Peppadew® hot wings with blue cheese dip

Seeing as we are in Heritage month with National Heritage Day, also popularly known as Braai Day, coming up on Thursday, I thought it would be appropriate to share a recipe that can be whipped up on the old barbie! These hot wings are perfect for spring and summer entertaining – enjoy them around the braai with friends, serve them up at your next party or munch on them while you cheer on the Springboks (she said optimistically)!

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Beef and mushroom stroganoff

Do you know how a song can evoke a particular memory, or how a specific scent can transport you straight back to a moment in your past? Well, this dish will always take me back to a certain time. It was at the end of last year shortly after my son was born. He was a few weeks old and we were so in love with our sweet newborn but completely exhausted from lack of sleep and the general upheaval that comes with the territory. One afternoon, an angel in the form of one the moms from my daughter’s play school arrived at our door with a bag of rice, chocolate biscuits and a tupperware full of tasty beef stroganoff. It was a very welcome delivery at that particular time and this dish will always remind me of that day!

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Peppadew® tortilla pizza

I so enjoyed putting today’s post together, and I am not going to tell you how many of these tortilla pizzas I have baked and tasted over the last two weeks. (Clue: a good few!) All in the name of research of course, and to make very very sure that this recipe is just right for you guys of course!

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Beef and portabellini burgers with brie

Beef and portabellini mushroom burgers with brie cheese

Years ago I remember watching a television interview with nutritionist, Michael Pollan who said that you could eat as much junk food as you wanted, as long as you made it yourself. I think the idea was that the time and effort involved would deter people from doing it too often! While I do enjoy the odd take-away I much prefer to make those types of meals myself anyway – they taste so much better when home made and do not have to take hours to put together. Burgers would definitely fall into that category, but in my humble burger-loving opinion I am not sure that today’s recipe could be considered junk food at all.

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Brie, fennel and tomato tarts

A few weeks ago I started buying a weekly fruit and veggie bag from an organic shop close to home. This is something I have been intending to try out for a very long time. Having small children has made me more aware of what we as a family are eating and this has been my main motivating factor for giving the weekly organic bag a go. I love that we are getting seasonal, locally grown produce and enjoying food without any nasties in it.

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Mushroom and chevin pithivier

In exactly one week my dearest younger sister will be boarding an airbus and making her way from Old Blighty down to Cape Town. It has been two and a half years since I last saw her and to say that I am excited could be the understatement of the year! The prospect of having the whole family together to celebrate Christmas fills me with glee and over the past few weeks I have been poring over my cookbooks looking for inspiration for the feast I will be preparing for everyone on Christmas Eve.

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The I Made It Challenge: Paneer curry

The weather man must have known what I had planned in the kitchen yesterday, and kindly arranged a cool and drizzly day in between the gloriously hot summer ones we have been experiencing lately. Perfect for being in the kitchen, and perfect for making a curry!

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Roasted butternut and rice pizza

This week we got back to basics with a new challenge in the Freshly Blogged campaign. Round 7 saw us presented with a list of some of my favourite kitchen staples – butternut, leeks, tinned tomatoes, fresh thyme, rice and a baguette. I almost always have these ingredients on hand, they are the building blocks of many of my favourite meals. The challenge here would be to combine them in an interesting and creative way. And including rice, baguette and butternut in one delicious carbo-loaded dish was going to require some thought!

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