Saturday morning brunch - Banana & blueberry gluten-free pancakes with bacon & maple syrup

Saturday morning brunch is as good an excuse as any for a little decadence.


Gluten-Free Banana & Blueberry Pancakes with Maple Syrup

Ingredients:
175g Buckwheat flour
2 tspn Baking soda
1 over-ripe banana
2 eggs
300 ml milk
2 tbsp oil
2 tbsp milled flaxseed
1 cup frozen blueberries

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
Mash the banana to a liquid pulp, beat in the eggs until light and frothy. Add the remaining wet ingredients.
Create a well in the dry ingredients, then stir in the wet ingredients, ensuring there are no lumps.
Add in the blueberries just before frying in the pan.

End result!

Sunday night roast chicken

The husband and I made supper tonight. His roast chicken, his sprouts & joint-effort roast potatoes & roast butternut. My photos....

Prepped butternut

Chicken ready for the oven

Chicken half done, potatoes go in. 

Roast butternut - not quite done without the crispy bits.

Husband wasn't thrilled that the skin split on the chicken, but it was delicious! 

Mini-moon food pics - Grootbos

My husband and I got married in Cape Town last November. After being in Cape Town for 2 weeks before the wedding, we took 2 days out for a mini-moon before returning to London. We stayed at an absolutely gorgeous private nature reserve called Grootbos, which is a 2 hour drive up the coast from Cape Town in an area called Walker Bay. The views were incredible, the service excellent, and the food was delicious!

Dinner - 1st night (4 courses)

Lunch - pan-friend prawns:

Dinner - 2nd night:

Gluten-free Pistachio cookies

These were adapted from Phil Vickery's book, Seriously Good! Gluten-Free Baking. Instead of hazelnuts, I substituted pistacios. The recipe didn't call for any eggs to be added, but the mixture was far too dry and would not hold shape. The results were delicious!

Yum Cha at Royal China in Bayswater, London

Sunday is the perfect day for Yum Cha with good friends and my husband, and Royal China has some of the best in London.

Prawn & Chive Dumplings

Pork Buns.... YUM!

Deep-friend Yam dumplings - the husband is a fan, I am not.

Dinner at Eaglevlei, Stellenbosh

I was in Cape Town recently, and had the opportunity to attend a 4 course dinner & wine tasting at Eaglevlei Wine Estate in Stellenbosh. The food was pretty delicious, and with 2 wines to match each course, plus the wine makers from both Eaglevlei and the neighbouring wine estate on hand to offer their comments on the wine before each course, it was a fantastic experience. (Warning: photos aren't great!)

Watercress salad with roasted beetroot, goats cheese grapefruit & pomegranate seeds.

Was feeling a bit under the weather, so when deciding what to cook for dinner last night, I decided I needed some superfoods.

Watercress salad with roasted beetroot, goats cheese grapefruit & pomegranate seeds.

Clean a bunch of beetroot and cut into cubes. Season with sea salt, black pepper & fresh thyme. Coat with olive oil, and roast in the oven.

Take a healthy bunch of washed watercress and lay on a flat platter. Let the beetroot cool slightly before putting onto the watercress. Dot the goats cheese over the beetroot - best to use is the soft, creamy goats cheese & not the one with the rind as the flavour will overpower the salad.

Remove the seeds from a pomegranate and in a bowl, combine with the flesh from a red grape fruit which has been cut into rough 1 cm cubes. Take this mixture and put on top of the salad. Sprinkle with some toasted seeds and sprinkle with walnut oil.


I served this with a nice rare rib-eye steak, as the pepperyness from the watercress and the flavours nicely complemented the steak.