South African Dinner, Dutch Skating, Snow

Here are some pictures from our South African Dinner Around the World on Saturday. It was all pretty successful I am pleased to say. This is Matt tucking into his Avocado Ritz which was very good. We ate that course with a very nice Canadian Special Reserve Chardonnay. You will notice I still have my Christmas Poinsettia. The main meal of Bobotie and Yellow Rice was eaten accompanied by a bottle of Stormy Bay Cabernet Sauvignon which came from Western Cape in South Africa. Our friends brought this wine. I also did a salad of tomatoes and onions which really went well with the Bobotie. We had enough left of the main course and the dessert for supper last night. The dessert (I posted a picture on Saturday) was very good too although I was a tad disappointed in some of the texture. I may have goofed somewhere. Everyone else really enjoyed it so that was the main thing. In fact everyone enjoyed the whole meal which was the object of the exercise. I now hear from my friend in South Africa, that she usually makes her Bobotie with ground beef as lamb is so expensive. Its not cheap here. I look really serious in this picture don't I? Don't get many pix of me these days since I got a digital camera. I was still cooking so I had my apron on. I wasn't expecting my friend to take the picture quite so quickly. I actually think I look half cut in this picture, but I assure you I wasn't. Even the leftovers were fine and we still have some Milk Tert for tonight. It didn't seem quite so wrong last night as it had on Saturday. But I think I would like to make it again one of these days to see if I hadn't quite nicked the nick the first time. Yesterday a friend sent me a link to some interesting pictures in the Netherlands where everything is apparently pretty well frozen and people are skating on the canals and rivers and vendors are selling drinks and hot dogs etc. I thought I would post one picture as it is so typical of the area with the windmills in the background. If you would like to see the rest of them click here. It is many years since I was last in Holland which is what we always used to call it although my friends assure me that Netherlands is the correct term and Holland is the name of a county. I have fond memories of both their food and their chocolate, both of which were very good. It has been snowing most of the weekend, we sure are getting a healthy dose of it this winter. It seems to go in cycles - maybe of 10 years. It occurs to me I didn't post the recipe for Avocado Ritz as shown above. So here it is courtesy of Recitopia UK. Avocado Ritz Avocado's are a favorite South African fruit and are often used in starters and salads. This dish is quick to prepare and is always well received when the weather is hot. 3 ripe avocado's 300g of shrimps, well drained Seafood sauce (see my recipe below) Juice of 1 small lemon Salt Cayenne pepper Iceberg Lettuce Leaves Chopped parsley 1 Cut the avocado's in half and remove the stones. Dip the edges in lemon juice. Season with salt and Cayenne pepper. 2 Place avocado's on a bed of lettuce leaves. Fill with shrimp and spoon seafood sauce on the top of each one. 3 Garnish with parsley and serve immediately. Servings: 6 The seafood sauce I used is the one I use for Shrimp Cocktails and is as follows: Cocktail Sauce Cookery in Colour 3 Tbs thick mayonnaise 1 Tbs tomato ketchup or thick tomato purèe 1 Tbs Worcestershire Sauce 1 Tbs lemon juice 1 tsp finely chopped onion 1 tsp finely chopped celery salt to taste Mix together all of the ingredients. If you wish, you can substitute the lemon juice with a Tbs of brandy. Have a great day.