I haven’t posted a recipe in a verrrry long time. Please don’t think that I make nice looking and well balanced meals every night. I like to just throw things together. As a little girl I used to sit on the kitchen counter and watch my mom make supper from scratch every night. That lady can cook you guys! We didn’t own any recipe books. This is something pretty healthy and really easy that you can make for the people you love.

1. So just roast some vegetables – I used butternut, marrows and cauliflower. Roast them middle tray at 200 degrees until cooked. Leave on the side to cool when done or serve hot – whichever you prefer!

2. While that’s roasting, chop half a packet of lean, shoulder bacon in to strips or cubes. Fry it with about half a diced green pepper. Once sealed, add four table spoons of tomato chutney (I am addicted to the Woolies one) or any tomato salsa. If you don’t have, use half a packet of tomato paste with half a chopped red onion, 1 tbs brown sugar and 1 tsp vinegar to make a sticky sauce. Mix it all together and fry for another ten minutes. Should be sticky! Put it aside to cool.

3. Line the edges of your plate with baby spinach and watercress leaves. Chop some carrots, cucumber and tomatoes and put that on top of your leaves. Add anything else you like.

4. Once the bacon and roast veg has cooled – spoon it all in to the center of the plate. Sprinkle with sprouts or sunflower seeds for some extra nutrition and crunchiness. Drizzle with fresh lemon juice – it doesn’t need anything else!

You can do the same recipe with grilled chicken, tuna or sirloin! You can leave your veg and bacon hot, you can add more peppers or raw mushrooms. For the boys, I served this with a little wholewheat wrap on the side so they could spoon and roll their own little wraps with it. Very filling, healthy and nutritious.

If you’ve known me for more than five minutes, then you know that we make our own iced tea at the bunny house. It’s something I learned from my best friend’s mom – Auntie Annette. She would fill a glass container with 2l of cold tap water, add two five roses tea bags then leave that in the sun to brew for two hours or so until the water was dark and the tea was ripe. She’d bring it inside, add 1/3 cup of white sugar and loads of ice. Bethany and I used to gulp that down in the summer heat while playing barbies or lego or building puzzles. I spent maybe most of my childhood at Bethany’s place (3 houses down from mine for about ten or fifteen years…) and I have the living best memories of iced tea.

I’ve always stuck to the same recipe, but it’s not great for the boys – so much caffeine. When Noah was a baby I tried different variations of rooibos mixed with apple juice, but I couldn’t get it as delicious as I knew it could be. A few weeks ago I got the sweetest media pack from Freshpak. They sent a big wooden crate filled with Freshpak tea, then loads of fresh fruit, herbs, spices, honey… mint and strawberries and pineapples and peaches and lemons and oranges and cinnamon and vanilla and everything that you need to create a delicious, healthy and refreshing iced tea.

Take a 1 liter jug and fill it with tap water and 4 – 6 bags of Freshpak. Leave it in the sun to brew OR boil the water and add 4 – 6 bags and let it stand and cool. I like leaving it to cook outside because I like to think that my iced tea is filled with sunshine. Then bring it in and add fruit, mint, lemon, cinnamon – whatever your vibe is. This is a seriously cost-effective way of keeping a healthy, fresh juice in the fridge that lasts up to three days. For babas, you can also add some apple juice! You can add honey or some brown sugar too. Add LOADS of ice, fun straws and your family & friends. I’m going to share more recipes as we go along because if you have kids you know that they are always thirsty! Happy, healthy summer everyone.

PS Those wooden “tea” and “yay” words were purchased at the Hout Bay market. I put them up above our little tea making station years ago. The colorful paper straws are from In Good Company. They are based in Cape Town and Joburg, but you can order online too. I bought my glass jugs, carafes and bistro sets from some catering / kitchen company but I can’t remember the name now – also online & super cheap. I got the vintage lace tablecloth from the Milnerton market where you can pick up the most interesting little things for your home. I have a whole drawer full of food styling ‘stuff’ that I’m collecting. The boys call it their ‘party drawer’ and we throw a lot of tea parties with mommy’s special omg-be-careful things. Get brewing! x

Samantha Lee is an incredible creative and mother that makes art out of the meals for her kids and people she loves. She is not a professional chef and has no culinary training. She says she’s just an ordinary, regular and average mom who is crazy about making a mess in the kitchen.

She started her first Bento making in December 2008, while heavily pregnant with her second daughter. She wanted to encourage her older daughter to eat independently after the arrival of the new baba. She says she’s lucky that her elder daughter was impressed with her creations (really?) and that she started looking forward to the next meal. Now, the two girls fight over who gets which character at mealtimes. Sort of makes your airplane efforts seem a bit futile, right?

