Revenge+FanFrockingTastic

So I have shared all the tawdry details of my love of turquoise and plum coloured eyeliner, but let’s face it – nothing motives you to take your body back more than being squeezed into a designer frock by a long-suffering sales person eager for a commission.

IN FACT, when you espy yourself in the mirror and you immediately notice all the lumpy parts that need attention you’ll be instantly cured of take-out and beer by the gallon.

It shames me to show you some half-hidden evidence. Too much info will scar you for life here:

Oh dear...

This is what happened to me this week. I was almost instantly cured. I have exercised daily since squeezing into this frock AND my lips have not seen a sneaky calorie that my body does not ABSOLUTELY require to function.

So here I am blogging about it with aching arms and a grumbling stomach but it WILL all be worth it.

Because this is a pseudo-foodie blog, here goes my first tip for a low fat recipe:

Firstly, throw out every morsel of tasty food you own – even if it’s low-fat and delicious (yes such a beast exists) you’ll be tempted to over-eat if it tastes too good.

Boil a chicken breast with some salt and herbs;

Boil some brown rice;

Steam some vegetables;

Wipe the tears off your face and eat your bloody dinner! There are children in Africa who are starving. (Like me, a sort of a child in Africa undergoing a bout of self-induced hunger. Note: I am not trying to sound unsympathetic, I blame low blood sugar.)

Now, just so that you know, I am not aiming to resemble a severe-looking model like those in the frock catalogues. Those girls look unhealthy and probably weigh as much as a malnourished kitten. When you can drape a full-grown woman head-to-knee in a large-sized tank top and her skin is transparent from lack of lustre something just screams toxic to me. The thing is, malnourished model ladies: we can all eat platefuls of chemicals and never sleep and have crisp hair and pray to all the gods that the graphics guy can photoshop you enough to look like you are vital once the deed is done.

But I digress. Over the last three years I have gained around one and a half a dress size due to a knee-injury, a fondness for sitting on my rear and reading novels and of course, cooking. Cooking and eating out, a lot. Daily even, sometimes.

So here I am, on the cusp of things, ready to free-weight, static cycle, swim and ride and Special K my way to a healthier self. I’ll walk for breast cancer, starving children, education, saving the rhinos – you name it.

Now, if I can just get off the couch…

Love always wins...

LOVE always wins, because love is patience and patience always wins. Patience, incidentally, is the cornerstone of my oxtail stew…well patience, wine and Bisto ;)

I don’t know if one can buy Bisto in the US and Canada, but it is an ancient cheat to help thicken and brown stews.  I say ancient, but the all-knowing Wikipedia says it has been around since 1908 [citation needed].

My old cheat 'Ahhh!' indeed.

To cook my oxtail stew I stubbornly refuse to use a pressure cooker – not because of any logical reason though, it is just one of those things that I inherently mistrust, like alcohol-free beer. What you really need for the perfect stew is a lot of patience.

It also helps having:

Red Wine – Cabernet Sauvignon, if possible – avoid sweet wine.

Six good quality beers

3-4 lovely carrots

1kg of oxtail

1 and a half large brown onions

Herbs to taste – I like oregano, rosemary and thyme

Two tins of whole peeled tomatoes

A good stock – I use Bisto

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

*optional: a teaspoon of garlic, which you fry off with the onions at the very beginning.

Open a bottle of good chilled beer and start drinking it. We grow our own onions, which are so strong that they could potentially be weaponised. For 1kg of fresh oxtail I use one and a half of these diabolical brown onions. Big ones, if we have. I finely chop these and brown them in a large pot with about two healthy glugs of olive oil. I season the meat well with salt and black pepper before adding it to the onions. Brown the meat thoroughly. When the meat is properly browned I add two tins of whole peeled tomatoes and herbs. We also grow our own herbs and I like adding oregano, rosemary and thyme - I am quite liberal with my herbs.  I then stir the lot and let that simmer for about ten minutes before adding about one big glass of red wine, whereupon I close the lid of the pot and let it simmer. At this point I usually like opening a second good beer, and making a start of drinking that. In a lovely old beer mug I mix the stock (Bisto, if you can find it). Two to three heaped tablespoons of stock powder to about 500ml of boiling water. Mix that well and add it to the pot.  Let the whole lot simmer on a lower heat stirring occasionally, to decrease cooking time marginally and to tenderise the meat well, keep the lid closed as much as possible.

If you want veggies in the stew, lovely sweet carrots work well. Cut the carrots into discs, not too thin, and add them about two hours into the process. We also, occasionally, add button mushrooms whole. Open your third beer and start drinking that.

The entire process takes about four hours of cooking, or until the meat is well soft. Oxtail stew is well soft when you can nudge the meat of the bone with no effort.  One can supplement the liquid in the pot with more stock or simply water. Make sure that the rest of your beers remain chilled and, in the company of friends, take a swig occasionally while keeping an eye on your pot.

I shamelessly pilfered this off the internet, my stew is a lot darker and therefore less pretty :)

Love+festive foodie favourites in pictures

Home-baked beer loaf

Festive home-baked Peanut Butter Cookies

Poppies are coming up

Incredibly good champagne

Lovely roasted lamb and potatoes

This is a short highlights reel. Tip for the cookies: if you are using salted peanut butter do not add any additional salt, alternatively use unsalted peanut butter.

Do try the bread if you've half an hour, a beer and some self-raising flour spare. The recipe is simple as anything and it takes only about 30 minutes to cook. Here is a basic recipe:


- 500g of self-raising flour
- a pinch of salt
- 340ml of any good beer (light beers like Peroni or Amstel will do well)
- some chopped or crushed garlic (about a teaspoonful)
- an onion, chopped and fried in a pan
- your choice of herbs

Pre-heat the oven to 180. Mix all the ingredients together into a dough. Stick it in a bread tin and bake for 20-30 minutes. Voila.

Cook food, you won't regret it.

Festive horrors

Our dog (not one previously mentioned on this blog) ran off. We opened up for them to do their ablutions and he disappeared somewhere into the night, on the 1000+ hectares of farm. We searched everywhere, shouted his name, drove around until the sun set. I even contacted a psychic. Emails went flying, telephone calls were made.

He hasn’t come back and it’s been days now. We are in pieces.

The solar energy that we use to power the farm (my foot print is plenty green enough thanksverymuch!) went and gave up the ghost.

Monday morning my gelding went down with a colic. Luckily Kyle was around to help and we were out walking him with the groom, hosing him down because of the heat and motivating him vocally to keep walking on and not to stop. Our groom who worked on the day was a superstar. By the time the vet made it out over the rough, water-logged road an hour and a half had passed and he was bright, perky, grazing and walking of his own volition. The vet thought I was mad, but witnesses (Kyle and the groom) couldn’t believe it.

We burnt to a crisp out in the sun with the man.

I accompanied Kyle back to Johannesburg to complete what I had started in terms of job hunting. In the post-chaos malaise today it took me some time to realise I need to take it a little easier. Have some vitamin C, and a beer.

Gladly I don’t celebrate Christmas, but sadly New Years’ Festivities have always been big ones for me. This year started off bleak, let’s see how we can improve it.

Be careful out there.

{I'll update festive cooking things later, right now I need to 'take it a little easier'}