This is such a quick and easy recipe that one can hardly call it a recipe. But what it absolutely is, is deeelicious.

This dish is always a surprise to people as most people don’t associate cucumber within a cooked meal. But every single person who has tried this (and I know many a picky eater) just loves it. And to top it all, it’s so quick and easy to prepare, you’ll be a hero without any effort at all!

(Tuna Recipe at end)
We met Annie and Mark and their amazing children, Ashleigh and Murray, in France 16 years ago, and we’ve been friends ever since. Or they can’t seem to get rid of us could be the other way of putting it. Moving from Johannesburg (where we visited them) to Cape Town (where we visited them) in the middle of a cold and dark night, also didn’t help them…

My very good friend, Nynke, asked me for this recipe about, ooh, a month and a half ago…sorry Nynke! I’ve been meaning to write about it for years as it is truly deelicious and easy to boot, and I still haven’t managed to do it, sigh. But today is the day! Hopefully Nynke hasn’t given up on me just yet! I have no photos of the lamb, but of the lovely Nynke and her cat!

My mate Anja (her blog is called reisenundspeisen.com for German speakers) loaned me her South African cookbook so I could get homeland feelings. And it worked! There was a recipe for Guinea fowl maafe, but I had never heard of the word or the dish. If you have, let me know please!

Bobotie is South Africa’s national dish and I never tire of it. I have put some of my own little twists to it, but the basic recipe is the traditional one. We had the deevine Rob and another new friend Guel for dinner a couple of days (make that months!) ago and they were a little worried about what to expect, but enjoyed it so much they have asked for the recipe. Thank you for the complement! So here it is!

(Today’s recipe: Mão de Vaca com Grão, or Cows Hoof with Chickpeas)

I love languages and the fun one can have with them. When we asked our lovely waitress what the daily lunch special was, she said, “it’s Hand of Cow”. At first I thought I’d misheard, but no, we were having either Hand of Cow or something that was like cuttlefish, but not cuttlefish. We’ll have one of each, I bravely said.

I saw this recipe from Rachel Allen in the Sunday Times Magazine and have adapted it to suit us. Her original version is no doubt super, but I wanted a one-pot meal. She roasts the butternut in the oven first, something that is always good, so give it a try that way too.

The name of this dish means: The Iman fainted. Why did the Iman faint, one asks? Well, there are 2 theories for this. The first one says that he fainted because the meal was so spectacular that he fainted at the sheer pleasure of it. I quite agree with him.

I adore spicy food and when I worked as a rep in the restaurant industry a hundred years ago, I used to have ½ a extra hot peri peri chicken for breakfast on Thursdays when I visited Nandos in Sea Point. It's the perfect way to start the day if you ask me.