babotie

You probably won't hear much from me for the next little while; I have a good friend from the US staying with me and we are spending a lot of hours talking and catching up on lost time. :)

Tonight we made babotie for dinner. This is a traditional South African dish of spiced meat topped with a savoury custard. It's very cheap, easy to make, delicious and nutritious.

To make 3 large servings:

Approx 1lb lean minced (ground) beef

Olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 slice of soft sandwich bread, soaked in milk for 30 seconds, and squeezed dry

2 tablespoons of mango chutney

1-2 tablespoons of curry powder

75g (2-3 ounces) of sultanas or raisins

75g toasted almonds (I didn't have any so left them out)

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

3 bay leaves

Salt and pepper

3 eggs

150ml (5 fluid ounces) milk

1. Set the oven to 180 Celsius. Brown your minced beef, breaking it up as you cook. Drain off the fat and set aside.

2. Add some olive oil to the pan and soften the onion and garlic for a few minutes.

3. Return the beef to the pan, and add the bread, chutney, curry powder, raisins, lemon zest and juice and bay leaves. Season well with salt and pepper and mix very well. Transfer to a greased casserole.

4. Beat the eggs and milk together. Pour over the meat mixture and bake for approximately 40 minutes until golden.

5. Eat!

We had ours with a delicious dressed leafy salad and brown rice. I'm stuffed now!

cod with a pesto crust

So the old blog was a rather unhealthy step in my ED recovery - it outlined every mouthful I ate, and every pound I lost (I have now deleted all the weight-related info from the sidebar so that I can forget about it!). I didn't know it but it was helping me in my "shadow motivation" which was to lose weight - not to recover. All the old posts are there but I don't really recommend reading them as it's not particularly helpful. There is the odd insightful post but most of it is food-focused, which is classic ED behaviour.

However there was one part of it that I think was good: the recipes. So I'm going to continue that here, whenever we make a particularly nice dinner. Like tonight. This is easy beyond belief but people always seem to be impressed by it. :)

Cod with a Pesto Crust (serves 2)

2 cod fillets (or salmon, or chicken actually if you don't eat fish)

Olive oil

Grated cheddar

1 slice wholemeal bread (the sandwich kind rather than the cakey, soda-style kind)

Pesto (I just used green basil/pine nut pesto from a jar but more accomplished cooks may wish to make their own...no thanks!)

1. Set the oven to 180 Celsius.

2. Grease a baking dish with olive oil and lay the fillets in it.

3. Convert your slice of bread to breadcrumbs through sheer bloody minded persistence or in my case, by popping it in the food processor for a few seconds.

4. In a bowl, add two heaping teaspoons of pesto and a handful of grated cheddar. Add as much of the breadcrumbs as you'd like to form a nice paste that you can smear on top of the fish.

5. Smear the paste on top of the fish. I load it on with a spoon and then flatten with my hands.

6. Bake for approx 20 mins (although chicken may take a little longer).

Look at that flaky cod, mmm.

7. Eat!

We had ours with stir-fried courgettes and yellow peppers with olive oil, black pepper and a little maple syrup, and some brown rice.

Yum. :)