Coffee, Rooibos and Chicory

Coffee is one of those addictions that I almost wish I hadn’t kicked. It smells so good brewing, it looks so rich and it goes so well with dark chocolate, my one ongoing bona fide addiction. Way back when we lived in our London photographic studio, we’d stagger down the ladder from the mezzanine to the kitchen and make a pot of real coffee first thing, to wake us up. Without that coffee I wasn’t fit to speak to. It was an essential morning ritual.

Working in Italy, the  morning coffee was more than a ritual, more like a religion. We’d bypass the watered down coffee served at some of the hotel breakfasts and sneak a real cappuccino directly from the bar. And the coffee and brioches in a certain bar on a cobblestone crossroads in Siena were the highlight of our trip in breakfast terms, greed frequently demanding a second cappuccino and a third brioche, perhaps the one with chocolate or the one with raisins and orange zest, later to be worked into the trip accounts as a legitimate expense. To be fair to the hotels, I’m sure they served the coffee watered down in the best interests of the foreign guests, who were often in the habit of downing several long draughts of hot liquid coffee over breakfast and would have had heart palpitations if the coffee had been of traditional Italian strength – these were the days before Starbucks brought the espresso to the masses of the English speaking world! Anyway back then my body could take several fierce espressos in the course of a day’s work without any ill effects.

It took having a baby to knock the caffeine out of my system for good. Once he was born and I was no longer breastfeeding I tried to go back to my bad old ways. The first time I drank a mug of coffee made in strong jug fashion at a friend’s house, I thought I was having a heart attack, so strong were the palpitations. I was more cautious after that, but to my dismay I found that coffee no longer tasted so good. My taste-buds must have shifted or something. It still smelt wonderful, but the flavour never quite matched up. So I gradually switched my allegiance to rooibos tea, which I can happily knock back black and unsweetened at a rate of several mugs a day. And it’s guilt free too, healthily full of anti-oxidants, even produced fairly locally to where we are now in South Africa.

Unfortunately for my husband he hasn’t had the easy switchover from coffee to something else that my pregnancy hormones did for me. He’s been going through a particularly difficult cycle of giving in to the coffee craving for a few weeks, then getting terrible nauseous headaches whenever he stops drinking it. He’ll stay off it for a while and then the temptation when we have friends to lunch is too strong and he’ll start all over again. So he’s been looking for an alternative, something that he can enjoy drinking instead of coffee or regular tea. Rooibos tea gives him wind (sorry for sharing that!) and there are only so many cups of fresh herb teas that you can cope with a day. Decaffeinated coffee  seems to have more health drawbacks than regular coffee so that’s not a long-term option either. So he sent me out to look for a chicory substitute to try.

I came back with Chikree – a South African chicory drink, that contains chicory, corn syrup, caramel and quinine. It passed his flavour requirements, not tasting just like coffee but having enough of that type of taste to be satisfying. I wasn’t sure how healthy the corn syrup and caramel are, but chicory is naturally bitter so you do have to have some sugar to balance that out.

Another option that a friend directed me to is Romi by Health Food Connection, which describes itself as a cereal beverage – it is again flavoured with chicory but also has rye and barley as ingredients which give it a more creamy flavour, which my husband likes, and is sweetened by beet sugar. It is imported from Poland, so not at all local and that is reflected in the higher price – 100g of Romi costs the same as 250g of Chikree. Isn’t that always the way that the preferred option is the more expensive one! As far as the health benefits of chicory go, it is supposed to help with liver function and cleanse the blood, it is a natural anti-inflammatory, contains vitamin C and prevents constipation.

I did surreptitiously taste the Romi – I still have to get over my instinctive rejection of chicory as anything but an ersatz wartime poverty coffee – don’t know why that’s my kneejerk reaction. It tasted to me not very different from an ordinary instant coffee. A far cry from real mocha java but still not unpleasant. I’m perfectly happy in my rooibos bubble though, so am not going to be joining my husband on this one!

What about you – is coffee essential to your survival? Or do you have another alternative for us to try?

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Rusks Revisited

South African rusks recipe has to be the single biggest search term that brings new visitors to my blog. It seems that there are an awful lot of ex-pat South Africans desperate for a good rusk to dip in their rooibos tea, stranded in foreign lands where the only option is to bake your own. And not only ex-pats: my sister-in-law turned to Google when looking for a new rusk recipe and found the recipe she picked from the search results rather familiar – she’d ended up on my blog with the same recipe I’ve already shared with her the old-fashioned paper and pen way!

