Spaghetti Ball-bolognaise
Miya dubbed this classic spaghetti and meatball dish “ball bolognaise” the first time I made it and the name stuck. Beautifully basic and easy to make with a rich and rewarding taste ‘just like Mama used to make’.
Meatballs
Make small(ish) meatballs from 1kg ground beef, I added a Cajun Blend spice rub mix I made, some salt and some good quality powdered vegetable stock. Grill meatballs until almost done – leave them just a little bit pink in the middle.
Tomato Sauce
Chop half a medium size onion into small pieces and sweat over medium heat till translucent, add 2 cloves of garlic, crushed. Add two cans of cubed, peeled tomatoes in tomato sauce (of course, homemade tomato passata would be better) and half a box of crushed tomato. Add in Italian Herb Blend (another mix I make and sell) and simmer for a long time to let the flavours deepen.
Pasta
When you are almost ready to eat, start making the pasta – 200g all purpose flour + 2 eggs (enough for 4 with leftovers). Break eggs into well in the center of the flour and start mixing through, ending up with kneading the dough till a homogenous state and following your pasta machine directions to make spaghetti.
When the pasta goes into your pot of boiling water, add the meatballs to the simmering tomato mixture and cook together.
Drain pasta and mix in tomato and meatball mixture.
Serve with parmesan.
Spaghetti Ball Bolognaise
Culture vulture
Well, if I can’t be ON stage, I might as well enjoy watching stage shows, not right? Of course! So I’ve gone on a bit of an online window shopping spree to see what was on and what I’d like to see. It turns out that there are not nearly enough weekends (and definitely not enough Rands) for all the fabulous shows and performances I’d like to go see…
There’s Cinderella (for the kids), Cirque Fantazie, Verdi’s La Traviata, an Opera Showcase, Wielie Walie (again for the kids and the kid in me) etc etc etc….
All the world seems to be FULL of stage 
Mushroom risotto
I’d never heard of risotto before I met Rick and had gone to a lunch at his mom’s house. That was ages ago and Risotto has since then become a favourite dish of ours, especially after I found Curtiriso brand of Arborio rice – the most perfect grain to make risotto with!
 Button Mushrooms |
 Risotto |
Ingredients
- 1 onion
- dollop of butter
- 2 punnets mushrooms
- 500g Arborio rice
- 1 glass wine (optional)
- parmesan
- 750ml chicken or vegetable stock
Keep the stock simmering on a low temperature on the stovetop. Chop onion finely and add to melted butter in a large pot. Fry onions in butter until almost turning brown. Add to this the sliced mushrooms. Just a note on the mushrooms – this last time I could only find normal button mushrooms and although this is great on its own, the risotto really comes to its own if you can add some Portabellino or other more exotic mushrooms. I personally find Oyster mushrooms not well suited to this, but if you want to give it a try, you’re more than welcome to. When the mushrooms are nicely cooked, add the risotto rice and stir thoroughly. When the rice starts making cracking sounds, add a ladleful of stock and stir through. When the liquid has been absorbed by the rice, add another ladleful of stock and stir through, continuing this process till all the stock is finished and the rice is mostly soft (leave it with a bit of a bite). Let the rice rest for 5 minutes, add another small dollop of butter and stir through with the parmesan (to taste). You can serve Parmesan on the side as well.
Where does the glass of wine come in then? Well, you can drink it while you make the risotto – but I’m not much for white wine – so the idea is that “rice is born in water, but must die in wine” (according to Valentina Harris), so before you add your first ladleful of stock, add the glass of wine to the rice and stir through.
Enjoy!
What’s for Dinner?
I love cooking. There. I said it. Never ever did I think that I would, growing up, but then somewhere along the change from teenager to young adult to adult, I also grew to love experimenting with cooking and baking things in the kitchen.
I’m terrible though, being a bit of a perfectionist and not being patient and especially not wanting to try things over and over and over – when a recipe doesn’t seem to go right, or my dismal array of cheap utensils bring me under, I can throw the most terrific kitchen tantrums. But as heated as my unhappy outbursts can get, they pale much in comparison with the pride and joy I feel when something goes right.
No! To convenience foods.
