave the meat to cook while you start on the peppers

Place the peppers onto a baking sheet and lightly drizzle with olive oil

Lightly season and roast for 15 minutes until they are tender and slightly charred

Remove from the oven and blend until smooth

Add to the ground beef together with the crème fraîche

Adjust the seasoning and just before your pasta is ready, add the cheese to the ground meat

Stir in allowing the cheese to melt completely before adding the drained pasta

Mix together and serve topped with some grated hard cheese

FETTUCINE WITH GROUND BEEF AND ROASTED RED PEPPER ALFREDO SAUCE PRINTABLE VERSION

I am submitting this recipe to Presto Pasta Nights, which is being hosted this week by Juli of Pictures of All My Princesses

Tandy

To see other recipes from the click the linky below: And to see what Aimee made from my blog, click here.

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Snoek Pâté

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Tandy

I can tell how far my recipe development has come along from my first post on Snoek Pâté to this one. I have a note book in my kitchen and each time I make something I want to blog about I write down exactly what I have used, and what I did with the ingredients. This helps me a lot, as it sometimes takes me months to get my posts from paper to page! I blog when I have time and my memory is not brilliant. In November 2011 I took a trip to Johannesburg and my mom asked me to bring some snoek pâté with me. A trip to Johannesburg involves a 40 minute car ride to the airport and a one hour wait (usually) at the airport before a two hour flight. I then have to wait for my bags and catch the Gautrain to Sandton – it will be at least 5 hours of travelling. I had to ensure that the snoek pâté would stay frozen and so used my very clever lunch containers. They have a freezer block you clip into the lid. The first process was finding some decent snoek and then seasoning it without garlic. My dad is not a fan of garlic and so we could not do our usual braaid snoek recipe. After having some snoek for supper, I allowed the left overs to cool before making the pâté. I then put it into my lunch container, clipped in the freezer block and froze the pâté. I was amazed as by the time I got to my sister’s house 7 hours after leaving the office, the pâté was still frozen. We left it to defrost in the fridge overnight and you could not taste that the pâté had been frozen. This was a huge hit with the people having snacks with us on the Friday night.

SNOEK PÂTÉ

ingredients:

1 cup snoek, flaked

3 tablespoons crème fraîche

1 teaspoon cream

2 spring onions, chopped

10g flat leaf parsley, chopped

salt to season

method:

place the ingredients into a blender and blend until as smooth as you want it

SNOEK PÂTÉ PRINTABLE VERSION

Tandy

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Macaroni Cheese For The Crazy Cooking Challenge

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Tandy

I have joined another blogging group! Basically, I am doing this so that some of the blogs I write don’t need much thought. It is because I have been so busy, and because I am so far behind in blogging. The Crazy Cooking Challenge is Tina’s concept.

Every blogger who participates is cooking the same dish and posting their recipe at the same time. Using google as my search function and choosing pages from South Africa I came across Pessimist Incarnate and used Wayne’s recipe for Macaroni Cheese. Well, let’s put it this way, I used it as inspiration, as I left out one ingredient! Nevertheless, what I did tasted great, and I am sure that is what counts.

MACARONI CHEESE

ingredients:

200g macaroni

oil for drizzling

salt and freshly ground black pepper for seasoning

250g unsmoked back bacon, chopped

250g grated mature cheddar cheese

200mls crème fraîche

1 egg, lightly beaten

method:

preheat the oven to 180° Celsius

while the macaroni is cooking as per the packet instructions fry the bacon in a dry non stick pan

mix together the cheese, crème fraîche and the egg

drain the macaroni and drizzle with some olive oil to prevent it from sticking

season and then mix in the cheese mix

place in an ovenproof dish and bake for 20 minutes

allow to rest before tucking in

Printable Version

I am submitting this recipe to Presto Pasta Nights, which is being hosted this week by Juli of Pictures of All My Princesses

Tandy

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Coriander Pesto Chicken Pasta

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Tandy

A few years ago Dave and I decided that we would get a new side by side freezer/fridge for our joint Christmas present. The one I wanted will not fit into our new kitchen and so I had to settle for something different. It works well for the OCD part of me as the freezer drawers are marked – meat, chicken, fish, vegetables and ICE CREAM! It has a DIY ice maker and loads of freezer space. Given that I like to cook in rotation: meat, chicken, fish, vegetarian – the freezer works really well for me. I buy my meat and chicken as needed, and in bulk and then I freeze in portions. I then take out the protein we are having, and the meal we end up eating is decided by the protein we have out. The day after I made the coriander pesto, we had chicken on the menu, and so I decided to use the two ingredients to create this dish.

