Time for this week’s recipe challenge… are you ready for it?

I made it last night and it is DELICIOUS. Absolutely yummy, and it only took about 25 minutes to make. My kind of dish!

Here goes… Enjoy!

Parmesan fish with avocado and watercress salad:

* Salt and milled pepper
* 4 (150-200g each) sustainable fish fillets, sliced into fat fingers
* Juice of ½ lemon, (about 2 Tbsp)
* ½ cup (125ml) breadcrumbs
* ¼ cup (60ml) grated parmesan
* Olive oil

Salad:
* Juice and grated peel of ½ lemon (about 2 Tbsp)
* 2 Tbsp (30ml) olive oil
* 2 tsp (10ml) PnP fresh basil paste
* 2 packets (30g each) watercress
* 2 avocados, cut into wedges

Serves 4

Preheat oven to 240°C.
Season fish and drizzle with lemon juice. Place on a baking tray.
Mix breadcrumbs, parmesan and a glug of oil together.
Spoon over fish and press down lightly to form a crust.
Bake fish for 10 minutes or until cooked through.

Salad: Mix lemon juice and peel, olive oil and basil paste together and season well.
Toss watercress and avocado in dressing and serve with fish.
Enjoy!!

(PS: If you want it in less irritating form, just buy this month’s Fresh Living magazine… Which you should be buying anyway, because it’s only like the best magazine in South Africa. And because I work for them.)

So I realised yesterday that even though I’m halfway through this challenge, I haven’t given anything to my man yet… Or my family, actually. I think sometimes when people are very close to you it’s easy to take them for granted a bit.

So I decided, today, to rectify that. My language of love is gifts (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, check this out – I’ve spoken about the 5 love languages before) which is why this challenge appealed to me so much. But my man’s language of love is affection… I often think it’s an easier language to have, because when someone loves you they’ll obviously be affectionate. When you open your arms for a hug, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get one.

But just as a gift doesn’t mean as much when you have to ask for it, affection doesn’t mean as much when you have to ask for it either. So yesterday evening I made a conscious effort to be as affectionate as possible – to step out of my circle of ‘this is me on a Friday night, watching a DVD, eating (yummy) naan bread’ and give him extra hugs and kisses. And don’t you know, he was in the best mood by the end of the evening.

I think it’s something I’m going to do more.

PS: Had to improvise a little with the picture, but these toys are on his desk and they kind of look like they’re hugging, don’t they?

Raise your hand if you loved the movie Julie and Julia. Really, who didn’t?

We watched it while we were away and it awoke in me a deep desire to cook. Not just to cook boring old regulars (which is what I’ve always done), but to cook wonderful, inspiring, deeply delicious meals. I mentioned before that part of my new job is going to be testing out recipes every week, sort of a Recipe of the Week Challenge. But the blog is taking toooo long to get off the ground, so I’ve resorted to using Facebook to share recipes. And here, of course!

Today is the first day of this cooking challenge, and I wanted to mention a little of why I love to cook… It’s only a recent love, so I’m still learning how it makes me feel and the various pleasures it brings me, but here are a few:

* I love that I can put together raw ingredients, and come out with something warm and tasty, that didn’t exist before.

* I love that when I come home from work and my head is all full of computers and To Do Lists and planning, I can focus solely on the food – on chopping the leeks and stirring the soup – and that moment is all that exists.

* I love that the more you cook, the better at it you get. This might sound obvious, but it’s a confidence thing. Right now I’m not attempting anything too difficult, but I can already tell that I’ll be able to do quite tricky things in the not-too-distant future.

* And lastly, I love that it results in food, and eating. Because really, what greater joy is there than a homecooked meal shared with someone you love? I can’t think of one right now…

So join me! If you please. This week’s recipe is for Broccoli and Cheddar Soup – mine is bubbling on the stove at the moment. It’s really easy to make, and actually pretty good for you (it uses a whole lot of broccoli). Directions below.

I’ll post my photo of it tomorrow – please feel free to comment and post pics of your soup too!

Broccoli and Cheddar Soup

Ingredients:
• 2 leeks, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• Oil, for frying
• 4 cups broccoli florets
• 2 cups (500ml) chicken stock
• 1 cup (250ml) low-fat milk
• 1½ cups (375ml) grated cheddar

Serves 4
Fry leeks and garlic in oil until soft.
Add broccoli, stock and milk.
Bring to the boil. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes or until broccoli is tender.
Add cheese and mix well.
Blitz until smooth using a stick blender.

Photo from Fresh Living magazine.

It’s my BIRTHDAY on Saturday! And although I am turning all of 28 and should have grown out of such things, I am counting. down. the days. I absolutely love birthdays. Everything about them – celebrating, eating cake, being spoilt, presents (those above all).

But this year, in the spirit of growing older and (one hopes) wiser, I want to spread the birthday love a little further than just sitting back and waiting to receive gifts. I want a challenge.

So when I heard about 29 gifts, 29 days I was excited. Very excited. My mom told me about it, and the idea is that for 29 days you give a gift a day. They don’t have to be expensive (or even bought), they can be small and thoughtful, or homemade, or simply a kind word or an unexpected phonecall. The whole point is that you’re giving something to someone else every day. Making someone’s day, every day for 29 days! I love it.

I’m starting tomorrow, the 1st of July 2010, and as an added incentive to do one a day and not cheat and do five in one day (which, let’s be honest, sounds pretty tempting from here), I’m going to take a photo of each gift, or a representation of each gift, and post it right here, on this blog.