I discovered this recipe many years ago in an old South African cookbook, back when our son was a baby and we were living over here for four months. We went back to London for another two years before moving out to SA for good and this rusk recipe kept us connected with that fine old tradition of dunking rusks in tea and getting crumbs all over the sofa.

Occasionally I have lapses in concentration and the rusk tin stays empty for a while, but mostly I keep it filled. However I have played with the recipe over the years, using different combinations of flours. One thing I have never adjusted, but perhaps should, is its requirement for two teaspoons each of baking powder, bicarb (baking soda) and cream of tartar. One commenter pointed out that baking powder is essentially a mixture of cream of tartar and bicarb... so maybe the original recipe writer was just hedging her bets?!

My latest experiment has been to substitute half of the vegetable oil with coconut oil. Reading up about healthy and unhealthy fats, omega 3s versus omega 6s, has made me less happy with the regular sunflower oil that I used to use without question, so I’m trying to find alternatives from among the unprocessed ‘good’ fats: coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, butter(!). Mind you the whole field of dietary fats is so controversial at the moment that everyone just has to make their own decisions... and luckily these rusks work just as well either way. I didn’t notice any difference in flavour or consistency from the coconut oil, except perhaps they have stayed crunchy for longer, but that could be my imagination!

So here is the latest incarnation of my favourite rusk recipe, or go back to my original version if you prefer.

South African Buttermilk Rusks - The Revised Recipe

1.240kg / 2lb12oz flour (800g wholewheat, 200g rye, and 240g plain white flour)
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 teaspoons salt
250g / 9oz butter
½ cup raisins (optional)
½ cup seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, sesame) and/or nuts
2 eggs
250g / 9oz dark soft brown sugar (molasses sugar)
2 cups buttermilk
1 cup oil (sunflower, or coconut oil warmed to liquid state, or half and  half)
(1 cup=250ml)

Preheat the oven to 190C/380F

Grease three loaf tins of base measurement 20cmx10cm / 8”x 4” approx or any combination of deep baking dish that adds up to about the same.

In a large mixing bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar and salt. Cut the butter into small cubes and rub into the flour. Add the raisins if you are using them. You can experiment with various nuts and seeds as well, though the rusks are equally good plain.

In another bowl mix together the buttermilk, sugar, eggs and oil and beat until well combined. Stir liquid into dry ingredients and mix well. Knead to a firm but soft dough.

Form the dough into balls about the size of a ping-pong/golf ball and pack them tightly in one layer into the loaf tins. I usually get six rows of three into each of my tins. Bake for 45 minutes until well risen and firm.

Turn the loaves of rusks out onto a rack and leave to cool for 30 minutes before breaking up into individual rusks along the joins of the balls. Watch out for family members pinching the soft rusks. My kids and husband like them at this stage too!

Dry in a very low oven for 5 hours or more until the centre of each rusk is completely dry. I usually break one of the larger ones open to see - it's no hardship eating up the broken pieces, even if it isn't quite done! These can be kept for ages in an airtight container.

Note: If your family is divided as to the merits of nuts and raisins in their rusks, it is possible to keep both camps happy: just leave one half of the dough plain, and then knead the nuts, seeds and raisins of your choice into the second half before rolling them all into balls.


If you are looking for more South African recipes to try, here is a post from the days of the World Cup, where I collected together  my top South African baking recipes.

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Horses in May

With two daughters who both loooove horses, every month has a fair amount of horse madness involved. But May seemed to be even more horse-themed than usual.

I started off the month with a visit to the studio of equine artist, Rachel Dubber. She paints gorgeous portraits of ponies and horses, some in motion, some close up studies, but all showing oodles of character and life. It was wonderful to get an insight into how she works and the amount of time and intense focus that goes into each canvas. Her studio walls are edge to edge with paintings and drawings, some complete, others in progress, the real life originals of the images on her website (which we’ve been working on for her) and so much more alive than any photographic image can convey.

I saw this painting of Montana in its early stages and have been following its progress ever since on Rachel’s Facebook page – love how it turned out now it’s finished. I was thrilled to come home with a gorgeous oil study called Connemara Princess, and the girls were just as thrilled , so thank you again for that Rachel!

Youngest on Violet   Middle Daughter on Flink

Youngest with trophy from last pony show

The next big event on the equine calendar was the pony show at the stables where the girls ride. These are practise shows, not as formal as the official round of shows, lots of fun but still with  proper dressage and equitation events. It was a beautiful day for this one, so no fear of standing holding ponies in the rain, as happened at a couple of previous ones. Youngest had graduated to a bigger pony for most of the events but was still down to ride the characterful Peanuts in the jumping at the end.

