Sunday Reads

• On being young, overeducated and struggling to find employment.
• How do you pick yourself up after failure?
• Faith in the workplace.
• For those looking to get married, here is an ebook you can enjoy as you prepare yourself.
• Lost and found in Tokyo.
• How you can help refugees in your town.
• A Tour of Johannesburg Food Trucks

• This DIY Bath tray seems so easy to make, sigh!
• Podcast recommendations.

Recipes

• Raspberry, white chocolate ice cream pops
• Tamarind and Ginger Glaze Chicken Wings.
• Stuffed tomatoes.
• Cooking with breadcrumbs.
• Toasted Oats ‘n’ Spice Make Oatmeal Cookie Ice Cream

Advertisements

Happy Fathers Day

• When God Withholds Something Good
• The case for going to Church while on vacation.
• Very important to critically review the lyrics of popular Worship songs.
• Anyone looking for book recommendations from TED Speakers.
• A book on xenophobia in South Africa.
• How hard are we pushing ourselves and how do we regulate that?
• Staying the distance when you have a lot to get through.
• Great to see Uganda topping a positive list.
• A Dad’s survival guide to his wife’s pregnancy.
• Some songs to play for your dad today 🙂

Recipes

• Another vegetarian pasta recipe
•  …. ssshhhh! and more pasta recipes here.

Sunday Reads

Rachel in white Patricia in black Mira in yellow Rochelle in Red are playing …Hapiness . Good Peoples good loving music in life feel makes me happy ( by the Foreign Exchange group ) #nichollekobi

A post shared by Nicholle Kobi (@nichollekobi) on Apr 14, 2018 at 2:31pm PDT

• This advise for young college graduates still resonates.
• … this too.
• Some questions to ask as you interview.
• God calls us to be faithful not successful.
• I have thought of starting a podcast with a pal *sigh*
• Things to do around my new hood.

Recipes

• This is so odd of me but I really want to have a party with a cheese plate 🙂
• Artichoke & Quinoa Vegetarian Enchiladas
• Quick Vegan Enchiladas with Sweet Potato Sauce
• A fail proof way to make sorbet.
• Love this chocolate cake recipe.
• A pasta salad with roasted carrots and sunflower seed dressing
• This coffee recipe sounds yum 🙂
• Vegan Panna Cotta recipes

How I want to make Adult Friends

Photo by nappy on Pexels.com

I have a friend who is a maverick at making friends. One on one, she seems incredibly shy but I love her attitude to making friends and how deliberate she is about it all. So when I think to myself that I would like to make friends, I always think of some kind of organised activity that brings people together on the regular.

When I think of this though I always wonder how I would go about starting one because it involves putting myself out there in some way or another which is not exactly my thing. But, if / when I get over this hurdle, these are some things I would like to do:

• Listen to a key podcast each month and then meet and discuss
• Start an article club – pick a Longread article and then chat about it
• Pick a cuisine and then assign various parts of the meal (starter, protein, desserts, salad) to different people and thus have a supper club or a cookbook club if you are fancier.
• Good old Book club
• Board games with a group of friends, I really have mine eye on this one.
• A cheese/ wine tasting club.

Do you live in Joburg, would you be keen to do any of this with me and meet some new people?

Sunday Reads

• Food is a way of travelling for instance to Laos.
• I love this cute love story of how they met ❤
• I am doing a Whole 30 in June with a pal. Looking forward. Some meal inspirations here and here.
• Some ways to teach your kids about money.
• We are all guilty of e-bailing at some point or another.
• Maybe a bad feminist call but this article about female priests in the Catholic church pissed me off some.
•  I rather enjoyed this article about whether you are your moms favourite kid.
• Clean daily to help you stay on top of your household needs.

Recipes

• I am making this dhal for next week’s dinner, yum, with some chapati.
• Stuffed peppers.
• 15 taco recipes.
• Yummy froyo recipees

Happy Mothers Day / Sunday Reads

Source

• What is the motherhood penalty?
• Kid-centric podcasts.
• I like the idea of going through life with a pre-mortem analysis.
• Praying in the Holy Spirit.

Recipes

• Yummy chocolate cake.
• Cauliflower rice
• More chickpea recipes.
• Suggestions for a picnic.

Three Random Facts

1. I am convinced someone might one day want to write my biography so I am cataloguing my life in this blog, journals and keeping significant letters and cards.
2. I sometimes cook like I am presenting a cooking show online. This involves preparing all the ingredients in advance and sometimes explaining what it is I am doing.
3. I play back all voice notes I send to try and determine whether I do have a good voice for radio. I am not sure I do.

