Blue Fettuccini

This is a pasta meal fit for kings. It is full of flavours, even though very little added flavouring is used. It is quick, too!

 Ingredients

Homemade fettuccine / 500g bought fettuccine
2 onions, chopped
2-3 tbs spring onion, chopped
1tbs chives, chopped
1 punnet mushrooms, sliced
1 cup cream
salt & pepper to taste
lemon zest 
blue cheese to taste (about 1-2 tbs)
4tbs butter

Method

1. Cook the fettuccine in salt water until al dente. Pour off excess water and melt 2tbs butter in.
2. Melt the other 2tbs butter in a frying pan and fry the onions until lightly browned.
3. Add the mushrooms and fry until lightly browned.
4. Add the fried mushrooms and onion to the fettuccine. Also add the spring onion, chives and salt & pepper to taste.
5. Add the cream and mix everything well.
6. Just before dishing up, mix the blue cheese in.
7. Grate a little zest over ...

and enjoy!!

Serve warm as is, or with a fresh salad.

Yours in oil and veggies

Risch

Popcorn Chocolate

Quick, simple and easy... not to mention DELICIOUS!
You can play with this, too. Use colorful chocolate, use sprinkles, be creative!!

Ingredients

Popcorn
Salt
Chocolate
Rule of thumb: for every 1/2cup of popcorn kernels, 2cups of chocolate pieces. But you can really make it to suit your taste.

Method

1. Pop the popcorn, any method will do. Sprinkle a little salt over and mix well. Place the popped popcorn in a baking dish.
2. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler, until fully melted. 
3. Pour the chocolate evenly over the popcorn.
4. Place in the fridge until set.

Enjoy!!

Yours in sugar & cream

Risch

Beans, Bacon & Beef

This dish is simple, easy, quick and delicious! It's also low-carb - bargain! 

Ingredients
3tbs butter
2 onions, chopped
300g bacon, diced
1kg cut beans
500g stew beef, cubed
1tbs soya sauce
1 rind feta cheese
salt & pepper

Method

Melt the butter and fry the onions till lightly browned.
Add the bacon and fry till browned.
Add the beans and lower the heat, cover and let is simmer till the beans are soft, but still firm. Add white pepper and salt to taste.
Dry the beef in a kitchen towel.
Fry in a very hot non-stick pan, without any oil or butter or anything else. Fry until browned. Remove from heat. Add the soya sauce and mix well.
Add the beef to the beans and crumble the feta cheese over. Mix through.

Serve and enjoy!!

 Yours in oil and veggies

Risch

Vloergroente

This is chunky veg baked in the oven. We call it Vloergroente, because the first time we made it, I let the oven dish fall to the floor. We had no alternatives and we were so looking forward to it, that we simply scooped it up, put it back in the oven and ate it. With gusto!! It was super delicious, and yes the floor was clean…

Ingredients:

Chunky Vegetables

Olive oil

Coarse salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Method:

Spread open the veggies and sprinkle with oil, salt and pepper. Bake in the oven at 160°C until the veggies is soft. Switch to grill until the veggies get a slight burn, if you prefer.

Serve with almost anything!!

Yours in oil and veggies

Risch

Beef Roast with Black Pepper & Rosemary

Making a roast is more intuition than facts. It depends on your oven, your taste, if it cooks from frozen or fresh, etc. So please see this as only a guide. I cooked ours from frozen. And it was super soft, tasty, juicy and simply delicious!!

Preparation time: 5 min

Cooking time: +- 5 hours

Difficulty Level: Hard

Serves: 8

Ingredients:

800g Beef roast

2tbs olive oil

15-20 whole black pepper corns

1t rosemary

1/2t white pepper

Pinch salt

1/2t rosemary

1-2t Bisto

Method:

Place the roast in an oven proof dish with a tight fitting lid. Pour over the olive oil, pepper corns and rosemary. Add a little water to cover the bottom of the dish to about 1 cm deep. Bake in a 100°C oven for 2 hours.

After about 2 hours. Increase temperature to 150degrees C for another hour. 

After the hour at 150degrees C. 

 After the 3 hours, pour off the water. Add the white pepper, salt, rosemary and Bisto and mix well. Cook until it thickens. You can add more Bisto if you want it thicker.

Remove the cover off the dish and roast the beef in the oven at 180°C until it starts to darken. After about 10 minutes, remove and turn the roast over. Put back in the oven.

