indian cooking class at masala dosa

Ansie and I went to a Indian cooking class at Masala Dosa in Cape Town city bowl. Masala Dosa is a lovely little restaurant, the décor is very unique and probably the nicest we've seen in a Indian restaurant.

The lesson was presented by Amit, who started off by going over all the main spices, their origins and uses, etc. Followed by some spice mixing, and cooking curries. Amit shared a lot of interesting information and principles, it was a very enjoyable morning.

The one thing that really stood out for me was the Masala Chai, which Amit made from scratch using the individual spices. I don't ever drink hot drinks, like coffee or tea, but this was one of the most delicious hot drinks I have ever had!

growing mushrooms

I went for a very short course on how to grow mushrooms for profit. It was very interesting and I learnt quite a bit about mushrooms, but unfortunately it doesn't look like something I'll be able to do as a hobby at home. You do need some spare space and a little equipment to get started... and it's a little more complicated than making cheese, for instance. But I would recommend the course to anybody who is interested in mushrooms, or food in general.

cheese bread

We're busy unpacking our books at the moment, boxes and boxes of them... Last night I found my (very, very) old cheese book, "The Great International Cheese Board", which I bought many years ago at a non-descript pawn shop for R5, while on holiday in Natal.

Hidden in the back of this book, is the best cheese bread recipe I've ever found, and which I've baked so many times I can almost do it without the recipe. So here is the recipe, and a photo of last nights efforts...



Ingredients
1/2 (half) green pepper
1/2 (half) red pepper
1 onion
3 eggs
1 cup self-raising flour
100g butter (I use a little less, else it's just too oily)
200g grated cheese (I use cheddar most times, but this time I used gruyere, and it's fantastic)

Chop the peppers and onion into small pieces. Beat the eggs and butter until frothy, add the flour and then mix in all the other stuff. Add salt, pepper and paprika if you want. And then bake for 50 minutes at 190 degrees celsius.

Done! This makes one loaf, I usually do two at a time, it's about the same amount of work as making one. And, to make it even nicer, you can add some chopped bacon...

some mushrooms, at last...

This morning, with clear blue skies (and a chilly wind in the air), we decided to go to Tokai. I needed a long training run, so went out for 2 hours of running in the forest and hills, almost running all the way up to silvermine... And Ansie was hunting for mushrooms, since we've had a lot of rain these last few weeks.

I was lucky that I found a fairly big mushroom patch on one of the smaller / less used trails at the start of my run, so I made a mental note of it, and on the way back from my run I passed by there again, and filled a bag with mushrooms (but there was still lots left when I was done). When I got back to the car, Ansie arrived with a little basket full of mushrooms from her search. So all and all, we had collected more than 25 mushrooms between us...

Back at home, Ansie deep fried some of the mushrooms in a spicy batter for dinner. Absolutely delicious!