Not Quite Nigella's Buns

Innuendo aside, Easter 2014 asked for spiced honey buns.

These answered, and answered well.

 

Spiced Honey Buns 

(Adapted from Not Quite Nigella's Spiced Honey Buttered Hot Cross Buns)

My version of the recipe contains: 

• no gluten 
• no eggs
• no refined sugar

GF Flour Mix:

• 700ml white rice flour (I use Entice Rice Flour)
• 300ml tapioca flour or potato starch (I use Nature's Choice)

Ingredients for Honey Buns:

• 2 Tbsp instant dried yeast
• 125ml honey (+ extra for honey-butter glaze)
• 375ml buttermilk (warm)
• 4.5 cups gf flour mix (1125ml of flour)
• 5ml salt
• 50g unsalted butter (melted) (+ extra for honey-butter glaze)
• 5ml ground cinnamon
• 2.5ml mixed spices
• 1.5 cups dried raisins or sultanas (preservative free)
• Optional: a few blocks of 55 - 70% dark chocolate

Method:

1. In a bowl, stir the warm buttermilk, honey and yeast together. Set aside to froth for a few minutes.
2. In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt, melted butter, spices, raisins and yeast-buttermilk-honey mixture.
3. Use your hands to press the dough together and cover the bowl with some cling wrap while it rises. 
4. Line a baking sheet with some baking paper and form little bun shapes.
5. Bake the buns in a pre-heated oven of 180 - 200 degrees Celsius for 20 - 30 minutes (depending on the size of the buns).
6. Glaze the buns with melted honey and butter, or try inserting a piece of dark chocolate into the centre of the bun just as it gets out the oven. The result is a spicy honey pan au chocolat wannabe.

P.S. Dogs will want to eat these yummy tasting buns but raisins are SUPER TOXIC for dogs, as they can cause kidney failure! Keep watch over your furry friends around raisins (and grapes) please.

A little soup is good for the soul

As Mike said to Bella in Twilight:

"Hey Arizona, how you likin' the rain, girl?"

The almost constant wet weather is now firmly rooted in the middle of its second week.

I could quote another Twilight gem here, I suppose, as a prelude to this post:

"...Under a near constant cover of clouds and rain..."

We have a high-energy Irish terrier/Irish wolfhound cross, whose wiry fur seems to absorb atmospheric water vapour like a sponge, who doesn't quite know what to do with herself. 

There's been a lot of inside pillow lying with wistful stares towards the garden through the misted up windows interspersed with bouts of wild passage "fetch" sessions to release some of the pent-up energy.

Meego: "Le sigh."

This rather wet Autumnal weather has also led one of the bi-peds in the house to have cravings for soup at the oddest times of day, like, for instance, breakfast time.

Since I have never really been one to quarantine food stuffs to particular times of day (dessert makes a perfectly good breakfast on occasion), soup for breakfast really isn't half bad (at least its healthier than dessert for breakfast).

Enter the magic helping blades of the food processor.

Just bung whatever fresh vegetables and herbs you have in your fridge into the bowl; blitz to the desired consistency; throw in a soup pot; cover with boiled water; add seasoning and 30 - 40 mins later; you have a tasty wet weather cure for whatever grey-sky blahs ail you.

Carrot, green bean, red pepper, Swiss chard, basil, lemon thyme, bay leaf soup
(with a fried egg for Simmy)

Sweet potato, carrot, green bean soup
(with hidden shavings of pecorino cheese melting at the bottom of the bowl)

P.S. Read about China's novel approach to preventing "the seven-year itch" from sinking marriages.

Bryanston Organic Market

• Thursdays and Saturdays from 9:00 to 15:00

• Live music

• Directions

Pagoda-ish stalls...

Trees to sit under and stare at the world...

Lots of different types of munchies, clothes and crafts...

Well-behaved dogs are welcome too...

Recommended:
Masala dosas from Chai's Place (stall 39)...