We eat quite healthy, I think, for a modern family. We don’t do take-out… well, almost never. And when we do, which is really a rare occasion, it is either Kai Thai (fabulous Thai food), Anat’s Falafel (fresh stuff on a pita bread) or uncle Joe’s pizza (that one is just because we are also lazy to cook sometimes – the pizza Rick whips up is majorly better than any pizza I’d ever tasted out, but at least we know uncle Joe’s and the quality and taste is great). We also never eat frozen foods – you know those convenient packs of I&J (and a myriad of other brandnames) of frozen veggies, fish or chicken or beef patties or whatever (I actually don’t know what else is out there now – I’ve not been down a frozen food aisle for many years now). Similarly with boxed meals or packeted meals – you know the kind – Cook-In Sauces or Taco’s in a Box etcetera. Nope, I steer clear of those. Why? Because they contain loads of unnecesary CRAP I don’t want in my food (and ultimately in my body) and because I think they are way overpriced and because I think they take the fun out of food. I’m sure these things have a space (although I’d be hardpressed to find it) in the life of the rushed executive et al, but they don’t belong in my house.
So if we don’t eat take-out, don’t go restaurant hopping or eat conveniently packaged frozen or boxed goods, what do we eat?
Fresh is best
Well… every week (or two weeks), I make a menu of lunches and dinners for the week and then go out and buy the ingredients needed to make these things fresh from my fruit & vegetable market and butcher and dairy and fish shop. I pour over recipe books, recipe websites and think of ideas on food combinations and play around.
What’s for Dinner blog
And what is this about then? Well, recently, searching for new and exciting ideas, I got hooked on food blogs. There are a hundred thousand million gazillion of them out there and many of them are absolutely fabulous. The way the food is described and the photos! It is enough to make you overweight by just browsing. So in tribute to these blogs, I am making my own – just a note here and there of a meal that I prepared and how to do it. I’m not a cook. Definitely not a chef. I never even attended home-ec classes. I’m just me and these are the dinners in our lives.
The whole world is a stage
I don’t care that some think that people on stage crave the constant adoration of the fans to mask their own inferiority complexes or psychological mommy issues. I want to be on stage. I love the dramatic arts… not only to watch it, but I want to be part of it.
In school I did plays and vowed to form part of my varsity’s drama club. Wonder what really happened during my varsity years cause a lot I wanted to do never came to pass… but I digress, that is a discussion for another time. Even now, when it comes to be time for new years’ resolutions, I often find “join a local amateur drama club” in the top five of my list. So why haven’t I? And why for that matter don’t I go see more plays? I don’t know, don’t have a straight answer for any of those. It seems that life just happens … and all my life turns into a stage …
Ek is awesome
Okay, so nou en dan mag jy maar jou eie trompet so bietjie blaas. En veral as jy regtig so amazing is! Nee, seriously, vandag was ek tops – besides die feit dat ek horde dinge vir die besigheid gedoen het , die huis instand gehou het, ‘n vierjarige tuisonderrig het, ‘n baba gelukkig en gestimuleerd gehou het en met albei kinders kwaliteit tyd spandeer het, het ek ook nog tyd gehad om community service te doen deur storieleestyd by die biblioteek aan te bied. En asof dit nie genoeg was nie, het ek sommer besluit om gou-gou tuisgemaakte pasta te maak – so het toe die pastadeeg gemaak en in rondtes uitgesny, elke rondte gevul met ‘n teelepel butternut-en-feta mengsel (ook self gemaak, van heel butternut nogal, nie eers die klaar geskilde soort nie) en mooi halfmane gevorm met die toedruk van die pasta “pasteitjies” en dit alles voorgele in ‘n burnt butter and sage sousie. So jammer ek het toe nie ook sommer in neglige vir my manlief die deur oopgemaak nie…
Coca Cola
Sure you like Coca Cola, it’s got taste and I have to admit that I probably have had a fare share of Coke in my life, but I don’t think it was ever my drink of choice.
Now, we don’t drink Coke at all. Haven’t had Coca Cola cross our door in many years. Also not Pepsi or Tab. Come to think of it, not many fizzy drinks make it into our refrigerator. No, we don’t boycott the soft drink giant, we just chose a healthier life.
Yes! Not drinking soft drinks is healthier! Yes! Not drinking Coca Cola is DEFINITELY healthier!!
But again, I don’t mind other people drinking Coke. Well… other BIG people. Grown-ups. I do have a huge problem with little kids drinking Coke. I have an even bigger problem with children whose parents put them on Ritalin or similar because they are hyperactive and attention defecit, but feed them Coke.
My biggest peeve though is going down to our local little Pick ‘n Pay store to get some milk and seeing a little girl, she must be no more than 24 months, sucking up a 500ml Coke.
Surely not! I had to do a double take to make sure what I saw was real. And lo and behold, there were her parents, by her side, so you can’t even blame a well-meaning granny or childminder. It was her parents!
