Cooking Recipe: My husband surprised me tonight. He cooks pizza once a week and it's usually the normal tomato base with cheese and ham or salami but tonight tomato was nowhere to be seen. He made up a pesto sauce and spread it over the base (made in the breadmaker) then sliced up an eggplant. He fried the slices and soaked up the excess oil with paper towels then placed them all over the pizza and finished off with grated parmesan cheese. As you can see I snapped a couple of quick photos before tucking in. Simple but delicious and a nice change from the tomato base. This is NOT a low Fodmap recipe. … [Read more...] about Eggplant and Pesto Pizza
Favourite Places in the World – Blyde River Canyon
Yesterday I started with my favourite author so that technically is not a countdown but a countup. However, today I am starting a genuine countdown of my favourite places in the world starting with number 10 and revealing one a week until I reach number 1 out of all the places I have visited in more than 40 countries. And believe it or not, it wasn't hard to choose the top one or any of the others either for that matter. Anyway, let's get to number 10. 10) Blyde River Canyon – South Africa In 2002, we went as a family to South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and to visit my uncle in Zambia. I just loved all these countries but South Africa took prime spot for the magnificence of the great open spaces filled with awe-inspiring landscape. I have narrowed it down to one specific place we visited after several days being blown away by the wild animals in Kruger Park – Blyde River Canyon. It is located in Mpumalanga and is one of the great wonders of nature in Africa - 26 km in length, … [Read more...] about Favourite Places in the World – Blyde River Canyon
Favourite Author – Jodi Picoult
I have many favourite authors but Jodi Picoult still reigns supreme after many years of intruders trying to take her place. For me, she had a wobble with Change of heart, which I did not like at all and I saw on the loops that it divided her readers. I love Jodi because she always has a surprise around the corner that I don't see coming but in Change of Heart I saw all the twists coming a mile off even the final one. I also didn't like the lengthy conversations about religion which, in my mind, didn't advance the story. But that was only one blip and I have many favourites of hers incuding Second Glance with it's haunting atmosphere. However, My Sister's Keeper remains her supreme work, for me. I couldn't put it down and was captivated by the characters. The twist at the end was heartbreaking but perfect. And that's where the movie failed. It was quite faithful to the book with great performances but they changed the end and so removed the brilliant story arc that Jodi had created … [Read more...] about Favourite Author – Jodi Picoult
Salami Pasta Salad
Cooking Recipe: I saw this recipe in my favourite salad book and stopped turning the pages. It was too beautiful to be easy – all those glorious colours like a child’s toy, but I wrote out the shopping list and handed it to my darling accommodating husband who does the daily food shopping. All ingredients having safely arrived in the house, I assembled them on the bench and couldn’t resist photographing them in their raw state all piled together in a seemingly casual mess, but it did actually take a while to get the mess looking right though. You have to admit they look pretty and that’s only some of the ingredients. I thought I should get on with the actual recipe or my family wouldn’t be eating. Pin It So to get to the ingredients, throw in a much or little of the following items. Cooked pasta – as you can see in the photo, I mixed two pastas because I had two part packets in the pantry. Cherry tomatoes (if going cheap) otherwise chopped up normal tomatoes will do … [Read more...] about Salami Pasta Salad
Welcome to the Strands of My Life
What things make you scramble bleary eyed from your bed with anticipation? What makes your blood rumble faster through your veins when you think about it even in the middle of a dreary, repetitive job? That’s not to infer that mine’s dreary or repetitive – in fact it’s far from it but I know that is not everyone’s reality. For me, apart from my patient husband and creative son, my passions are travel, cooking, writing, reading, movies and interior design. And that’s what this blog is all about but mainly the cooking because that is what I do the most consistently and it helps to find joy in our everyday activities. COOKING I was brought up on a farm and cooked alongside my mother and grandmother from when I could totter about, pulling myself along the furniture to get a view of what smelt so good. After getting a degree in languages, I went to live in Italy in my early twenties and my culinary education grew as I sampled and cooked some of the most exciting foods on the … [Read more...] about Welcome to the Strands of My Life