He has a will of his own usually matched by the determination of Youngest; in the last show she won one of the floating trophies for her persistence and determination in the face of his insistence on departing from the prescribed dressage programme. Violet, her new love, is far more biddable, though still no pushover, and Youngest picked up a rosette or two, as did Middle Daughter on the reliable and gentlemanly Flink.

I meanwhile am left holding Peanuts who has a wide gap in his schedule. All my video footage of the girls’ events is interspersed with sudden jerks as he drags me off to find a fresher clump of grass. By the time the jumping class is about to start his nose is thoroughly out of joint at having had to watch all the events from the sidelines. When Youngest mounts to give him a warm up ride in the side arena, he declines and trots off determinedly in the opposite direction at a fast pace, hauling Youngest right into the middle of the equitation prize giving. There is no persuading him after this. Usually Youngest can get some measure of co-operation out of him, but she hasn’t ridden him for a few lessons now and he is making her pay for her disloyalty. He kicks up his heels like a nursery rocking horse on amphetamines and heads out of the arena repeatedly as she tries to get him over the jumps. In the end her teacher puts him on the lead rein and runs him round the course. Youngest takes all this with remarkable composure, though I am exhausted! They are all pleased with their day and it was a great show altogether.

The girls have been building up a herd of Schleich horses for the last few years and these horses are the raw materials of endless games and ongoing stories and dramas. Each time they go to their friends’ house the horses are all carefully packed up, wrapped so as not to get scratched. The friends’ herd returns the visit. Sometimes individual horses stay for sleepovers with the other herd, but always everyone knows the name and owner of each individual.

There was much anticipation this month as the shop in Cape Town that stocks the Schleich range was rumoured to be getting in new stock. Between the two families the girls possess almost every previous model of horse (at least all the ones that they consider desirable), so this was exciting. Unfortunately their savings had been depleted by some acquisitions at the crystal shop, so they had to negotiate terms with their aunt. They set to work cleaning windows and booked in for further work. For the first time we permitted a credit arrangement, whereby they would work off the costs over the following two weeks, as they hadn’t saved enough by the time that the trip in to town was scheduled with their aunt. We had a long discussion about credit, credit cards and the fact that the bought goods could be repossessed by the creditor if the debt wasn’t paid in time! The girls came back triumphant with the horses they were wanting to add to their herd and now just have another two hours work still to do to own them in full!

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Healthy Peanut Butter – A Review

Peanut butter has long been a rather guilty pleasure with me. I discovered the allure of toast with peanut butter and jam (or jelly) in the sixth form of school. On cold winter afternoons after the ritual torture of hockey in the mud and rain, we’d huddle round the countertop grill, making and burning endless rounds of sliced bread toast, which were then thickly spread with peanut butter and blackcurrant jam. As the grill and tea and coffee making area was immediately outside the door of our study it was impossible to resist the smell of slightly singed toast and join in the feasting.

In the interests of strict historical accuracy, I should add that I more often than not skipped hockey and elected to play squash instead, which had the advantage of being played inside in the dry and was unsupervised, perfect for the games slacker that I was... and still am if truth be told.

Ever since it has been an occasional comfort food and I recently discovered that it is great with marmalade too. But standard peanut butters are loaded with refined sugars, hydrogenated fats and salt, so despite all the useful protein from the nuts I’ve never been able to pretend it was healthy, and as my kids never really took to it I often leave it out of the shopping trolley altogether.

So I was quite excited when Crede, the natural oil company, offered to send me their new healthy peanut butter to try. It’s called Oh Mega because of the omega 3 rich flaxseed oil used in it. Honey replaces sugar, egg white powder stops the oils separating and vitamin E is a natural preservative.
So all the ingredients are healthy enough for guilt-free peanut butter indulgence, but what about the taste? Is it a patch on the old unhealthy stuff?

Well yes, I liked it. The flavour is all peanut as you’d expect, just sweet enough to appeal to the kids too (to my surprise my non-peanut butter eating children tried this and liked it). The taste is slightly milder than regular peanut butter (that would be the absence of salt), but has just enough oomph to take a layer of jam on top. Any salt fiends out there might want to add a sprinkling of their own to their pbj sandwich, but the lack of salt will be a major plus point for a lot of healthy eaters out there who are trying to reduce consumption.