How long the roast must be in the oven, depends on how you like your beef. For rare, it is a much shorter time than for well done. The only way to tell without a thermometer, is to cut.

You can do a lot of reading on the web about how to make it perfect.

Serve with veggies and potato, or a salad and rice.

And enjoy!!

Yours in oil and veggies

Risch

Potato Bake with Bacon

Potatoes is one of the most versatile foods out there. And also one of the healthiest – despite what those medical people say. You take a potato out of the ground, wash it and cook it – no processing whatsoever. Please tell me how it can be unhealthy? Not to mention how absolutely delicious potatoes are with butter and cheese and cream and mushrooms…

Preparation time: 15min

Cooking time: +-2hours

Difficulty Level: Very easy

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

8 medium potatoes

500ml milk

1 onion, finely chopped

50g butter

350g bacon bits

100g cheese

Salt & Pepper

Breadcrumbs in butter

Method:

Cook the whole potatoes till ¾ ready.

 Add the onion to the milk and cook for about 20min on medium heat.  

Drain the milk off, and keep both the milk and onion.

Melt the butter and fry the onion and bacon until soft and lightly starting to brown. 

Add the onion milk and mix well.

Slice the potatoes and layer in a baking dish. Dot a little butter and sprinkle salt & pepper over the potato. 

Add some cheese. Add another layer of potato, and continue to layer until all the potato is done.

Pour over the bacon mixture.

Melt some butter and add the breadcrumbs, enough to cover the top the dish. I had a bit of a mishap, so mine doesn't exactly cover the top!!

Bake in the oven at 160°C until nicely browned.

Serve at a braai, or as part of dinner or enjoy as is!!

Yours in oil and veggies

Risch

Chicken Hamburger

Friday nights are usually “take-out” nights. But not necessarily by buying junk food, by making it at home. For some reason, junk food made at home is much tastier, and much more filling than the junk food you buy.

There is no recipe for making a hamburger, though. Personally, I don’t like tomato sauce or hot-dog mustard sauce, so I try my best to avoid it all times. I prefer mayonnaise, chutney and decent mustard like Dijon or Hot English Mustard.

In making a chicken hamburger, tomato sauce and hot-dog mustards are very much off limits. Dead zone. Don’t even take it out of the cupboard. You use a white sauce, made with mayonnaise, smooth cottage cheese and a little Dijon mustard.

You also need to have lettuce, tomatoes, onion, buns (obviously, we like the hard crusted ones for burgers) and chicken patties. I prefer to buy the chicken fillets, not the chicken patties. I find it tastier and more… authentic. O, and cheese. Always, cheese.

Lucky for me, this is my blog with all my opinions, feel free to disagree and make your hamburger your OWN!!

Ingredients:

Lettuce

Tomatoes

Onion

Buns

Chicken Fillets or Patties

Mayonnaise

Smooth Cottage Cheese

Dijon Mustard

Cheddar cheese, grated

Method:

Spread the buns with margarine/butter. 

 Mix 2tbs mayonnaise, 1tbs smooth cottage cheese and ½t Dijon mustard. (Make more depending on how many burgers, and feel free to tweak the proportions to your taste!) Spread one half of the bread generously with the sauce. Add tomato and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. 

Add the onion and the lettuce. Fry the patties in oil or bake in the oven, as per package instructions. Add to the bun. Add cheese to your liking.

Serve with onion rings.

And enjoy!!!

Yours in oil and veggies

Risch

Pea & Mushroom Spaghetti

In my garden, I have a small selection of veggies growing. Spinach, cauliflower (which flopped – thanks white fly!), brussel sprouts and peas. I love peas. I love growing them and I love picking them and I love eating them. Mostly I love eating them straight from the shell after picking. They are so sweet…  but usually my pea harvest is just enough for me to eat, and never enough for a meal. 

Well, this time I did something right. I harvested enough peas for a whole meal – and you wouldn’t even think I plucked anything, as there are still so many left!!

The best thing about fresh peas, is that they really don't require a lot of cooking. A little heat just to match the heat of the meal, is sufficient, because their taste is so sweet and so fresh.