CORIANDER PESTO CHICKEN PASTA

ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 skinned and boned chicken breasts, sliced

salt and freshly ground black pepper for seasoning

1 shallot, finely chopped

1/8 teaspoon chilli flakes

1 tablespoon coriander pesto

2 tablespoons crème fraîche

method:

while the pasta is cooking, heat the oil in a large frying pan

season and seal the chicken and remove from the pan

sauté the shallot until soft

add the chilli flakes and the chicken

stir in the pesto and the crème fraîche

you may need to loosen the sauce with at least 1 tablespoon of the pasta water

Printable Version

I am submitting this recipe to Presto Pasta Nights, which is being hosted this week by Jennifer from For Such A Time As This

Tandy

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Italian Pasta

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Tandy

I can hear everyone saying – but pasta is Italian! Actually, pasta did not originate in Italy, but rather in China. It was however the Italians who have regulated the making of pasta – durum wheat only, and who taught us that pasta should be eaten al dente. The reason I have called this dish Italian Pasta is because the ingredients I used are all Italian, beautiful cipollini onions, Italian sausages and Roma tomotoes. I am in love with all things Italian – and last night my friend Kim was commenting how anything sounds good when said in Italian. Mi scusi, sono d’accordo. We spoke last night of Florence and Rome, Sienna and Assisi and all the other lovely places we are planning on visiting. But in the meantime, home cooked pasta will have to do.

ITALIAN PASTA

ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cipollini onion, finely chopped

salt for seasoning

50g Italian sausage, thinly sliced

2 roma tomatoes, chopped

1 teaspoon tomato paste

1 tablespoon crème fraîche

method:

while your pasta is cooking, heat the olive oil in a large frying pan

sauté the onion until soft

season and add the sausage and the tomatoes

when the tomatoes are cooked add the tomato paste and crème fraîche

you may need to thin the sauce with the pasta water at this stage

toss through the pasta

Printable Version

I am submitting this recipe to Presto Pasta Nights, which is being hosted this week by Simona of Briciole

Tandy

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Broad Bean and Gravadlax Pasta

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Tandy

Summer has come to pay us a visit in the Western Cape. It is the middle of winter and yet we are walking around wearing t-shirts and shorts (well, some of us are). I have used this beautiful warmth to bath the dogs outside. I am catching as much Vitamin D as possible. My garden has not cottoned on to this and finally the herbs are dying away. My sugar bush is all but a stalk in the ground and my tarragon is at the end of its summer bounty. My lavender however is the most amazing purple colour and I have started picking the flowers to add to some salt for Christmas presents. The nights are not echoing the summer days, they are cold and the grass is full of dew. Wet puppy paw prints follow me around the kitchen. Molly is so little her entire body is catching the dew. Warm comforting food is on the menu, and this meal made in summer would be welcome right now.

BROAD BEAN AND GRAVADLAX PASTA

ingredients:

140g broad beans (fava beans)

15g butter

1 tablespoon lemon infused olive oil

1 stalk celery, sliced

2 baby leeks, sliced

1 clove garlic, sliced

185g gravadlax

2 tablespoons crème fraîche

salt and freshly ground black pepper for seasoning

1 tablespoon chopped dill

method:

boil the beans in salted water for 3 minutes and remove

use this water and start cooking your pasta once you have podded the beans

in a large frying pan, heat the butter and the oil

sauté the celery, leeks and garlic until soft

add the gravadlax and the beans

when heated add the crème fraîche

season to your taste

add the dill and the cooked pasta and mix in thoroughly

Printable Version

I am submitting this recipe to Presto Pasta Nights, which is being hosted this week by Ruth from Once Upon A Feast

