This week flew by even though I’ve reduced my hours at work. I’ve been so good about cooking every night until the weekend (no way I’m cooking all weekend). The Chicken dish I made last Sunday night turned out beautifully somewhat to my surprise. It was a complete invention and I worried the coconut milk would overwhelm it, but I forgot to buy sour cream and had to make a plan.

My food photos are dreadful. 

Oh well. 

Trust me it was better than it looks. I made mash and steamed broccoli to go with.

  

I made Mexican one night. I did cheese quesadillas and crispy potato wedges cooked in coconut oil. 

  
You can’t find refried beans in SA so I buy tinned sugar beans and add taco seasoning and blitz with a bit of water. Simple, easy meal.

We had a tomato and bacon pasta one evening but it would have been better without the bacon, I bought Eskort brand instead of Woolies. But the sauce was divine. I blitzed a red pepper, half an onion and a tin of tomatoes and it simmered away while everything else cooked. 

We had one night of a simple meal of baked potatoes in sour cream with pick n pay brand crispy bacon crumbled on top, mushrooms fried in butter, corn on the cob dripping in butter, and braised red cabbage and it was delicious.

I cooked every night until Friday and on Friday Norm was keen on Ragafellows except I was so tired I just wanted my jimjams and some chocolate. He offered to collect take outs for us and off he went. 

Lily and I both had the Bertram, this is a delicious beef patty, chorizo pulled pork, rocket, tomato. It comes with basil pesto but we both asked them to hold it. It really was so nice, the pulled pork juicy and the burger moist. 

We spent Friday night just playing games and watching rubbish on Telly. Saturday I knew I was in for a busy day. I woke at daybreak as always and lay in bed relaxing, it was a stunning, sunny warm day. 

Caitlin had booked us into Clay Cafe to paint. The concept is that you choose a piece of raw clay which you paint. You leave it and they fire it in the kiln. I’ve blogged about our many visits, previously. We love it there. It’s a stunning view and a chilled vibe. 

 Caitlin had her friends drive through to Hout Bay.

  

Caitlin, Lily and I met up with them and Retha. As always Retha made about 6 adorable little cat bowls in the time it took for me to paint 1 jug rather badly. 

  

But we enjoyed it as always. 

  
Not sure what’s happening with my sleeve or why I look so demented. 

    

I double booked my day, so I didn’t spend as much time as I wanted but my pitcher turned out ok. It will look very different once fired. 

  

I had to be at the hairdresser for 12.30 in the CBD so I rushed off to Mop Hair and had a cut and colour and then headed back to Hout Bay. Caitlin was out with her friends that night so Norm, Lily and I decided to go out. 

We fancied prawns so we went to Pescarne. As it was such a beautiful evening they had the side doors all open. There was a singer named Derek with a guitar slung round his neck and a backing track. It’s a small intimate venue and was very upmarket when it opened. Since the new owner took over it has become more casual. 

Let me just state that I’m the most awkward of people when it comes to social interaction. My idea of hell is being trapped in a dodgy cocktail bar with an oily lounge singer cruising around serenading the patrons while staring deep into their eyes. It’s different if you choose to see someone perform, not when they sneak up on you. 

Did I mention it’s my idea of hell? 

Well we have no pics of us as we made a point of getting out as quick as we could. It wasn’t fast enough to evade Derek. We even got up and moved as far away from him as possible. Derek walked up to our table despite our very obvious avoidance of any eye contact. He said “I can tell you don’t want to be disturbed…….”

Now who starts an interaction like that? If you can tell someone doesn’t want something, then don’t do it! 

He then asked us our names and what kind of music we liked via his Madonna-esque headset while lightly strumming his guitar. Lily, being a sweet young lady, answered him with ‘Beach Boys’ to which he curled his nose! We eventually muttered enough in his general direction to make him go away. Lily told us we are rude, but come on! 

We watched many people come and eat then go quickly. It was horrid. No one lingered.

Lily and I had gone for the prawns, but Norm doesn’t eat them, so he ordered the Hollandse Biefstek and Lily and I ordered 12 Queen Prawns. We ordered all 3 with chips.

  

As always the prawns were divine. However 3 portions of them arrived.  By this time what with the combination of Derek and Norman’s order being wrong, I had a very grumpy man. 

Eventually his steak arrived. 

  
It was R169 and 250grams in weight. It was average according to Norm. Oh dear.
We didn’t have dessert, we legged it out of there. 

We popped to the shop for chocs and headed home and rented a film. We watched Get Hard with Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart. It was quite funny but I love them both. It was slightly cheesy but on a sliding scale of CheezWhiz to Derek it was bloody brilliant.

Sunday Norm and I had a lazy morning and headed to Fish Hoek at noon as we had seen a cute little bistro table and chairs advertised on our local bric-a-brac page. We ended up buying it. 

We then stopped off at Steenberg Village to do our shopping and we popped into Vovo Telo for some eagerly awaited sustenance. I ordered the pulled pork piadini but they were out. Instead I quickly re selected and ordered the Corn Hotcake which is described as: Served with 2 poached eggs, crispy coppa ham, roasted rosa tomatoes basil pesto and fresh rocket for 60 rand. I didn’t notice it had pesto when I chose it but luckily it wasn’t too lavishly covered.

  
I enjoyed the corn fritters it made for a nice change. The poached eggs were more well done than medium, but I’m not concerned enough about an egg yolk to send it back. It was an interesting twist on the traditional version. So far this ranks at best as 4th in my Great Eggs Benedict quest. 

Norm had the Honey Mustard Chicken sandwich which had rocket and tomato and it was on a panini.

  
We were seated next to a large table with several very badly behaved children who danced round our table singing a loud song. The parents were oblivious until the kids stood on the chairs of the empty table next to us, shouting at the tops of their voices while leaping off said chairs. It was causing me dyspepsia. I’m too old for such nonsense. 😉

We did our weekly shop and headed home where I unpacked the shopping while Norm set up my table and chairs on the upstairs balcony.

  
It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for. A place to have my morning coffee or read a book in the sun. And it’s heavy enough to not go flying in the crazy Cape Town winds. 

Sunday afternoon I made a curry to have for dinner on Monday and left it to simmer. Sunday night I made a cottage pie, Brussels sprouts and steamed broccoli and cauliflower. It was delicious if I say so myself. 

It was such a pleasure to come home to my curry simmering in the slow cooker and all I had to do to complete it was boil some basmati rice and fry some poppadoms. 

The weather is improving and tonight I kept it simple and toasted a fresh ciabatta and made a sauce of mushrooms and sour cream. We fried some halloumi cheese, braised some red cabbage and made a sort of open sandwich with fresh baby spinach leaves. It was so divine. 

  
I’m looking forward to this weekend, the week is already half way to George Ezra 😉