And some chai too, of course!

Whole lotta trouble...

I had to take time out for a day to reflect on the horrible and surreal event we went through yesterday, and just how insane this country is. How different our realities are here from a lot of people's in terms of safety and security. And how desensitized one becomes in a way just to survive the psychological onslaught of the perception of constant threat of some sort.

If you're out on the roads, it's the threat of hijacking. If you're out walking, it's muggings. If you're in a mall, it's shootouts by gangs of robbers. If you're in your home, it's armed robberies.

Thank God, we got off easy yesterday, but it didn't make it any less scary.

Here's what happened:
Yesterday (Monday) morning, hubby and I had an errand to run fairly early, so we set out and got it done. On the way back, I got a feeling that we should pop in for tea at my parents' house. I called my mom to make sure they were there. She had been napping, as she hadn't been feeling well and my call had woken her up. My dad was out.

We went over anyway and were sitting in the lounge drinking tea when my mom said: "I think I just saw someone in the garden, but it must be my imagination because the dogs haven't responded."
I froze because just as my mom said that, the dogs ran to the backyard and started barking viciously.

I just had the feeling that if there was someone there (which the dogs were clearly telling us there was) and the person(s) were trapped behind the secondary security fence my dad had just recently finished putting up, that we had a limited time to get out of the house and into the car on the sidewalk (which we usually pulled-into my parents driveway). Otherwise, should the intruders make it over the fence and past the dogs, we'd be trapped in the house with our only option being 10111 (which we all know is notoriously dodgey, if the line is even working, you have to ask will the cops respond in time or even at all?)

So hubby grabbed the keys and I grabbed my mom and we ran to the car, storming to the local community policing site to report what we saw. And man, was that a good idea!

By the time we got back to the house, four cars from private security companies and local suburb crime watchers were there to aid us. More arrived as the word spread and we sat on the pavement as they jumped into surrounding houses to check the yard. To cut a long story shorter, they initially couldn't see anything, so they started leaving, and we were shakily going back into the house.

Just then, one of the cars screeched back and said that someone did a perimeter drive-by behind the houses and three guys had just jumped back into my parents' yard, and that there was a bicycle hanging over my parents' neighbour's fence. I freaked and went screaming into the house to fetch my mom back out, while all the cars arrived back out front again.

Brave guys with guns again jumped over the walls and managed to apprehend one of the guys in the other neighbour's yard. They handcuffed him and called the cops. A while later, another thief was apprehended a few houses down, which was discovered to have been broken into and ransacked (thus, they were systematically working there way over the walls house-to-house).

The Police arrived with sirens blaring about twenty minutes later to arrest them and take in the bicycle as evidence. It was then that my mom registered that the guy she had seen was wearing a blue and white shirt, and none of the guys already apprehended were wearing that colour.

The Police and community forum fanned out and, miraculously, managed to apprehend the third guy.

To say that we were grateful for a sucessful outcome to this in the understatement of the century. For those of us living in SA, we know the horror stories in the media and, for many, personally experienced.

My parents were burgled last year; my dad has been robbed at an ATM; my brother has been held-up, with a gun stuck into his face, while out training for the Comrades marathon; my mom went through an attempted smash-and-grab; and I went through an attempted hijacking. I believe that God protected us through all of these things and I definitely believe in guardian angels!

So, shaken and freaked-out, we returned to the house where we retold the story, had a cup of tea and continued on with the business of living (surviving) in SA, grateful for the happy conclusion to the morning's (yes, mid-morning) events.

The height of irony? Just that morning I had bought a book:
"The art of happiness in a troubled world" (by H.H. The Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler).

Troubled doesn't even begin to describe the state our nation and our world is in. But in the interminable words of Gladys Knight and The Pips:

"I've really got to use my imagination
To think of good reasons to keep on, keepin' on
Got to make the best of a bad situation..."

Amen to that, Ms. Knight!