The honey and flaxseed oil gives it a slightly runnier consistency than usual, which doesn’t actually matter to me, as I spread it fairly thinly anyway, but might bother you if you like to spread mouth-cloggingly thick layers of peanut butter on your bread!

One thing to remember is that flaxseed oil shouldn’t be heated to high temperatures, meaning that this peanut butter isn’t going to be ideal for peanut butter cookies, so I’m going to be looking out for some non-bake peanut butter recipes to try with this – anyone got any ideas?

All in all I’d definitely get this in future instead of the old, less healthy brand. Apparently it is being stocked by some of the Spars, so I’ll have to work on our local branch to get it in for me!

Disclaimer: The Oh Mega peanut butter was sent to me as a free sample to review, the opinions are however unbiased by this generosity!

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Winter School Run

Car keys jingle, dogs bark excitedly, scenting a car to serenade. It’s still dark outside but a rim of light over the eastern mountains promises dawn. Heavy school bag is slung into car, headlights switched on, reversing out into grey half light. The sky holds the only colour to be seen, the land undressed in dull shades waiting to be woken. Hares switchback from restio clumps startled by the headlights, cunningly escaping as we turn down towards the gate. No talking, it’s too early, son reads book by the light of his phone.

Bumping along the long dirt road, eyes are constantly drawn left to the horizon: purple line of mountains etched against a lightening sky, like an amateur watercolour painting, but one that could never be captured, the panorama too long, thin and never-ending to be pinned on paper.

Wisps of mist float suspended at head height as we reach the tar road, swallowing colour even more, till all is headlights and wipers, fan blowing air on the windscreen to disperse the blur of moisture that grabs at the car.

School children rub hands together at the side of the road keeping warm, clustered in huddles until the school bus comes. Early morning traffic isn’t heavy here: some unhurried holding back others rushing, whisking past in an impatient flurry.

Dropping son to catch his onward lift, the sky is brighter now, horses are breakfasting on straw and hay, sleep-silent children lugging too-heavy bags into the car, son still reading, leaning against garage wall.

I retrace my path, long straight road bordered by blue gums, watching the achingly slow transformation of dawn into sunrise, as a tinge of pink warms the blank sky. Then mist wraps grey fingers, shutting out the sky entirely, creating a silver grey world with the gum trees its furthest walls. Down into the dip the wall of fog thickens, a tunnel broken only by lights of cars driving just too fast for safety.

Then back up our dirt road where fog dwindles to a fairy mist, the outline of the hill behind us floating delicately above and a rosy gold sky hovering over all. Now a bright spot on the horizon shows where the sun has chosen to rise today and, turning onto our farm, the hill has already lost its silver hue, instead washed the pinkish green of an old colour photo in the family album, its colour skewed by age.

Then a blinding flash reflected in the house windows shows that the sun has at last crested the mountains, bringing colour to the world, banishing the grey mist and promising a day fine enough to dry a load of washing. 

Kids will have arrived at school by now – will they see the sunrise or be already shut away in classrooms under yellow electric light?

A lyrical sunrise is an everyday happening in a South African winter, only remarkable to me because I don’t usually do the morning school run, so the wonder is still fresh. My sunrises are usually seen from our stoep, in between clearing breakfast and vacuuming, emails and a cup of tea. It’s nice to be out in the midst of one, noticing the progress one mile at a time without household chores cluttering the brain.

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Ryan's Kitchen, Franschhoek

Wandering down Franschhoek’s main street, I am stunned by the number of restaurants that line both sides of the street, clamouring for attention and elbow to elbow with craft shops, gift shops, art galleries, and the very occasional useful port of call like the post office and a supermarket. In the fifteen years since I last visited, the village has polished, preened and laid  on as many tourist attractions as it possibly can, taking advantage of its picturesque setting and strategic position in the Cape Winelands.

Luckily I don’t have to choose a place for lunch, as I am meeting up with blog friends Jeanne and Johanna and their families. Jeanne has done the research and booked a table at Ryan’s Kitchen, so after a quick dip into two of the tempting chocolate shops,  I head back to the leafy end of the street, where oak trees bombard us with autumn leaves and acorns, and an unseasonably hot and sunny day has us sitting outside on the terrace under the shade of big red umbrellas.

Much as I’d love to be a lady who lunches, it’s an extremely rare occasion that sees me anywhere but at the kitchen table, so I feel like a kid skipping off school as we finally tear our attention to the lunch menu. It’s succinct, with three choices per course, dinner being the main event here, but they are all tempting.

