Tasty on a Buget

Hello from Cape Town, and welcome back to Everything Tasty.

I've been here in South Africa for just over 7 weeks now (well, technically I was in Malawi for 8 days of that) and have overall had a really good time. The city is lovely, and when I haven't been at the office I've managed to get out and see some really terrific places, and--of particular interest to readers of this blog--gone to some excellent restaurants. Those I intend to cover later this week in a 2-part review of Cape Town food, which should be a lot of fun. However as good (and comparatively inexpensive) as restaurants have been here, I realized pretty quickly my first few weeks that I was going to have to start cooking more at home, at least where dinner is concerned. (I still eat lunch out [at the cheapest places I can find], in large part because we don't have a fridge or microwave available for office use.)

Sherry's Russo's Ravioli Dinner

Here's what our friend Sherry had for dinner last night:

it looks so gorgeous and tasty, I can't stand it!

This is what she had to say about the meal:
"I went to Russo's [our wonderful local fresh food market: http://russos.com/] and bought butternut squash ravioli, goat cheese, lots of mushrooms, and cherry tomatoes.  Cooked the mushrooms with garlic and chopped lots of fresh basil and hazelnuts for the top. Yummy."
It sounds fast and straightforward to prepare: just the thing after a long, hungry day.  This definitely qualifies as an 'Off  The Top Of My Head' recipe.  Thanks,  Sherry, for one of those genius ideas that makes you wonder, 'why didn't I think of that?'

e-mail us: you can send your comments, recipes, or a personal message to Anne and Colin at: everything-tasty@annedesigns.com

Mediterranean flatbread and "Italian Toast", both with pesto aioli

Hello all! A bit of a schedule reshuffle for me: I decided Chef Alishah’s (the Bosnian place) merited a second visit, and I haven’t been able to go get the ingredients for my attempt to improve on the Time Market’s green gringo sandwich, so those have been pushed back to the end of the week. The good news (at least I hope its good news), though, is a big block of posts from me—I’m gonna try for four over the course of the next week; coming attractions will include a Mexican food review of La Botana and El Guero Canelo, the Kale Pesto recipe I mentioned in the comments, and at least one of the features mentioned above. Today though, it’s recipe time, and I’m inaugurating a new feature I’d like to call Off The Top Of My Head—dedicated to cataloging those things you whip up on the spot and wind up being pretty good. Today, that recipe will be for Mediterranean flatbread with a light pesto aioli—PLUS, as a special bonus, a tasty breakfast dish that you can top with said same aioli.
So, anyhow—partial credit has to go to my mother on this one.