2016 - November

2016 November 28

Pringles chips.  Paging through a new Fresh Living magazine (Pick ‘n Pay’s magazine) I saw the advert for Pringles ... a sweet version!  Butter Caramel.  Sweet Cheese.  I started to search for these goodies.  Nu uh.  One Pick ‘n Pay after the other.  Hypermarket.  Other big Pick ‘n Pay stores.  Nada!  They look at me like ... huh???  Then I show them ... it’s in your magazine!!!!!!!!!   

At Montecasino there’s that sweet shop ‘Candylicious’ with all imported goodies.  I saw a Honey Mustard tube of Pringles there ... R75!!!!  

 

No thanks.  I’m not that curious over chippies.  Anyway, one day I was walking the aisles in our Summerfields Pick ‘n Pay and STOP THE CHIPPIE!!!!  There they were!!!  And sommer on a special ... R16/tube!  I bought quite a few tubes ... meh.  They were quite nice.  A bit weird for most people, but something different.

ALMOND M&M’s.   Last month my hairstylist Chantal was talking about Almond M&M sweeties.  And how her dad brought her this bag from Aussie. And she really loved it!!!!  The same day that we browsed the Candylicious shop (Montecasino), I saw the Almond M&M’s and they were R45 a small bag.  But I didn’t buy any.  A week later I was in Belair Spar and since they also have a few shelves with important goodies, I just walked past, scanned the stuff for something interesting and wow.... there they were again ... Almond M&M’s.  The bag’s colour is cream.  Also just over R40, so I bought it.  Yeah, it’s real good!

Cruise the Vaal river.  A few weeks ago we visited the Riviera Hotel on Vaal for breakfast.  A scanner caught my eye ... one hour boat trips.  (http://sedibengster.com/8578/aqua-lounge-is-the-newest-vaal-river-cruiser/)  (Think it was R100/person or there abouts).  Bought the tickets and stepped on board early, cause I wanted to make sure I’m sitting in the shade.  It’s a lovely boat with comfy patio seating.  The owners battled with the music speakers (why do you need music on a riverboat anyway??) and their drinks weren’t cold (cause the hotel’s fridges didn’t work ... what a load of bull!)  Anyway, it was a lovely drive down the river and back.

Blue cheese sauce.  Feeling like braaiing a steak, Hein asked for a blue cheese sauce with it.  Now normally I make a plain white sauce (butter, flour, milk) and add the blue cheese.  But this time, I just didn’t feel like doing it ... so I thought ... what about plain yogurt.  I started off with a triangle of blue cheese and 125 ml plain yogurt and heated it on the stove.  Tasted and then add another 125 ml plain yogurt.  Well, it’s just soooo yummy!!!!

Sporks.  Do you know what it is?  A fork and spoon.  Mostly for camping, they are lightweight plastic fork-spoon ‘thingies’.  Browsing through shops in Clearwater Mall, for some reason I walked into Cape Union Mart.  The sporks were in packets of 3 and on sale for R20/packet.  

Each spork was a different pastel colour.  I bought 2 packets of sporks and 2 sachets of hot chocolate.  At the till, the black lady asked me:  “are you going camping?”  Hahahahahahahahaha.  I looked at her disgustedly and said:  “Nooooooooo.  I’m going to drill a hole in these and use them as earrings.”  They came out perfectly! I gave a pair to my funky friend Cathy and when we wear these ‘sporks’, people stare.

Cruffin. 

A croissant muffin.  Last week Hein dropped me at Brooklyn Mall and goodness ... what a big mall it is!  I entered at the Ster Kinekor side, walked past this lovely coffee shop Lucky Bread Company

and stopped dead ... and looked ... what is that???  I think they take the croissant dough and roll it and bake it in a muffin pan, cause it’s round and tall. 

It’s not too sweet, is covered with sugar on the outside and topped with strawberry jam.  It really is something delicious!!!  Yes, I had one.  After I walked up and down the mall.

Raspberry muffins.  I always make Snowflake Easymix Bran muffins with dried cranberries and raisins.  But at our Virgin Active Randburg, there’s a Kauai shop and sometimes you walk in and smell berries.  Asking them what it was, they said raspberries, but I think they’re confused.  Am pretty sure it’s blueberries.  I found out later that they use blueberry protein powder ... that's what you smell.

I wanted to try it.  So I bought a 400 g packet of frozen raspberries (why on earth not blueberries, I can't tell you!) at Woolworths.  And folded it into my bran muffin mix with oil, egg and milk.  Baked it and tasted it.  Uggghhhhh.  Sooooooooo not to my liking!!!!  Okay, so I firstly added too much raspberries.  But also ... raspberries have these weird ‘wet’ taste.  I didn’t even give the muffins to someone on the street ... I threw them out.  Saturday at our aqua xmas party, someone had fresh fruit on skewers.  It was lovely and fresh and had a fresh raspberry ... nope.  I’m soooo over raspberries now!  Thank you very much.

Ironing.  When our microwave broke (again) about a year ago, we decided to make do with the stove top.  For me, as a HUGE microwave lover, it was an adjustment, but honestly, not too bad.  It’s just not so quick to boil milk anymore.   So Tuesday I was busy ironing shirts and I smelled smoke.  I saw some came out of the steam iron and unplugged it.  But that was it.  Iron was kaput.  Now this (and my washing machine and my food processor) I CANNOT live without!!!!  Luckily Hein got me a new one from Makro and now I’m ironing away.

Black Friday.   Did you buy anything on Black Friday?  I heard it was a madhouse!  People standing in queues, etc.  

Thursday 24 November 2016

Thursday morning 4h45 am we drove down to Pietermaritzburg. 

Tea garden Pietermaritzburg Natal.  While in Pietermaritzburg on Thursday, I met up with another funky friend Cora for lunch.  She picked me up and said we’re going somewhere.  Well.  Tea on 23 is absolutely a must visit!!!!!!!!  

 

It’s a delightful tea garden.  We were really lucky to meet Kevin, the peacock.  (Apparently Kevin has breeding feathers and make loud noises, so had to be put in a cage to not disturb the neighbors.)  But Thursday Kevin was walking about in all his splendor.  There were also a few chickens scratching around.  We chose a table on the patio.  Cora ordered the apple and pecan pie with ice cream.  

It looked really good and had gold glitter on the pastry crust.  My choice was from the breakfast menu ... baby marrow and mint fritters, served with bacon strips and poached egg.  

Woohoo ... this is my kind of food.  Different and soooooo yummy!!!!!!!  So if you’re in the area, do pop into this tea garden.   https://www.facebook.com/teaon23/?fref=ts

Friday 25 November 2016

Friday morning 6h30 am we drove back to Gauteng.  Luckily I’ve noticed a Wimpy special earlier the week, so at Villiers Petrol Stop we ordered these burgers.... 2 x cheese and bacon burgers with chips – R65.  Bargain. 

‘Fluit fluit my storie is uit.’  (Whistle whistle the story is done.)