Find out more about the idea, here: http://www.29gifts.org/

Join me in my mission by commenting (and committing) below.

Let’s do it!

Another reason I’ve been so quiet on the bloggy front lately (aside from, oh, I don’t know, one of the greatest sporting tournaments EVER being held in my country) is that I’m spreading my bloggy wings.

You’ll now find me, once a week, over at Travelstart Street, writing about a few of my favourite things (because blogging is one of those favourites, don’t you know). And remember Just the Planet? The lovely folks who made sure my man and I didn’t sleep in airports while we were travelling all over the world? I’ll be blogging from there, too, about Cape Town and travel and some beyootiful places to spend the night.

So head on over to Travelstart Street – http://www.travelstart.com/street/
And the Just the Planet blog – http://blog.justtheplanet.com/
if you’re in the mood for something a little different.

Never fear, though, with my birthday fast approaching (one week today wooohoooo!) I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and unknotting a couple of thoughts I’d like to chat to you about… For now, though, I have a stew bubbling on the stove, a man in need of one big hug (he doesn’t know it yet, but he needs it) and another soccer game to watch!

Have you been following the World Cup at all? Or is it just me who feels as if life now revolves around the results of two teams of strangers trying to shoot a ball into a net?

I was looking through some blog archives the other day (as you do), and I realised that so much of what I’ve already written, I could really do with reading again. Isn’t that funny? I think what happens is that I get a *bolt of inspiration* and then I write it down, quickly, before it disappears, and then it slowly fades out of mind. So I’m starting a new kind of blog post: Memory Lane Monday.

Each week, on a Monday, I’ll post something from ages ago that I feel I could do with learning again. Okay? Here goes!

Under pressure?

February 20th, 2008

How about heading over to FLOW (For Love of Water) and making the FLOW Promise:

It couldn’t be easier – just click through to http://forloveofwater.co.za/promise/ and write your name, make the promise and tell others how you’re acting for your love of water (there are no wrong answers, I promise).

Our bodies are over 70% water. Maybe it’s time we started thinking about that…

What do you think?

I just want to share a little realization I’ve stumbled on in the last couple of days…

I wish I could claim it as my own, but in fact it’s from Abraham-Hicks, my favourite wisdom-givers. You might remember me writing about their upstream-downstream philosophy last year? This year their analogy of choice is the vortex, and how when we’re in the vortex we’re turned on, tuned in, and effective. Out of the vortex? Nothing really seems to go our way. Slightly headachey, a bit sluggish, a case of the grumps (that’s my interpretation, anyway). In any given day we’ll hop in and out of the vortex, we’ll swim up and downstream.

This I kind of understood.
What I didn’t understand was the power implicit in this understanding. That if you begin each day with a conscious intention to stay in the vortex, a conscious desire to spend as much of the day going downstream as possible, things just flow…

And here’s why this blew my hair back:
If you start your day and you’re feeling okay (not great, not bad, pretty middle of the road), it’s much harder to tell when you’re going upstream, when you’ve slipped out of the vortex. You might feel a little irritable or slightly bleegh, but it doesn’t feel that different to how you felt at the start of the day, so it’s harder to tell when you’re shooting yourself in the foot (till it hurts, that is). Whereas if every day is a conscious exercise in constantly turning downstream, you’ll notice, acutely, when you’re headed in the wrong direction. It feels awful.

Start the day in a free flowing way, and you can’t help but notice when your feet are stuck in the mud.
Don’t believe me? Give it a go tomorrow and see how it feels… You might be surprised. I certainly was.

Photo: redeye

You HAVE to go to the Skinny Laminx Sale.
There’s just no two ways about it.

I was lucky enough to get a sneak preview at lunchtime today, and let me tell you, it is a TREASURE TROVE! So many wonderful things, all close to half price!
Mugs and keyrings and fabric and bags o’ scraps (yes please, I’ll take three) and wall decals and tea towels and aprons and cushions and napkins and bags and badges, oh my!

For those out of the know, Skinny Laminx is the incredibly talented Heather Moore, a Capetonian designer who makes THE most beautiful printed fabric wonders, as well as other assorted marvelous knicky knacks.

She’s about to go to New York for 6 weeks for an artsy sabbatical with her husband, so she’s selling off all her old stock, for one day only, at realllly cheap prices.

Technically it’s supposed to be slightly damaged, but I didn’t even notice, I was too giddy with delight at all the treasures on offer.

The sale starts tomorrow at 9am.
Go on time.
Go with twice as much cash as you think you need.
Go with a large empty bag.
Don’t go with a friend – you won’t want to share!

Here’s the invite. Now GO!

At last! Photos from the adventure.

I know I was pretty bad at posting any pics while we were travelling around South-East Asia and South America (blame it on too much to blog, tweet and vlog about), but I finally have some images to show you!

Oh happy day.

My man has posted photo sets from all the hotels we were lucky enough to review (in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, with more to follow). You won’t find many candid shots (those will take a leetle bit longer to process), but consider this a taste of what’s to come.
They are absolutely stunning.

And I’m not just saying that because I’m in love with him.
These are some seriously beautiful pics.
Check them out at www.markpeddle.com (really, go now, they’re so beautiful).

But be warned! You might not want to be my friend any more when you see all the incredible places we stayed at…

Photo: Mark Peddle