A blue headed
agama lizard (bloukop koggelmander) basking in the sun
Hemel
and Aarde for lunch and a little wine tasting
To get the
whole story with photographs, please click on the
paragraph title, which
will lead you there. At the end of each story, click on RETURN TO MENU to come back to MENU.
Relaxing at Wildekrans We had a
lovely weekend away re-discovering the Bot River valley. We were invited to come
and stay at Wildekrans by owner Amanda Harlow when we met her and farm
manager/viticulturist Braam Gericke last year at the Green Wine Awards. They received
the Best Farming Practice Award, Leadership in Community Development and for
Best Value IPW for their 2015 Sauvignon Blanc. With busy schedules and lots of
overseas visitors this year, it took a while before we could take up the
invitation, but we had a lovely weekend staying in their cottages Read on to see the farm
Bottles and seafood in Botrivier As
we were in Botrivier, we thought we would visit some of our wine friends in the
area. We had just received an email from Beaumont telling us about their new
releases and we had been meaning to visit Penny and Niels Verburg at Luddite
for ages. Appointments were made during the week and off we set on Saturday
morning. Lunch was to be at Manny’s 'on the plein' in Botrivier - a Portuguese
restaurant with great sea food, we were told More here, with photos
Off to Hemel and Aarde for lunch and a little wine
tasting We checked out of Wildekrans on Sunday
morning and had intended to visit Barton, a farm which we have wanted to visit
for a long time, but we have never managed to be there at the right time. They are
on the road just outside Botrivier, but we discovered that they are closed on
Sundays. So off we went to visit Benguela Cove. They had invited us to their new
wine release event a couple of weeks before, but we were unable to attend. So,
where better to go on a Sunday morning. Then, still being early for our lunch
booking at The Restaurant at Newton Johnson, we made a call at La Vierge. It
was an expensive weekend, we bought wine at four farms. The lunch which
followed was superb. Read on to see the places and the food
Please drive safely When
we left Wildekrans on Saturday morning, heading for the Hermanus market, we
came past one of the worst traffic accidents we have ever seen. Horrendous and
shocking. Please do be careful on our roads, you never know when your life may
change disastrously. Courtesy and politeness may save lives, dangerous speed
and impatience won’t
This week's Recipe This
makes a very large pie for a celebration dinner or party. You can halve the
recipe to make a family pie. Please try to use real spinach, it gives the right
flavour. You could use Swiss Chard if you like but leave out the thick stems.
You will need to cook it first and drain it well then chop it very fine. The
secret of this pie is the well drained spinach. If you have any filo left at
the end, you can refreeze it safely.
1 to 2 T extra virgin olive oil - 1 large
onion - 2 garlic cloves - 825g frozen spinach (NOT creamed), defrosted and
drained of all water - 3 T fresh dill, chopped - 1 teaspoon oregano, fresh or
dried or a mix of both – 1½ tablespoons fresh lemon juice - Zest of one lemon -
350g feta, crumbled - 150g ricotta cheese - 6 eggs, lightly beaten - 1 box
frozen filo pastry, defrosted - 1 cup of melted butter - salt and freshly
ground black pepper - optional: nutmeg
Make sure your spinach is defrosted and well drained,
press out any residual moisture, you might like to start this about an hour
before you use it
Set your oven to 180 ⁰C. You will need a large round
pan or dish approximately 30 cm across and 5 cm deep. Butter it well. Finely chop
the onion and garlic and fry in some of the olive oil until soft, but not
browned. Cool slightly. In a large bowl add the onion mixture and stir in the
spinach, dill, oregano, lemon juice and zest. Then add the beaten eggs, and
both the cheeses. Mix well so that everything is incorporated. Season well with
salt and freshly ground black pepper. You can add a good scraping of nutmeg
which goes so well with the spinach, if you like.
Now to assemble the pie. Open your box of filo and roll out the filo. Cover it with a damp but not wet tea towel to prevent it cracking. Remove one sheet and, using a pastry brush, cover it all over one side with melted butter. Lay it in the pan, buttered side up, with the edges hanging over the sides. Do another sheet but lay it at about a 50° angle across the tin so that you have full coverage, and do the same with the next sheets. Do this until you have a layer of five sheets of filo. Carefully pour the spinach mixture into the pan. Now cover the top with another five sheets of buttered filo, laid in a wheel. Then pull up all the ragged edges and lay them on top of the pie in a fairly jumbled loose mess. Take another sheet of buttered filo and rumple it up and put into the centre of the pie, so that you have lots of edges to crisp up. Dot the top of the pie with any remaining melted butter. Put into the oven and bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until the filo is nice and crisp and golden on top. Serve in slices, hot or cool
Spinach
is not very good with wine, as it can taste a little metallic. However any full
ripe wines like a good crisp Chenin Blanc with a little bottle age and some
wood work well with this and the cheese. For special occasions we love the
zesty and full elegance of the Ken Forrester FMC (Officially Forrester Meinert
Chenin, but Ken refers to it as EFF..ing Marvellous Chenin) with its layers of
fruit which sing on your palate. Current vintage is 2013 and it sells for R449
a bottle from the farm, For everyday
drinking, have a look at another favourite which has similarities, Ken's Old
Vine Reserve Chenin Blanc 2015, R110 on the farm.
Food Fact: Do you know what this kitchen implement is for?
Spear half an onion with it, and cut between the spokes and then across for
perfectly cut onion in half the time, and no cut fingers. You can also just
make slices.
We are going to be at the Pinotage and
Biltong festival, which will
take place over the weekend of the 16th and 17th of April on L'Avenir Estate in
Stellenbosch. Book your tickets now, they are selling fast. It’s a great
festival with some really good Pinotages which will be paired with Joubert and
Monty's biltong.
The Wolftrap Steakhouse Championships During
the month of April anyone can vote for their favourite steakhouse, via Facebook
and SMS, and stand a chance to win fabulous prizes of The Wolftrap wines.
So please cast YOUR vote, and please spread the news
to get the public voting like crazy, via www.facebook.com/SteakHunter
and SMS 32845
7th April 2016
PS If a word or name is in bold type and underlined,
click on it for more information
Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656
4169
Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005
Our Adamastor
& Bacchus© tailor-made Wine, Food and Photo tours take
small groups (up to 6) to specialist wine producers who make the best of South
Africa’s wines. Have fun while you learn more about wine and how it is made!
Tours can be conducted in English, German, Norwegian and standard or Dutch-flavoured
Afrikaans.
If you like the photographs you see in our publications,
please look at our Adamastor
Photo website for our
rate card and samples from our portfolio
Recommendations of products and outside events are not
solicited or charged for, and are made at the
authors’ pleasure. All photographs,
recipes and text used in these newsletters and our
blogs are © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus.
Our restaurant reviews are usually unsolicited. We prefer to pay for our meals
and not be paid in any way by anyone. Whether we are invited or go
independently, we don’t feel bad if we say we didn’t like it. Honesty is indeed
our best policy. While every effort is made to avoid mistakes, we are human and
they do creep in occasionally, for which we apologise. Our Avast! ®
Anti-Virus software is updated at least daily and our system is scanned
continually for viruses.
This
electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed
to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded
it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person
or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes. We own
our mailing software and keep our mailing list strictly confidential. If you
wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here to send us a message and if
you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please click here to send us a message.
No comments:
Post a Comment