Preparation time: 15min

Cooking time: 30min

Difficulty Level: Very Easy

Serves: 8

Ingredients:

1 onion, chopped

500g mushrooms, sliced (2 punnets)

150g bacon bits

2tbs coconut oil

400g spaghetti

250g fresh peas

Water

Salt & Pepper

Method

Melt 1tbs coconut oil and fry the onion till soft. 

 Add the bacon and fry till lightly browned. 

Melt the other tbs coconut oil and fry the mushrooms. 

Boil enough water for the spaghetti. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add the spaghetti and cook until el dente. Pour off the water. Add the bacon, onion, mushrooms and peas and mix well.

Dish up with a little grated parmesan.

And enjoy!

Yours in oil and veggies

Risch

Mince Dumpling Pie

Some ingredients are harder than others to be creative with. Like mince. Especially if you are tired, not the in mood for cooking, or simply don’t have enough ingredients to play with. (Those end of the month days… you know, the ones that comes after the fourth of the month..?)

This was one of those days. And what turned out was not all what I had in mind, but it was delicious!

The coconut oil can be substituted with butter, olive oil or normal sunflower oil.

And I used the same pot for the frying and the baking – man, I love my cast iron pots! So if you have a pot you can use for the frying as well as the baking, that is your best bet, as it makes the dishes less, too.

Preparation time: 10min

Cooking time:  1 hour

Difficulty Level: Easy

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

500g mince

2tbs coconut oil

1 onion, chopped

250g mushroom, sliced (1 punnet)

150g salami, diced (optional)

2tbs soya sauce

2t spice for mince

1t steak & chops spice

¼ cup mayonnaise

* Dumplingdough

Method:

Melt the coconut oil and fry the onion until soft. 

Add the mushrooms and salami and fry until starting to brown.

Remove the mixture from the pot. Add the mince.  Loosen the mince so that there isn’t any chunks.
Add the soya sauce, spice for mince and steak & chops spice and mix well. Simmer until done.

 Add the onion mixture back to pot and mix well with mince. 

Add the mayonnaise and mix through. 

Add the dumpling dough and mix through.

Scoop into an ovenproof dish and bake in the oven at 160°C for about 30 – 40 minutes, until nicely browned on top, and pulling away from the sides.

Serve warm with a salad, and enjoy!!

Yours in oil and veggies

Risch

Cheese, Onion & Corn Quesadillas

I cheated. Yes, I know... But I simply didn't have enough time. You know, to make my OWN wraps. So... I bought them. Should you wish to make them, you can find the recipe right here on Rischlicious Recipes.
Compliments to the "Mexicorn" company, though. Normally the wraps you buy are bland, tasteless, reminding you of cardboard. Old cardboard. These ones were very tasty and soft. And not that expensive either.

I tasted my first Quesadilla in Spur. And it was love at first bite. So I decided to make some of my own. Fun thing is, you can really play with the ingredients. I am not concerning myself with the ethics of what is now a TRUE quesadilla or what SHOULD be in there... this is food, people. You can make it to suit your taste and mood. 

This recipe contains no measurements, as you make it according to your taste. Want more cheese? Then add more cheese! Want more onion? Then add more onion? Want to add green pepper? or Bacon? or Chocolate Chips? Then add it!! (I only have one rule when it comes to being adventurous about new combinations and flavours: you eat what you make. So perhaps we should rethink the chocolate chips...?)

Ingredients

1 tin whole kernel sweetcorn
3 onions
butter
lots of grated processed cheese
wraps (2 per person)
mayonnaise

Method

Chop the onion.

Fry the onion in butter until lightly browned. 

Spread mayonnaise on the wraps. You can spread on only the bottom one, or top and bottom. 

 Cover with cheese. Don't spread too close to the edges, because we don't want it to melt out of the quesadilla.

Sprinkle the whole kernel sweetcorn.

Add the fried onions.

Place the second wrap on top and press lightly down.

Heat up a frying pan big enough for the quesadillas. Add some olive oil to cover the bottom.

Place the quesadilla in and lightly fry the one side. Carefully turn it over and fry the other side. Remove and place on plate. Add a little more oil to the pan. It is advisable to add a little oil before each quesadilla, to get a nice golden brown fry. Otherwise, it turns to black frying spots.

Cut in quarters. You are welcome to carefully arrange it on the plate and garnish with some green salad... we were just too hungry to think of anything else than EATING it!! 

And it was super delicious. And surprisingly filling, too. 

Yours in oil and veggies

Risch