Happy herbs

It seems I'm a late bloomer - excuse the pun, but it feels like the gardening bug that bit foodies ages ago only got around to me recently. It was all thanks to this photo - and yes that is me in the picture... Oh, you didn't think being a food stylist only involved food did you?! Nope we are chefs, mall trawlers, shopaholics, crafters, DIYers, clean-er up-ers and sometimes models... amongst other things.

Anyway, back to my point, after we shot this picture for our March issue of the Top Billing magazine I felt sorry for these cute little herbs. I'd so lovingly hollowed out eggs so they could each have their own home and then tucked them into the moist soil, I couldn't just abandon them. So I took them home and carefully planted them into the soil... and then forgot about them because anybody that knows me will tell you that I cannot keep any form of flora alive. Not even a bouquet of flowers lasts more than 2 days in my possession.

But these herbs grew! Yay! And tonight I'm going to make a refreshing Salsa Verde: 

2/3 cups parsley ( I also add chives, basil, sage and oregano to mine), chopped

2 1/2 T capers, drained and chopped

6 anchovies, chopped

5 t extra virgin olive oil

1 T lemon juice

salt and pepper, to taste

Mix all the ingredients together and keep it in the fridge. Add to pastas, salad dressings and grilled fish or meat.

Yes, I think my herbs will be much happier chopped up and stored in a jar - that way they can't die on me!

Katelyn's cocktail crusades

I’ve gone nuts… more literally than you think! Last week we shot a story on chestnuts and by Friday I was dreaming about the friggin’ things…. Like most themed shoots we do, by the end of it all I am so over Christmas cake, aubergines, strawberries or chocolate… ok wait, with the exception of chocolate! I can never have too much chocolate!

So my post this week is NOT about chestnuts – I can’t possibly look at them anymore! After the hectic week I had, all I seem to think about is something ice cold and refreshing to relax me...

I love cocktails – there is nothing more relaxing to me than mixing up something exotic. Experimenting with colours and flavours makes me feel like I’m in a laboratory concocting a potion of some sort. And then there’s the sipping – my favourite part!

This cocktail is made with 1 shot fynbos schnapps, 1T honey, 1t lemon juice, crushed ice and then topped up with iced rooibos tea or lemonade. I thought it was a rather cute idea to style the cocktail with a honey drizzler* as a swizzle stick.

* and yes this is what I decided to name it after an intense debate with my magazine colleagues over what the heck that honey 'thing-a-ma-jig' is called...

Combine two of my favourite summer essentials and what do you get? Cocktail sorbets... Yum! Just the thing to soothe away the summer sizzle! These sorbets were made using the classic favourites - strawberry daiquiri, mojito, cosmopolitan and pina colada. The trick to making these boozy sorbets is to not be too heavy handed with the alcohol - yes, its hard I know - but too much will stop it freezing and leave you with a slushy (but still tasty) mess.

Mix 3 cups fruit purée or juice with 1/3 cup alcohol and 150ml sugar syrup. Now get creative by substituting cocktail ingredients into the recipe. Freeze the mixture and whisk every 1/2 hour to prevent crystals forming or churn in an ice cream machine.

Photography by Angie Lazaro

Looking at the boring caipirinha through rose-tinted glasses... I gave Brazil's national cocktail the Katelyn touch - I absolutely love the fragrance of rose water and it combines really well with the lime and rum. And, of course, it just had to be pink so I used rose syrup to give it a pretty hue.

Muddle 1 sliced lime with 1t sugar in a glass. Fill the glass with ice. Pour in 1 shot each of rum and rose syrup. Stir and garnish with lime slices and rose petals.

Here's to getting through the work week and shaking up something ice cold and yummy for the weekend! Cheers!

Cupcake Crazy

 

Sugar, spice and everything nice are what little girls are made of... and I am definitely in love with all things pink, fluffy, pretty and yummy! Cupcakes, of course, being all those... baked into one delicious, frosted treat - how convenient?!

These cupcakes were created for a wedding supplement we did in the magazine and the story explored the cuter side of wedding cakes... cupcakes and petit fours amongst others... The photoshoot was one big blur for me - the story was conceptualized, shot and produced all in one day! And, being Food Assistant at the time, this was the first shoot I styled on my own - exciting and scary! A friend of mine, Christelle Botha is the photographer and I think she did a really great job with the lighting...

If I thought that was the end of cupcakes for a while... I was very wrong! At the beginning of this month, Katelyn's Cupcake Corner was born in the Top Billing magazine food section - and yes cupcakes are just so beautiful they deserve an entire corner to themselves!

I have not met a single person whose eyes do not twinkle at the sight of a cupcake... which is why I bake them to celebrate any occasion! My nickname is Cupcake for a reason, you know! :)

Oh, and if you're wondering what happened to these beauties after the shoot? Let's just call it a Top Billing employee perk...