Peas in a Pod

When I was a primary school we sang a lot. It remains a joke with those I see from school we all remember the various songs we were made to sing in assembly, and though many of them seem too religious for schools today they do not fail to make me laugh. One of my faves was a song about vegetables, yes you read that right, I have no clue what the song in question was called, I'm gonna call it Cauliflowers Fluffy as i'm having a total memory blank as of the actual title. The line that was stuck in my head goes something like 'the broad beans are sleeping in their blankety bed', it makes me nostalgic, it makes me hum incessantly and most of all it makes me bloody hungry...

So without further adieu here is my recipe for a very tasty summer salad.

You need broad beans, lots of broad beans (about 200gms shelled weight). It's an utter pain to prepare them, the podding and shelling takes a while but they are definitely worth it for the short period of the year they're available. So sit down put on some music and shell away.

You'll end up with something like this.

Boil the podded peas, and then take off the shell to be left with perfectly boiled, shelled, podded broad beans.

Now this really isn't a strict recipe, it's more of an assembly job.

Broad beans go so well with a lot of summery big flavours, chilli, mint, basil, chorizo, smashed as a base for some grilled fish.

For my dinner I had some creamy mozzarella in the fridge, some red chilli, and some delicious parma ham. Dressed with a tangy olive oil, lemon, sea salt and pepper dressing. Delish! Try it while you can.

While you're at it please youtube 'Cauliflowers fluffy' see if you remember it from school. I guarantee it'll be in your head for days.
 

Cape Town: The Middle

On our first full day we decided to explore the V&A Waterfront, only a stones throw from our hotel it is a gorgeous area of Cape Town, in the shadow of Table Mountain it began life as a shipping port but luckily for us it was redeveloped in 1988 and is now home to local markets, a delicious food hall and so many beautiful boats.

Just have a look...

Raaaaarrrrrhhhhhhhhh...

These are the guardians of the dock, watching over the incoming ships.

But now we come to the good stuff, the food of course!! We found the best food market serving cuisine from all around the world, local, European, just about anything you fancy they had it. We had a hard time resisting it all, but our delicious breakfast kept us somewhat at bay.

Chocolates so good they have to tell us they are not tasters... darn it.

Samosas and spices of every kind.

But in the end we plumped for a refreshing homemade lemonade.

Then we continued our adventures around the waterfront.

We might just have entered a Children's Easter Egg maze courtesy of Lindt

Once we tore ourselves away from the markets (and the food) we went for dinner at 95 Keroom, and it was absolutely delicious.

We both had the most delicious meat, H went for fillet steak, rare obviously, whilst I decided to try the local meat and had a platter of Springbok, Kudu and Wilderbeast. I wish I had some photos to show you, but to be completely honest, I scoffed the lot before it occurred to me. It was just too damn good. However we did finish with a chocolate fondant, god knows how we had the room. It was divine. We went to bed very happy, if a little more rounded, campers.