Now Samantha works as a kids party planner and loves sewing, drawing, doing crafts and baking. You can follow her food blog Eazy Bitzy here, and her personal website with links to her social media accounts and Instagram here. She has definitely inspired me to be more creative, and I think her work is just BEAUTIFUL. Lucky kids indeed!

So over the past two weeks I signed up for The Daily Dish. We did the Vegetarian menu the first week because Noah is veggie and I really struggle to put nutritional, balanced, meat-free meals together for the family lately. All my usual dishes can’t be done without excluding him like “Oh we’re just having spaghetti bolognaise, here is a piece of toast for you.” Then in the second week we did the low-carb menu because I want to be thin. (WHY IS IT SO HARD)

I’m going to save you a big up-sell post and just tell you straight that The Daily Dish is fantastic in concept, flavour, price, nutrition, quality and execution. Those guys are organized, friendly, efficient and really just awesome. You need to try this even for one week, although I know you’ll want to keep it in your life. I’m signing up for the vegetarian menu every second week. This is what you need to know about The Daily Dish, in point form, and pay attention:

Daily Dish is an online service that delivers everything you need to cook four delicious suppers every week – including the recipes and exact quantities of ingredients.

• Dishes are designed to be easy-to-cook and take about 30 minutes from start to finish.
• When you subscribe to the Daily Dish you’ll receive a delivery to your door every Monday, consisting of four delicious, easy-to-prepare recipes and all the fresh, quality ingredients you’ll need to produce them.
• You can choose between the Classic (includes meat), Low Carb or Vegetarian menu for 2 or 4 people, and you only need to commit one week at a time.
• No more work-week meal stress, plus no excess ingredients that end up going to waste
• Daily Dish is supporting other local small businesses by sourcing their meat, free range chicken, fish and fresh veg from them wherever possible.
• Delivery on a Monday to any physical address in the greater Cape Town area only to suburbs listed on the Daily Dish website.
• You will learn more about cooking and interesting food combinations and add many new favourites to your regular menu at home. 

Get hold of the nice people over at The Daily Dish on their website, Facebook and Twitter or email them [email protected] I’m going to share a few of my favourite recipes over the next few weeks that will rock your world. Have a look at their menus to see what’s cooking next week!

Cooking for your family can be tricky, especially in winter. I struggle to create healthy meals that are healthy AND winter-friendly. Usually winter means carbohydrate loaded pastas and there are only so many soups that I know how to make. Soup also usually comes with loads of bread and butter, which takes it’s toll on my wardrobe. I miss crunchy summer salads, but that’s mostly the last thing that I want to eat in this weather.

Dinner at our house needs to be quick, healthy, practical (ingredients that I already have in the fridge and purchase during our weekly bulk shops) and it needs to be easy. I’ve started making more hot salads, combining cooked and warm ingredients with the raw, crispy bits. This salad is super quick and healthy. Nothing too fancy, and the boys are it alll up last night. No actually they didn’t: Noah didn’t eat the chicken because he just doesn’t like meat, and Benjamin turned his nose up at the rocket and herbs.

Hot Barbeque Chicken & Caramelized Sweet Pepper Salad – Noah & Benjamin Approved.

Use any fresh salady things that you have at home. I used julienne beetroot, carrot, raw broccoli, cauliflower, sunflower seeds, avo and mixed herbs & leaves (one of those pick n pay etc mix packs). Load this with loads of lemon juice.

Slice chicken breasts in half so make thinner breasts as these cook faster. Place the chicken breasts in an over dish with some olive oil, barbeque spice (I used NoMU Barbeque Rub but anything similar will do) I poked holes in the chicken breasts with a fork so that more lemon juice would be adsorbed for erm… more tender breasts. Put that in the oven on 180 at bake for ten minutes. While that’s in there, slice up some green, red and yellow peppers and fry them on a hot plate with half a teaspoon of honey or brown sugar. Fry them on high until they’re soft and almost burnt.

Take the chicken out, slice in to cubes and toss in the gravy for more flavour. Spoon this over your salad, then add the peppers. You can add anything else you like – nuts, peanut butter relish, cooked butternut, sweet potato or some plain yoghurt which is a very healthy alternative to mayonnaise. If you want, you can also serve some wholewheat pita bread and hummus on the side, but this meal is really filling and super duper healthy & delicious. Go for it!