1 April 2014 -saffron and Shiuli

الرحمن الرحیم بسم الله

In the name of Allah most Gracious, most Merciful.

1 April 2014

As April is ushered in, I am thrilled with developments on the property. There are gardens with relaxing spaces for all kinds of weather, even when it rains-especially when it rains.  Allahu Akbar, we received some more clean seed from around the world - one crocus flower bulb from which its stamens are saffron! Should have planted it already in the first week of March, inshaAllah we will still put it in soil and ask Allah SWT to send the rain.

When people visit they look a bit like –“get outta here” – when we say that we started the vegetable garden about five weeks ago and the front garden just two weeks ago.  At the time when we moved in, we started planting salad vegetables in the flowerboxes the moment our boxes were unpacked.  We nurtured the strawberries and gathered plants and fruit trees and cuttings. But we really put spade to soil veryrecently. Of course by that time we had enough seedlings and had to buy compost and manure and topsoil to replace the scraped out areas filled with tar and small stones and pieces of cement and broken bricks remnants of building many moons ago.

Where ever we have lived before we made gardens, in all kinds of conditions - to leave behind for someone else to enjoy and take forward, sometimes to show our appreciation and most times because it is so lekker. When we lived in the Sudan, together with some students who studied with Abubakr, we tilled the soil and planted seeds from home. The soil in Sudan is like a dark brown mud, deposits courtesy of the Nile. It is this soil that the wind sweeps up and the fans whirl about and deposits in every possible place even in your nostrils.



Shiuli

After planting a garden in the desert that blossomed into lush bunches of spinach and radishes and basil and Namaqua daisies. After trimming lush hedges of magenta bougainvillea and discovering the sweet smelling Shiuli bush. After days and nights of cool lemongrass tea and hot conversation and intense nostalgia and new friendships, we decided to call it quits and return home. Home to South Africa where you can talk to the wall, have fairly uninterrupted electricity, dress up in thick coats and boots and take long walks on the flea market browsing for books and dangling earrings.

We came back to South Africa in the winter of 2006 and lived on the Greenside. Subhannallah , the best planting that we ever did. Greenside where the foxgloves stood two metres tall; strawberries that multiplied like rabbits; long walks down Jacaranda avenues; poppy fields, iris and wild garlic beds; bay leaf hedges at Shakespeare’s herb garden; drunken Loeries toppling off mulberry branches; jasmine and passion fruit creepers – I could go on and on.

Back to reality, my kids look out of the window early morning, there is just a hint of rain and they enquire – is it soup day? Yep, its soup day! My Dad loved having soup every day, for breakfast, lunch or supper. I love it on cold snuggle-up days and in the Ramadhan. Today I add some alphabet pasta, I saw some at a shop the other day. Talking about soup, I remember when we were in primary school in D6, I attended George Golding Primary. We’re talking in the 60s (the time of flower power and Op Art and lace up boots). At school during the winter months we would stand in line to get a cup of cocoa once a week and a bowl of soup, just bring your own mug. The soup was really bad, seriously, even worse than at hospitals. It may have started out as a good soup but someone chucked a whole lot of water in it. So now I take my time to cook a wholesome broth. I should really get a coal stove to match it.

As I look out into the sky expecting dark moody clouds, what do you know?  The sun has broken through and it seems like it’s going to be a brand new day. I have a lot of work to complete; tomorrow I expect guests and so I want everything sorted Insha’Allah. As I am busy, I yearn for something sweet and warm and thinks to make some hot cocoa or a pudding. Is it just me or does one think of comfort food when it’s cold? Not just food but puddings of all kinds- potato pudding and dried fruit preserve, sago and tapioca pudding with slivers of almonds on top. My favourite - bread and butter pudding with an apricot sauce.

 

Bread and butter pudding recipe

Ingredients

 

·         8 slices of buttered bread
·         1 litre and a cup of milk
·         1 cup of sugar
·         Pinch of salt
·         Vanilla pod or essence
·         3 sticks of cinnamon and 5 cardamom pods
·         8 jumbo eggs or a dozen smaller ones
·         Sultanas or seedless raisins
·         Almond slivers or coconut
·         2 Tablespoons of butter

Method

Cut off top end of slices of buttered bread

Stack the slices four per stack and cut bread into triangles.
Make balanced rows of bread in rectangular deep baking pan and set aside
Whisk eggs and sugar and add essence, then whisk in milk and a pinch of salt.
Cover the slices with milk mixture, with a fork pushing slices under the mixture until it’s good and soggy. Add the top ends that were cut off to the milk mixture as well.
Toss a handful of raisins or sultanas into mixture, as well as cinnamon and cardamom.
Generously grate nutmeg on the top.
Dot with butter and either slivers of almonds or handfuls of fine coconut.
Bake for 45 min or until golden brown at 350^o F. or 180 ^o C

For the Orange sauce

In a small bowl stir some hot water into smooth apricot jam little by little until it reaches the consistency that you prefer, with just a squirt or two of lemon juice pour over servings of the hot pudding, delectable!

Till next time plant food not lawn and make puddings!

Yasmine