2017 in Posts

*this list is based on views

1. Having a baby, what would you like to do before baby arrives?
2. The status of rape in South Africa
3. Thoughts on Upile Chisala’s book.
4. Poems for my daughter(s)
5. Happy Anniversary love 🙂
6. A conversation with my oldest nephew
7. Expectations and Marriage
8. Lessons from the book of John
9. Wh!at do you cook for guests?
10. How I love thee!!

Sunday Reads

• Uber’s performance on the African continent.
• Nairobi at dusk.
• Tiny hacks that elevate your room just so.
• Great book recommendations available here, here and here.
• ” … Yet there is no word for “single mothers” in Dari and Pashto, the languages spoken in Afghanistan. “Single moms are described only by the status of their husbands … so they’re either widowed or divorced. But their motherhood is not recognized.”
• Some of us recognise this kind of man.
• What a timely reminder that often our ministry will be unrecognised.
• Toast for dinner is always welcome.

 

Recipe-related Sunday Reads

• 10 ways with sweet potatoes. YUM!
• Because I love Earl Grey
• Yep, I am curious about the Michelin Review process.
• Egg recipes to start your day.
• Some more Indian recipes for your repertoire.
• Ashamed, but here I go suggesting other pasta recipes.
• …. oh well, in fact two pasta recipes.
• Which will obviously require some accompanying sauces.
• A one-pan chicken dish.

A Cooking Challenge for Self

I love to cook, however,I find that there are certain things that I just never cook or make from scratch. Or if I do, then I just never stray past the initial recipe.

So what are some things that I would love to cook that I don’t currently?

• Baking:
  • A tart/ pie (or these ones) from homemade pastry.
  • Bake and ice a cake beyond the typical pound loaf something like
  • Bread like this  or this or this.
• Roast a whole chicken.
• Make eggs Benedict including the sauce – I can poach an egg but a hollandaise and any other sauce? Nah. So this would be a cool start.
• Diversify the types of salad dressing I currently make for salads like this
• Oxtail stew.
• Make home made pasta and then cook it.

Are there things in the kitchen that you often shy away from attempting?

 

Dinner is Served

While I was on the plant based diet, I totally could not justify eating pasta so this week I have such a craving for pasta and want to cook some later in the week.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH WALNUT & SAGE PASTA

Serves  2

Ingredients

• 2 cups cubed butternut squash
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon butter (or vegan butter or more olive oil)
• 1 small shallot, sliced
• ¼ cup chopped sage leaves
• ¼ cup chopped walnuts
• ½ cup cooked chickpeas
• 1-2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• big squeeze of lemon
• splash of balsamic vinegar
• 4-6 oz. spaghetti or linguine (& save some pasta water)
• a few handfuls of chopped spinach (or kale or chard)
• ½ cup chopped parsley
• grated pecorino cheese, optional, to taste
• salt & pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roast butternut squash cubes with a little olive oil, salt and pepper for about 20 minutes or until they’re soft and mostly cooked through. Remove from the oven and set aside.
2. Cook pasta in salty water until al dente and reserve at least 1 cup of the starchy pasta water.
3. Meanwhile, heat a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the olive oil and butter, then add the shallot and cook until translucent. Add the chopped sage and cook for another 30 seconds, then add the walnuts, chickpeas, butternut squash cubes, garlic, salt and pepper. Cook until the chickpeas and squash brown a bit (but before the garlic burns).
4. Add a big squeeze of lemon and a good splash of balsamic and stir.
5. Add the cooked pasta and spinach. Use tongs to gently toss the pasta with everything in the pan allowing the greens to wilt. Add pasta water to help loosen it (I used about ¼ cup).
6. Add some grated pecorino at this step if you wish.
7. Remove from heat, then stir in the chopped parsley.
8. Taste and adjust seasonings and serve with extra grated cheese.

Notes

Make this vegan by skipping the butter (or use vegan butter) and omit cheese. Make this gluten free by using gluten free pasta.

Sunday Reads

• Love hacks to fix your marriage
• Ever watched something and then asked, what’s the point?
• I have read 14 of the 23 of these books by African women.
• In addition to this to-do list, I could totally start/ participate in a Cookbook Club.
• How Christian men can protect women against sexual predation.
• Yes to all kinds of body positive images.
• All these yummy Indian recipes.
• Some more pasta recipes.

“Silence is often a woman-flavoured thing. It is guilty of holding countless women’s names and voices hostage inside of its spine and its ribcage.” Nikita Gill 

 

Sunday Reads

• Just exactly how do you let family and friends know your wedding is off? Huh?
• One of my favourite places in Cape Town,  Zeitz Mocaa.
• Remembering the shooting in Las Vegas
• If we cry will they give Ngugi the Nobel Prize for literature?
• Is it still that elusive to be a mom and have it all professionally?
• A heartfelt reflection of the first year of marriage.
• Loved this primer on how engaged couples should talk about finances once they are married.
• I heard  Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ speak last month at Open Book Festival and this interview captures her (public) essence very well.
• Some great book recommendations from this long list.
• Interesting to read about a photojournalists work.
• Great stir fry recipes
• Because who doesn’t need any more lentil recipes?

