Tanya's Blog

A porcupine (picture courtesy of wikipedia).

Usual story, went to the loo at some really early hour of the morning, got into bed and the noises started. Peaked through a gap in the curtain, nothing. Got back into bed, hubby kind of came to, I mention the monster’s back, he grunts and goes back to sleep again. Heard another grunt, only this time it wasn’t hubby – peered through the curtain again, wiped the dew off the window, there goes Spikey on his next pitstop (well he has to have a name, can’t keep calling him Monster).  They almost make a barking kind of noise, something between a grunt and a bark, he obviously figured there wasn’t much to be had under the house and waddled off.  Noisy blighter.  Suffice to say I didn’t get much sleep after that.

As an aside, saw a banner at the bottom of Ou Kaapse Weg – “I love you Helene” – wonder what he did wrong :)

I cooked. Now I could leave the post just like that, those two little words – after all, what more is there to say?  I’m pretty sure those two little words strike a modicum of fear into W whenever I utter them, anyway I have decided to follow the trend and blog my recipe.  After all there have to be other people out there like me, culinarily (sic) challenged who would like an easy to follow, hard to really screw up recipe.

Goes something like this:

Decide you’re gatvol of stripping paint off bedroom cupboard doors (damn those doors have a lot of paint on them) and ask your hubby the leading question, does he *really* need you to be at the house when he works, feel guilty and offer to organise supper. Suggest a quickfix supper, already cooked roast chicken, veggies and bought gravy.  Feel guilty all over again for trying to take the easy way out, rack brain on drive home for a ‘Honey, I cooked it myself’ recipe, realise that your world famous macaroni and cheese has been overworked, and go for your slightly less world famous cottage pie.

Buy some essential ingredients:

1 tin tomato/onion mix (African style)

500 g extra lean beef mince

Brown the mince (oh forgot to mention you need potatoes and one turnip), whilst mince is browning in the pan peel the potatoes and turnip taking time to stir the mince so it doesn’t go from browned, to burnt.  Add tin of tomato mix (also forgot to mention the 200 ml’s of water and half a packet of instant ‘add 500 g of mince to this packet for a fantastic meal’ mix) add the stuff mentioned in the brackets.  Realise you actually have rather too much liquid and leave it to boil off while you burn a dvd.  You also need to put the potatoes and turnip on to boil for mash.  Taste the bubbling mince, reckon it isn’t too bad but lacks a certain something. When in doubt take hubby’s lead and add curry powder (he adds it to almost everything!).  Reckon the 3 tbs recommended on the back of the box might be a bit much and add 1 tsp.  Take a taste, grab a bottle of drink from the fridge and dowse the fire in your mouth (chastise yourself for not stirring the powder in well enough). Add what looks like enough frozen veggie for two people and stir.  Check on the dvd burning, realise mince is actually burning and switch stove off. Prod potatoes, not quite cooked yet.  Taste mince again, figure it still lacks something. Fall back on own tried and trusted addition, Mrs Ball’s Chutney – stir, taste. Reckon it will have to do.  Prod potatoes again, done.  Make Tanya’s world renowned mash potato, carefully spread it over the mince and wait patiently for vict… um hubby to come home.