Recipe: Summer Seafood Stew

Image: Feastingathome

Since summer is upon us this is a really great recipe to celebrate the sunshine. I made this last night and it was a real hit at home with future husband. It is a very easy, super quick recipe and well worth it! Invite a few friends over and enjoy with a glass of wine...

Ingredients

• chorizo
• 1 tablespoon fennel
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 cup peas
• seafood mix
• 1 tin chopped peeled tomatoes
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 cup dry white wine
• flat leaf parsley to garnish
• salt and pepper
• olive oil

In a large saucepan, brown the chorizo in a little olive oil with the onions. Once its browned, set aside. Pour off the fat, wipe out the saucepan with a paper towel. Add the fennel and tomato paste as well as the stock, add all of the seafood mix and leave to simmer.

Add white wine, chopped tomatoes, fish sauce and peas and turn heat down to medium high, stirring until it mostly evaporates, salt and pepper to taste. 

Finish with a squeeze of a half a lemon and sprinkle generously with flat leaf parsley. I served it with mash but I think something like polenta will also work very well, maybe even large chunks of ciabatta.

Enjoy!

DIY: Spice Rack

This this is a project that I have been wanted to do for months now, and I finally got around to doing it this weekend. All it took was a few scrap pieces of wood I found in my friends garden, a little paint, nails and a hammer. Voila! My very own hand made spice rack! 

"Everyone should create something, and then sit back and say, I did that."

Photography on the Run

I recently rediscovered my love for running. We're pretty lucky that we live on a farm so finding routes to run here is quite endless, I have just been exploring the farms roads for a few weeks but haven't even been through all of them yet. I find that running is something that helps me clear my mind, plan my day and come up with my ideas.

I run with my phone because it has my music on, and I have a really great app that helps me track my distances and times, but the other day while I out on the run the views were just so stunning I had to stop to capture the moment. Because I run on my own its oftentimes difficult to explain how beautiful it so by taking these snapshots atleast I will be able to remember and keep for a long time to come. I call it 'photography on the run', what better way to combine two things that I really enjoy...

Below are just a few of my photos from the past few weeks, there will most definitely be more on the way, if you enjoy it then go have a look on my Instagram page...

Enjoy!

West Coast Roadtrip

Its been very apparent that I have started with a new job as I have hardly been able to find time to even blog! It has been quite a busy few weeks but I was lucky enough to be treated by my fiance with a long weekend getaway to the Weskus for my birthday, happiness!

Our initial plan was to head all the way up to Springbok and see all the flowers on our way up, but we got a bit side tracked and only left late the Saturday so decided to only make our way up to Doringbaai for our first stop. Well, there isn't really much going on there except for it being a small mining town but our stay was pretty great and we stayed almost right on the beach. They have a wine distillery there but just our luck it was closed on that day.

The next day we decided to look along the coast for our next place to stay, we ended up having lunch at Muisbosskerm which is quite a well known open air restaurant where you eat yourself full on seafood all day long! They have open fires where they cook all the fish while you sit on the beach and enjoy your wine. The view was great and the food amazing!

We ended up sleeping in Elandsbaai that night which was also quite an experience, seeing as we hadn't booked anywhere for the night to stay we couldn't afford to be too fussy so when it came to sleeping we were left with the Elandsbaai hotel, not actually so bad, they have very good breakfasts!

We made our way back the last day and stopped in Paternoster for a celebratory birthday lunch. They have the most stunning little houses, it reminds me of a tiny version of Greece in a sense. There are a lot of fisherman and you will definitely be greeted with a whole bunch of them trying to sell kreef.

All in all we didn't see much flowers, but here and there it was very colourful. The Weskus is lovely and traveling the whole way down the coastline was a real treat!

Enjoy!

 

Beautiful Jewelry

Today I'm going to introduce you to a jewelry maker who goes by the name of Dear Rae. I randomly came across her work when I saw her wedding photos on Love Made Visible's website (they are our wedding photographers) happy dance!

Her designs are very simplistic but for me that is what makes them so special, one of my favourite quotes is...

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication"

Her designs are so great to mix and match and wear a whole bunch together at once, and because they are so simple and inspired with very organic shapes they will easily go with other jewelry that you own... Well, thats how i feel personally. 

Do yourself a favour and go have a look at the site, below are a few of my favourites...

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

Pizza & Wine Pairing

This weekend we decided to try something new, we got a group of friends together and headed off to Mulderbosch for a Pizza & Wine Pairing. Not quite the expected norm of mixing wine with cheese is it? But never the less, it is good!

This sounded to me like the best thing ever, I love pizza, and I love my wine, how can this not work? Yet I was a bit skeptical at first thinking that this is just a story for being funny with random combinations and how can so many different flavors bring out the taste of the wine, but my mind was quickly changed. To be clear, I am not a wine expert at all but this was definitely a learning experience for me...

What really made this experience fun was that all of us had different opinions on how the wine worked with the pizza, which was fun to hear all the different views. It's cool because sometimes the combinations have the complete different effect to what you are expecting but that was all part of the fun.

Definitely another thing I would recommend to anyone in the area!

Enjoy!

Our Engagement Shoot

One of the best afternoons ever... And well worth waited for! The weather here in winter is really quite unpredictable so after 2 cancelled shoots finally the weather turned and we had the most stunning day! We had such fun! A huge thank you to welovepictures for the most beautiful photographs! They captured our mood perfectly... young, happy and in love... these are the moments I want to rememeber...