Tandy

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Basil Infused Tomato Pasta

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Tandy

The past two weeks have been exceptionally hard, and part of what has been difficult is making the choice to put Maxine to sleep for the right reasons. I never wanted to have any lingering doubt that we had just given up on her. Giving up is so easy to do. It is what I sometimes feel like doing when business is bad, like it is now. But I know I cannot just give up. I cannot give up on friendships and I have never given up on a challenge, life or love. Some weeks it is exceptionally hard to come up with a pasta recipe – but Tandy Tuesday is ‘set in stone’ for me, and I cannot give up doing at least one pasta post a week. This week I am sharing with you a pasta recipe from January – it is not seasonal so it can be enjoyed all year round.

BASIL INFUSED TOMATO PASTA

ingredients:

1 tablespoon basil infused olive oil

125g cherry tomatoes, quartered

1 chilli, deseeded and sliced

2 garlic cloves, chopped

10 olives, depipped and halved

1 tablespoon crème fraîche

10g parmesan, grated

method:

while your pasta is cooking heat the olive oil in a large frying pan

add the tomatoes and allow them to warm up

add the chilli and the garlic and cook till soft

add the olives and warm through

add the crème fraîche and make sure your pasta sauce is warm

toss the pasta through the sauce and top with the parmesan

Printable Version

I am submitting this recipe to Presto Pasta Nights, which is being hosted this week by Juli of Pictures of all my Princesses

Tandy

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Pasta Spagnolo

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Tandy

David and I have a list of countries we are going to visit, and Spain is on the list. 4 years ago we nearly went to Spain. We had wanted to go to the Indianapolis 500 (and yes, I do know that Indianapolis is in the US) but Dave said it was too far to travel. So, we decided to go to the Formula 1 race in Spain. A friend of ours was the chief mechanic for what was then BAR and we could have had a VIP experience. We looked at the cost of the ticket and decided to spend that money on B & B’s in Brittany. It was a good thing we did not go to Spain, as that year BAR were excluded from a race and the Spanish Grand Prix was the one they did not partake in. Our trip to Brittany was amazing, and it was that trip that made us decide to do self catering holidays from then on. I am not sure when we will get to Spain, but in the mean time I can experience the taste sensation by using Spanish ingredients in my cooking.

PASTA SPAGNOLO

ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

125g mushrooms, sliced

15g butter

1 leek, sliced

8 asparagus spears

salt and freshly ground black pepper for seasoning

1 chorizo sausage, sliced

½ cup white wine

1 tablespoon crème fraîche

25g Parmesan, grated

method:

while your pasta is cooking, heat the oil in a large frying pan

add the mushrooms and cook until soft

add the butter and when melted add the leeks

sauté until soft and add the asparagus spears

season and add the chorizo

when the sausage is hot, add the wine and allow the alcohol to burn off

add the crème fraîche and Parmesan

toss your pasta through the sauce

Printable Version

I am submitting this recipe to: Presto Pasta Nights, which is being hosted this week by Allie of Yum in Tum

Tandy

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Crayfish Pasta

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Tandy

If you take a look at the photograph of me that I used for Project Food Blog, you will see I am sitting on the boat, with a bucket of crayfish. The week after we got married, Dave and I were given ‘work’ to do. This consisted of going out with Nico crayfishing. You have to have a crew of 5 people in order to bring back 20 crayfish and as the journey is an hour there and back, not having a full crew on board is a waste. It was years since I had been on a ski boat, and the time previous to that I was 13, trying to ski, and ended up ‘flashing’ the boys I was trying to impress. Needless to say, this time was far more enjoyable. We went out from Gordons Bay harbour to Rooiels and caught our quota of these creatures that walk all over your feet. I actually had to brave up to touch them. But, this first trip started my love affair with the need for the sea, and the delectable creatures we catch.