Sunday Reads

• The biases that women face in Economics.
• Motherhood makes women better workers.
• This podcast on how these communities in Tanzania deal with the taboo around first periods.
• Great empirical evaluation of the assertion that foreigners in SA take jobs from locals.
• Love this article on boundaries within marriage – for example I don’t share nail cutters with the hubs.
• I think, sorry I know, I love Gordon Ramsay.
• I have tried to get my sisters to call me llama llama.
• Yes, hospitality is broader than entertaining.
• My sister has us on a plant-based diet so I wanna try and make this cake or this one.
• I have the urge to make this for the hubs.
• This eggplant dip looks yum.
• Getting the most from your food processor.

Sunday Reads

• Yeah, I’d watch this show.
• Yaaaasssss!!! for Serena Williams.
• The danger of importing an idea without considering how it would apply to a local context. Here and Here.
• “Traveling through the neighborhoods of Cape Town is like peeling back the layers of an onion.”
• Racial underpinnings in conservation in Kenya.
• I enjoyed this piece on textural discrimination among black (hair) naturals.
• Race/ Diversity and the Church.
• Sometimes we limit God in our small thinking of Him and our calling.
• Petinah Gappah writes very well.
• Follow Jonathan Ball Publishers this month and get a free book in their give away.
• 5 Things to do when you have 10 minutes. Love this!!
• What a practical and wonderful gift to share with your parents.
• An example of a great teacher.
• Finally bit the bullet and got a pressure cooker.
• Practising a plant based diet this month (Aside: It is fine but I miss ice cream and yoghurt).

Recipes

• Yummy noodle sweet potato pasta.
• Herbed zucchini wraps.
• More on cooking with zucchini.
• I love this one-sheet chicken recipe.
• Some sweets to make in advance.
• 10 cake recipes for tea time.
• Non-dairy ice cream.

 

A Recent Menu

So before I turned 30, I wanted to host a fancy dinner at my place and host a couple of friends. Being in a new city and making friends therefore provided the best backdrop for this as I decided to host a bunch of ladies that I have recently come to know whom I also thought would be a good fit to develop new friendships among themselves. The additional backstory is that I have so many cookery books and this gave me the chance to whip one out and base the days’ meal on it. I used Rachel Allen’s book, Entertaining at Home – easily my best recipe book.  So below is the prescribed menu:

Starters

Tomato, mozzarella and tapenade crostini

Mains

Bulgur wheat pilaf

Braised Moroccan chicken with basmati rice

Ribboned carrots with honey and parsley

Green salad

Dessert

Blackberry mousse

Chocolate cake

 

 

 

10 things that make me smile

1. Discovering a lovely brand of tea.
2. Sleeping in on a Saturday morning during the BSF break.
3. A wonderful chat with my sisters and friends.
4. I read my first Bessie Head (Maru) this week and it was lovely.
5. Successfully parallel (flash) parking in one attempt.
6. Trying a recipe and immediately knowing you will do it again.
7. Enjoying Season 7 of My Kitchen Rules.
8. Seeing my nephew and niece as they start to interact as siblings.
9. Really enjoying the study of James. Quite challenging but very interesting.
10. Discovering a great podcast and then going back to download all 80 episodes  

Sunday Reads

• The gender pay gap.
• This wedding is so sentimental for me for similar reasons.
• I love Serena Williams even more after this interview.
• Tips to beat jet lag.
• Because land is still a contentious item for former colonies.
• … and the watershed ruling that is the Daniels v Scribante judgment.
• Five African writers recommend books.
• Be a GREAT FRIEND.
• Essential Indian spices for your pantry.

Recipes to try

• Chai spiced panna cotta.
• Making this for dinner this week.
• How to assemble your potato salad.

Sunday Reads

• So it seems feathered eyebrows are a thing.
• Now I feel homesick for Nairobi all over again!
• Security questions we don’t need, but need.
• Who is the main reader in black African literature/ books by black Africans?
• This supper club in London sounds so fun.
• Three reasons I will not find out a baby’s gender.
• I love this idea of a daughter interviewing her mom. MUST try it with my mom one day.
• Must read the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.
• Invite someone single to dinner. Aye!
• Also, single and black in white evangelical spaces.
• So apparently non-stick pans might not be safe.
• What does your age reveal about you?

Recipes:

• Yummy sweet potatoes
• Black ice cream
• Cooking shrimp (prawns).