Crunchy coleslaw

Every year on Boxing day, we have a brunch for my Love's friends at my in-laws home. This has been a tradition for over 20 years now. It started out with just my Love's friends, but through the years their girlfriends, later wives and later kids joined the brunch too. So nowadays my parents-in-law host for some 28 people. And every year we come up with a theme for the brunch. From Italian to Indian...Every year we try to come up with fun things to make for this brunch. Last year though we had to cancel the Boxing day brunch to illnesses of the hosting couple. So...last weekend we had a belated Christmas brunch for 20+ folks. The theme? American! So pancakes, brownies, cheesecake, carrot cake, bagels with cream cheese and ham or chicken, mini triffles, mini burgers and...coleslaw.
 
Now this coleslaw is not much work WHEN you have a kitchen machine which grates and thinly slices. If you don't have one of those.... you better get your knife skills refreshed and get cutting.



This is how I made it.

1 white cabbage
1 large carrot
2 red onions
4 crunchy and firm apples
 

for the dressing
mayonnaise
yogurt
white wine vinegar
honey
chopped parsley
salt & pepper
 
Have your kitchen machine ready with the thin slicer part. Now cut up the cabbage so it fits the feeder and get slicing. Take a large bowl and add the sliced cabbage in there. Slice the red onions in the same way and ad to the bowl. Change the cutting device of your kitchen machine into the fine grater and grate the carrot. Add to the bowl of cabbage. Do the same with the apples. Now quickly mix it all up with your hands making sure that all slices and grated parts are nicely loosened.
 
For the dressing mix equal parts of mayonnaise with yogurt. Add the vinegar to taste, making sure the end result is a bit more sour than you normally would like. The vinegar breaks down the toughness of the cabbage. Now add honey, plenty of salt and pepper and parsley to taste. Stir thoroughly and dress the coleslaw with it. Don't let it soak in the dressing though. Just dress it enough so every little piece is coated with some dressing.
 
Serve with some grilled burgers and fries. 

The quickest homebaked cookies ever!

These cookies take no time at all to make! Just 10 minutes in the oven and a few minutes to let them cool a bit. So if you have these sudden urges for cookies, like I have every once a while... get baking!! 

125 grams margarine
125 grams of white sugar
200 grams (wheat) flour
1 packet of vanilla sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder

 
Instead of 200 grams (wheat) flour and 1 teaspoon of baking powder and 200 grams of self-raising flour can also be used.

Use another 125 grams of white or brown caster sugar instead of the white sugar. The cookies will taste slightly different,  but still very tasty.

Let the margarine melt in a saucepan just until it is slightly brown and all melted. Take the pan from the heat and let the butter cool a bit.
Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Now put all ingredients in a bowl. Knead by hand or with a mixer with dough hooks. Form small balls of dough. The balls should be about 1.5 to 2 inches diameter. 

Place the dough balls on a baking tray lined with baking paper. It is not necessary to flatten the balls, because the biscuits will naturally flatten out in the hot oven. Bake for 10 minutes (until the edges just begin to brown). No longer, otherwise they will become too hard when they have cooled. Let them cool a bit on a rack before indulging yourself with these yummie cookies.

Enjoy with a cuppa tea or coffee!

 

Asian tuna salad

This Asian tuna salad is always a hit in our house when having people over. It's perfect to serve on a piece of grilled toast or just as a spread on a sandwich.

1 can of tuna
red onion finely chopped a handful of coreander leaves chopped a heap table spoon of roasted sesame seeds wasabi paste to taste mayonnaise to taste 1-2 table spoons of rice vinegar salt and pepper

 

Drain the tuna in a sieve making sure all the oil or water from the can has been drained well. Meanwhile take a bowl and put in the chopped onions, chopped coriander leaves and the roasted sesame seeds. Take another bowl and add about 4 table spoons of mayonnaise. In a small bowl mix some wasabi with a tiny bit of water to loosen it up a bit. This will help mix the wasabi into the mayonnaise more smoothly. Now mix the mayonnaise and wasabi together with some rice vinegar. Just add the wasabi to taste. If you like it hot, put in some more, if you rather like a subtile flavour in the background, us a tiny bit.

Once the tuna has drained well, just take flakes of it and put in the bowl with the onion mixture. Mix it all together. Season with salt and pepper. Then add the wasabi mayonnaise to the tuna mix making it a smooth, but not overdressed substance. Taste and if needed adjust the flavouring to your taste.

 

This Asian tuna salad will keep up to 3 days in the refrigerator.

 

ENJOY!

 

 

 

 

 

puffed cereal bars

These puffed cereal bars are so easy to make. It took me less than 15 minutes to get the whole thing done and have it in the fridge to cool.

1/4 of a cup of butter
4 cups of (mini) marshmallows
5 cups of puffed cereals flavour to your liking.

Melt the butter in a pan on a slow heat. Once melted, add the mini marshmallows or the chopped marshmallows. Keep stirring it continuously until the marshmallows have dissolved into the butter and are mixed through. Now let it all simmer for a minute and take of the heat. Add the cereal and stir it all in well making sure that all the bits are coated with the marshmallow mixture.

Now have a baking tray ready which is lined with a non stick baking sheet. Put the cereal mixture into the baking tray and spread it out evenly with an buttered spatula making sure the mixture is evenly spread out and thick.

Put in the fridge to cool. After about an hour take it out and cut it in to squares or bars of about an inch thick.