food adventure: vegetarian chilli

I'm a veg. Not like literally a vegetable. Duh. But I eat fish and other seafood. A vegaquarian. Actually a pescatarian.

It's part of my overall hippy aesthetic (which is at total odds with my day job and my left brain default setting from years at Boot Camp for Kids - but more about that in another post). I'm always looking for tasty veg recipes - mostly to get my hubby to eat less meat and come over to the fun side. Where all the veg hippies are. This recipe is totes amaze. It is tasty and spicy (without the need for ice cold loo roll) and nutritious. The recipe is mostly from this book.

Ingredients:
Enough oil to fry 1 finely chopped onion (I use red onions, they have a sweeter taste)
1 clove of garlic
2 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ground coriander/dhania
1 tsp ground cinnamon (do NOT put more in, it's rather overpowering)
1 tsp chilli powder
1 can chopped tomatoes
375ml vege stock
2 cans chickpeas
1 can red kidney beans
1 little tin of tomato paste (2 tbsp)
1 tbsp sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Open all the tins. You will forget and the onion spice mixture will burn and you will be bleak.
2. Fry up the onion in the oil for about 5 mins
3. Add all the spices and garlic (and a bit of extra oil if it's catching) for about 1 minute
4. Add all the tinned stuff (tomatoes, beans, chickpeas) and the stock to the onion spice mixture but NOT the tomato paste
5. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 20 mins, stirring every now and then to mix in the spices nicely
6. Now you may add the tomato paste, sugar and salt & pepper
7. Simmer for another 5 mins
8. Chow.

Easy peasy, and even the hubby will like it! I like it with a bit of plain yoghurt, but then I'm a real baby when it comes to spicy food. The Indian aunties at work are trying to help me.

smile it's saturday!

After a MAD week at work doing complicated number-crunching related things, we are spending the weekend chilling. Hubby has to studying auditing (what could be more boring right? Shame.) and I have to indulge in some of my favourite blogs and catch up on Pinterest. Bliss.

Found this beautiful image by Lizelle Lotter on one of my Pinterest boards. Makes me think of summer.

parquet my love

As promised, here is the magical transformation of our little granny of a house...

Yes your eyes do not deceive you, that is indeed an IRON imprint on the carpet in one of our guest bedrooms. How any self-respecting home owner makes such a booboo and then simply LEAVES IT like that is beyond me. Honestly.

 

The before and after - I feel like we should have been on a home makeover show (look at this poor young couple, with their undeniably crappy little house...and...LOOK at it now. Oh that's disappointing. Why is there no furniture? Oh yes, they are POOR as well as saddled with the little house. Or maybe BECAUSE they are saddled with said house.) Home ownership is not for the fainthearted people. But it brings its rewards...

And yes, there are many skirtings missing. I spent a lovely Saturday morning vibrating my arms into oblivion sanding the jolly things. Then we have to paint them white and we (read: hubby) has to install them. The floors were not stained, just sanded a couple of times and then sealed. The teak came out beautifully!

PS: that pattern is called criss cross
PPS: no it's not, I made that up, go and google it yourself

home love

I bought this from Mr Price Home on a whim last weekend. The wonderful hubby hung it for me, just to the right of our front door.

I decided to fill the glass tubes with a protea and some fynbos because they dry out nicely and won't droop!

four of fur

Having four pets means this:

I thought I would share some of my favourite shots of my four. Yes. Four. I am not the crazy cat lady of your nightmares, just a soft-hearted person willing to let go of all my white clothes for the love of a soft-hearted animal. Or four.

Chloe. Or Cuddles. Or the brown monkey. She is beautiful but extremely naughty. Nothing much has changed from when she was a tiny puppy.

Howie/Howard/the Woolly boy is obsessed with retrieving. Toys, slippers, socks, sticks...pretty much anything inedible. He still has the Serious Face from when he was a young pup.

Buddy came with our house. We found her living in the roof a few weeks after we moved in. The previous owners had abandoned her. She is a tortoiseshell, the vet told me tortoiseshells are only ever girls, amazing!

And lastly we have Panda. She often falls out of trees, off the kitchen counters and suffers from general clumsiness. She takes out her embarrassment on poor Howard by clawing him in the face.

They help keen me sane. In the same vein, read this sweet story about how Dakota the Great Dane found his soul mate and calculate your dogs real human age! (Howie is 20 and Chlo 18 - there is still hope that they will grow out of their rebellious behaviour!!)

parquet...coming soon

Starting on Monday, the wonderful wood-restoring professionals took over our little house! Au revoir disgusting, NASTY carpets...bonjour perfectly sealed teak parquet floors.

I was so excited that I went on a bit of a decor googling spree to get some ideas. As one does. Will post the befores and afters of our floors next!

Love the combination of modern art and antique furniture from here:

These blue walls with glossy herringbone parquet:

The Chinese lanterns and grey mats in this trendy apartment:

And the splash of colour from this pretty apartment:

the ballerina project

I was directed to the ballerina project by my friend and South African National Press Club Photographer AND Journalist of the Year 2012 Cornel van Heerden. (OK so I'm bragging about him a little, he's that amazing, his blog includes his award-winning portfolio!)

What an inspiring project for photographers and ballerinas alike, created by photographer Dane Shitagi.

Check out more of their beautiful images on facebook and tumblr.