Hiking in the Northern Suburbs

If you are looking for a hike with the most beautiful visas of the whole of Cape Town - from Stellenbosch to Green Point, take a trip up Tygerberg Hill.

A Must See

Please click here to watch the video.....

Tomato Joy

I recently did a blog interview where I was asked what food I did not eat as a child. The answer was very easy, as it is still not a favourite if mine - raw tomatoes. I love them cooked, souped, tinned and especially sun-dried but never raw. I have matured slightly and now I do eat them so long as they are not the main event in a dish.

A real treat for me are marinated sun-dried tomatoes, especially the ones from Ina Paarmen, but they are very pricey and once I have opened a pack there is no stopping me. I decided to try marinade my own, to try save a little. Buying them dried they are really cheap and the marinading is so easy, I don't think Auntie Ina will have much more business from me!


Marinaded Sun Dried Tomatoes

Sun Dried Tomatoes
1 Part Red Wine Vinegar
1 Part Boiling Water
Sugar (to taste)
Fresh Thyme Leaves
Dried Garlic Powder (to taste)
½ Part Olive Oil

Place all the ingredients in a sterilized jar.
Shake to dissolve the sugar.
Allow to stand at room temperature for 12-24 hours (if you can wait that long).
The longer you let it stand the softer the tomatoes become.
I love these on pizza, stir-fried with mushrooms and especially just on their own straight out the jar!

Rushing Chicken

To say the words "roast chicken" and "microwave oven" in the same sentence is not something any serious foodie will readily accept. It conjures up pictures of pale yellow rubber. I was the same until I got my LG Solardom.

This little miracle worker is amazing. It has a "Speed Auto Cook" function which roasts meat with heat and uses just the right amount of microwave power to cook the inside. You end up with a crispy roasted chicken with succulent flesh in about 30 mins - start to finish.

It also does baked potatoes, with a crispy skin and soft fluffy inside in less than 15 minutes.

This function is great for energy saving - which makes more sense after the electricity tariff increase we had yesterday of 31%!

This chicken, I marinaded whole (in a bag) for about 2 hours with Robersons Portuguese Spice, lemon juice and honey. I then roasted it in the Solardom for 30 minutes, left it to rest for another 15 minutes covered in foil, while I baked the potatoes. Within an hour we had our meal - perfectly cooked! That's easy in any one's language.

Break downs

Last weekend we had Norm (from the Fish River Canyon) stay with us before he left for Canada. It was so good to catch up on all his news since the hike and so long until next year.

We planned an easy hike from Rhodes Memorial to Kirstenbosch Gardens, ending in a picnic in the gardens. For this hike you need to take 2 cars (unless you really motivated to hike back). We had taken my boss's car for the weekend, for a test drive after it had been repaired. Just before we arrived at Kirstenbosch, steam started to pour out of the bonnet. Luckily we were close to a garage and managed to get someone to tow the car in.We now had to re-think our hiking plans. Being Cape Town, there is never a shortage of great places to hike and so we settled on good old faithful - Lion's Head.


It was a wonderful walk and we ended by having our picnic on Signal Hill.

We stopped at Bonjour Patisserie (in De Lorentz St, Tamboerskloof) on our way to Lion's Head and bought the best croissants I have ever tasted and a few other heavenly tarts! If you are ever in Tamboerskloof this is a must stop.

I could not help taking this picture of the new stadium. While there might be a lot of controversy surrounding the stadium, it is still very impressive.