I can only think what that amount of sugar and caffeine is doing that tiny little body. And worse of all, tonight when she goes to bed and is all hyped up from the Cola drink, the parents will probably lament that they don’t know why their child is misbehaving so and probably leave her to cry herself to sleep. Yes, I’m speculating, I know, but I’m also probably right.
PLEASE DON’T GIVE CHILDREN COKE!!
I shudder to think that there have been reports of third world parents giving their infants Coke instead of breastmilk or formula……
“Since studies indicate “soda and sweetened drinks are the main source of calories in [the] American diet,”[70] most nutritionists advise that Coca-Cola and other soft drinks can be harmful if consumed excessively, particularly to young children whose soft drink consumption competes with, rather than complements, a balanced diet.” (Wikipedia)
Further reading:
http://biophile.co.za/health/coca-cola-mood-altering-addictive-totally-legal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola (Particularly Health Effects lower down on the page)
http://www.organicconsumers.org/school/cocacola021605.cfm
http://www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?st=10&e=expertadvice&content=118008
Logical
I love listening to Talk Radio 702 on a Saturday when they do their Solid Gold shows (with loads of music and not much talk radio) – they really play great music. On the way to drop of the Clio to get fixed (finally!), I tuned into 702 and listened to the tracks they had on offer.
One song really stuck with me immensely. I’ve heard it before, of course, but don’t think I actually ever LISTENED to it, you know. Maybe I’ve just never needed to. It was as if the song was written for me, for the realization that I came to in the last while. It just rang so clarion with my experiences. I’ve made it my theme song for the day.
The song I’m talking about is Supertramp’s Logical song and just so we all get on the same page, here are the lyrics:
———————————–
When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily,
joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible,
logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
clinical, intellectual, cynical.
There are times when all the world’s asleep,
the questions run too deep
for such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am.
Now watch what you say or they’ll be calling you a radical,
liberal, fanatical, criminal.
Won’t you sign up your name, we’d like to feel you’re
acceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable!
At night, when all the world’s asleep,
the questions run so deep
for such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am.
———————————–
Why does this get to me so much? Because I think that I have unlocked the THING in my past that has created in me all these things I’m trying to get past – like being a perfectionist, not allowing myself to fail (in order to learn), believing you have to have a qualification (formal) to be able to do anything worth it and the feelings (yes, I still have them) of not being worth anything because I don’t have a “prestigious” title to my name, something like lawyer, doctor, computer programmer… I’ve realised that most of my flaws, most of the things that keep me from releasing my full potential, from delving completely into my creativity, are the things I learned in school. Not the facts, those (mostly) I’ve forgotten long ago, can look things up on the wonder of the internet if I don’t know something… plus libraries are still awesome for getting info… but i digress… I learned in school that you must listen to those that have been put above you, whether they EARNED your respect or not (mostly they didn’t), that getting GOOD GRADES were the only way to survive in the “big world” as an adult, that things like PAINTING, DANCING, WRITING were hobbies and not a way to make a living, that FAILING is bad, that QUESTIONING is bad… and all sorts of other things.
This is also why, and I’ll use the lyrics in particular the next time I get asked the question, why I decided to homeschool my children.
I’ve actually written something (a oneword exercise), I think around 2003/2004 where I touched on exactly this:
[instruct]
go to school
get good grades
further your studies
get a good job
work hard
be a success
- BUT
society destructed my beautiful spirit with these instructions
The memory I think of first is….
I remember…
a little me
in a little tree
living out fantasy stories
hiding away from life’s worries
soft rays of filtered light
falls upon my sleeping face
no rush, no hurry, no chase
just peace all day to night
In here, hidden by leaves of green
I let my imagination go, let fly!
I’m a goddess, a warrior princess
a witch on a broomstick soaring the sky
I dance, I draw, I write, I sing
I am and can do anything!
Little yellow roses adorn my natural abode
I lie back in a vine-entwisted hammock
Crying a tear, shedding a load
But all’s not bleak and sad – I’m not just a crock
I giggle, I laugh, I shout for joy!
I am my own new best toy
a little me
in a little tree
a safe space, a special place
Why did I ever leave?
To school or not to school
I believe strongly that schools are not places where learning, and more importantly the-love-of-learning happens. They are places, not where children’s questions get answered, but where questions in which the children seldom are interested in, are asked. Free thinking and questioning are not encouraged but frowned upon, and conformity is forced. Different attitudes and approaches to learning is not very often entertained, but the draconian rule of a know-all infallible teacher preaching decided truths still reigns supreme.
I will not school my child. I will not let a system that is there to produce millions of copies of unthinking consumers, break my inquisitive and happy child.