But before our starters arrived, the chef’s appetiser from the lab was brought (in the picture above) – a complementary selection of light as air wisps of flavour dramatically presented in test tubes. The green one bubbled frantically with ‘dry ice’ smoke pouring forth. We left that one till last... when it turned out to be a basil essence with a salty tang. The butternut and ginger soup was one slurp of intense flavour and the tomato foam had plenty of chilli heat. That just left a slightly more substantial cheese puff with a dab of tomato sauce for emphasis.

Palates tickled into action now, the starters arrived to start dealing with the serious issue of hunger. Mine was a generously portioned tuna carpaccio served with a mixture of variously textured salads and vegetables. There was plenty of crunch and bit of horseradish heat  contrasting nicely with  the tenderness of the thinly sliced tuna and the delicate roulade of leek and apple on the side.

Fish again for the next course, as it was unseasonably hot and red meat seemed too heavy... until the springbok shank arrived further down the table to a pang of menu envy from us all! However our sea bass with smoked mash, pancetta and fennel arrived in theatrical style once more, whisky barrel smoke swirling under a glass dome which, when released, engages the sense immediately with warm mellow sweetly perfumed bonfire aroma. Sadly the smokiness was only a background flavour in the mash, but perhaps just as well or it could have overwhelmed the deliciously moist and tender fish. I raved over the fennel too, stewed to tender perfection.

After all this I declined dessert, slightly regretfully as the beautifully plated compositions arrived. But then my restraint was rewarded by a complimentary platter of little mini desserts that came with coffee. A loaf of malva pudding with a beetroot caramel topping, a rooibos jelly with lavender custard ( I ate two) and a square of carrot Turkish delight (take it or leave it).

I loved the touches of theatre that had a certain tongue in cheek grandeur about them, but which were carried off beautifully. I may be too easily impressed these days, (poor little farm-girl that I am!!) but Jeanne and Johanna, as non-jaded veterans of a gourmet whirl around the best of the Western Cape were equally wowed, so I can safely wax lyrical!

Edited to add: Jeanne has posted her review of our lunch at Ryan's Kitchen with wonderful pictures and descriptions of the whole meal, so go there for more drooling!

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Foodie Bliss

Living out on a farm as we do, I occasionally suffer from foodie pangs of blog envy. So many gourmet delights are within easy reach of city gourmets -  the latest chic eaterie, Parisian patisserie or artisan chocolatier. Cape Town is close enough that I could theoretically nip in and indulge myself on gourmet delights once in a while, but life is busy, times are tight and it rarely happens.

So this weekend I was in foodie heaven when not one but two treats I’ve drooled over virtually winged their way in real life out to our farm.

The first was some small but perfectly formed bars of artisan chocolate from Honest chocolate that my lovely sister-in-law brought me from Cape Town. I’d discovered them online and written about them but never actually tasted it.

Their ethos is totally ethical – pure organic raw chocolate hand-crafted without any additives, dairy or processed sugar – single origin Aribba Nacional beans from Ecuador sweetened with agave. I was sure just looking at the website that this would result in chocoholic heaven and I wasn’t disappointed when I broached the first bar: a 72% bittersweet orange.

The chocolate had an amazing creamy texture that melted in the mouth like a truffle, smooth very chocolatey and rich – the orange wasn’t overpowering but just gave citrussey overtones that lasted and left a pleasant aftertaste. I’m looking forward to opening the 88% dark bar but am going to hide in a dark corner so I don’t have to share this one!! I also love their wrappings.

The second treat was a beautiful box of macaroons from Cassis, Cape Town's own touch of Paris. I can’t count the times I’ve seen gorgeous looking macarons on other blogs and read the ecstatic ravings without really knowing what all the fuss was about. Now I know...! These were perfectly moist and chewy inside and the fillings raised them to a level of decadent gorgeousness that I hadn’t expected. They were brought by a friend for a family gathering so they disappeared before I could photograph them, but I luckily did manage to taste several different flavours by scooping up and sampling any halves discarded by unappreciative children. The chocolate caramel one pictured was stunning but I was even more wowed by the raspberry, which surprised me as I don’t usually go for pink! However they got just the right level of sweet/tart balance. I am now an official macaroon fan!

And here is a last foodie discovery, that I failed to notice was posted on April 1st on the Fairview blog Inspired by the Indonesian Kopi Luwak, Fairview proclaimed that they have produced a new coffee made from coffee berries that have been eaten and partially digested by their goats, I was getting all excited by this possibly new taste sensation and even composing a whole post in its honour when at last I noticed the tag at the bottom. April Fools... aaagh!

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