Hello!!!! It has been exactly a year today since I last posted on this blog, and I felt that was enough to bring me out of retirement 🙂
I may not have posting, but I have checked regularly on my blog, and kept up with my favourite bloggers, sometimes I’ve even left a comment! It pleases me no end that people are still visiting and making use of my camp-fire recipes. Thank you!!!
So where have I been this last year? Disgustingly busy at work, and arranging my youngest daughter’s engagement party, then wedding, and now we have put our house on the market, because it’s time to downscale and we have found our dream cottage. Busy, busy. Oh, and I have started writing a novel, such fun!
On the cooking/camping front, not much has been happening – there have many Friday evenings when I’ve been too finished to do more than ask my patient husband to braai a steak (salt & pepper, nothing else), with a potato and an onion for each of us stuck on the grid to cook as well – nope, not even wrapped in tinfoil! Try it sometime – the potato skin cooks black and thick, but the inside is light, fluffy and delicious sprinkled with seasonings, or cheese, and of course, a dollop of butter. Same with the onion – black and crispy outside, but sweet, juicy and quite amazing inside, just add butter, of course. That’s braai-ing at its most basic, survival food, I tell you.
We catered for N&L’s engagement party as a family – 60 guests, and we braaied – of course, how else would I feed 60 people!! The menu was pretty good, and the food came out well enough to have people raving about it – oh the relief…
So we had decided to do a spit braai for the party – 4 legs of lamb, deboned, wrapped in string, rubbed with a Morroccan inspired mix of spices (cumin, cinnamon, paprika, coriander, turmeric, ginger), and then basted repeatedly with a mix of olive oil, crushed garlic and melted butter for the six hours in which they turned over a bed of hot coals. The lamb was amazing, tender, moist and quite delicious. We also spit-roasted 7 chickens over hot coals, basted with lemon garlic butter – again, so delicious! To go with the meat, we prepared trays of roast vegetables – butternut, aubergine, potatoes, onions, carrots, peppers, garlic – with salt, pepper and olive oil, sealed tightly in tinfoil trays and placed over hot coals for over nearly three hours – they were large trays!
We also served a pasta salad, green salad, cous cous salad, and cocktail bread rolls. There was food left over, but that is the way I like it – no one goes home hungry from my house…dessert was all sorts of sweet nibbles, made by my team of daughters, chocolate dipped marshmallows, cherry truffles, little tartlets, mini milk tarts, shortbread – yum.
It was exhausting, but great fun, where are the photos, I hear you say? Well I was so busy running around I didn’t take any, sob. I kid you not.
I’ve cooking some good food on the fire again lately, so I think it’s time to resume blogging and share them with you again. Hope you agree.
Til next time…
L
Linda Roets
Fired Up Cooking SA 
Lovely to read a post again Linda. Congratulations on the marriage of your daughter. Sadly my Pete is a way far too much with business trips so when he is home for a couple of days our braai’s usually consist of exactly the same as you with a piece of steak and a potato and onion – although I pop ours in tinfoil.
Keep well and looking forward to some new braai posts.
🙂 Mandy xo
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Hello Mandy, thank you for keeping track of me! I still faithfully read your posts, enjoy them so much. Glad to find another ‘basic braai-er’ 🙂 Keep in touch xxoo
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So nice to see you here again. You must surely hold the title of “Braai Queen of the Century.” 🙂 Your food sounds so scrummy and I’m sure all your guests felt very fortunate to be on your list. Congrats to the newly engaged couple. Atr you going to braai for their wedding? 😀 Glad you’ve found your dream cottage, and good luck with the novel. No wonder you’ve had no time for blogging. xx
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Hello AD!! Thank you for such a lovely compliment 🙂 After the engagement party, I was more than happy to leave the catering to someone else for the wedding 😀 My daughter wanted a plated menu, and it was excellent.
Our cottage is gorgeous, tiny, but with lots of land and it’s own stream. I will be making a garden from scratch….wait, I feel a new blog coming on!!! I still read your posts, love your blog! Hugs & xx
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Lovely to see you back – what a wonderful year you have had! Looking forward to hearing more about your cooking adventures. Congratulations on finding your dream cottage and to your family for the wedding 🙂
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Hell, Chica, and thank you! I think now that it’s just my hubby and me, we will also be embarking on a new adventure, like yours! Keep in touch xx
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Glad you are back Linda – love your food ideas!
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Thank you, my love! Looking forward to braai-ing with you again one of these days…I’m scheming, plotting and planning to get to you! xxxx
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Oh you have found your dream cottage! fantastic .. i hope it has a fab kitchen and outside space to continue your wonderful cooking.. ONE year! but i heard from you so i knew you were still around! welcome back.. c
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Hello Miss C, and thank you! You would approve of my cottage 🙂 It has a large piece of land, bordered by one of our city’s rivers on one side, and with a small stream running right through the garden, which is full of indigenous trees. I will be able to make a vegetable garden and keep some hens. I am wildly excited!!!!! The kitchen needs re-doing, but it’s a project we will relish….I’ll be re-reading your posts for inspiration. Hugs & xx L
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A stream through your garden, I would LOVE that! Now darling girl, my only piece of advice about the kitchen is to force yourself to live there for a year and watch the light, and really work out what you do need and don’t need, then rip it all out and have a ball! When I redid this tiny kitchen here(still tiny!) I found the what I DON”T need list was pretty long!! dying to see pictures!! c
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Now strange you should say that – my husband and I have been saying we just want to live there for a year, and get a feel for the place, before we change anything. That’s good advice, thank you! To have a stream in one’s garden, here in South Africa especially, is pretty amazing. I think I am going to start a new blog dedicated to our adventures there. We sold our house today 😀 so I guess it’s happening… Thank you, C xx
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