BOOK —

Category: Food

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Cauli Cream Dream

cauliflower ice cream

Cauliflower ice cream sounds like a prank, and then you taste it. Steamed cauliflower is nearly flavourless and quietly rich, which makes it a perfect body for cream where no cream is invited: it does the structural work while the vanilla, honey and coconut do the talking. Nobody guesses. We tell them afterwards. We tell them afterwards. It’s one of the recipes in our cookbook, Eat Thrive Repeat, which is full of the kitchen thinking this way.

Serves 8. Takes time, most of it waiting.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups cauliflower florets
1 cup raw cashews, soaked for 3 hours and drained
1 can coconut milk or coconut cream
2/3 cup honey
2 Tbsp coconut oil
1 Tbsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
Pinch of salt

METHOD

  1. Cut the cauliflower into florets and steam for 5 minutes until soft. Let it cool.
  2. Measure 2 cups of the steamed cauliflower into a blender.
  3. Add the cashews, coconut milk or cream, honey, coconut oil, vanilla and salt.
    Blend until completely smooth, with no visible particles.
  4. With an ice cream maker: churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
  5. Pour into a loaf-sized glass container, cover, and freeze for 4 to 5 hours until hardened.

Let it sit at room temperature for 15 minutes before scooping.

Storage: airtight container in the freezer, up to 3 months.

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Chocolate Garden

chocolate bar from the Bliss and Stars kitchen

We don’t serve coffee at the retreat; mornings run on cacao instead, which means chocolate here is less an indulgence than a working ingredient. These squares are what the kitchen does with it: a date and nut base, a dark chocolate layer, and a scatter of edible flowers that gave the recipe its name. They are simple to make and dangerously more-ish, and this way of cooking, plant-led and unfussy, is what the Cooking Retreat spends four days on.

Makes 10 to 12 squares.

INGREDIENTS

Cookie layer

2 cups soaked dates
1/2 cup raw mixed nuts (pistachios, macadamias, hazelnuts, almonds, whatever the pantry holds)
1/2 cup raw cacao powder
1 tsp cinnamon

Chocolate layer

200g raw cacao paste or dark chocolate (70 to 80%)
1 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp tahini
Pinch of sea salt
Edible flowers for garnishing, optional: citrus blossom, nasturtium, clover, hibiscus, daisies, honeysuckle, roses. Use only flowers you can positively identify as edible, and unsprayed.

METHOD

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and toast the nuts for 5 minutes.
  2. Blend all the cookie layer ingredients in a food processor until they form a dough.
  3. Press the dough evenly into a tray lined with baking paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
  4. Set a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.
  5. Add the chocolate layer ingredients to the bowl and stir until fully melted.
  6. Pour the melted chocolate over the chilled base and spread it evenly.
  7. Garnish with the flowers.
  8. Return to the fridge until the chocolate sets hard, then slice into squares.

Storage: airtight container in the fridge, up to 2 weeks.

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Delicious and Refreshing: How to Make Passion Fruit Cordial at Home

Passionfruit Cordial in a jug and glasses

Passion fruit, granadillas to most of South Africa, are small fruits with tough, wrinkled skins and a sharp yellow pulp that carries more flavour per spoon than almost anything else in the kitchen. The name is older than it sounds: missionaries in the 1500s read the passion flower’s parts as symbols of the Passion, and the fruit inherited the name.
At the retreat we don’t serve alcohol, which turns out to be a reason to take drinks more seriously rather than less, and this cordial is one of the results. Sweet, tart, and lengthened with sparkling water, it does what a good aperitif does without the aperitif. There’s more on how we approach food and drink on the Gastronomy page.

Here is the recipe for our favorite passionfruit cordial

INGREDIENTS

      •  Pulp from 20 granadillas
      • 4 table spoons of honey
      • 1 teaspoon of passionfruit pulp for serving (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

Add the honey and passion fruit pulp to a pot and simmer until the honey dissolves and the mixture takes on a syrup texture. Cool.

To serve, fill a third of each glass with cordial, top up with sparkling water, and float a teaspoon of fresh pulp on top.

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Sweet Potato Smoothie

Sweet Potato

Cooked sweet potato is an unlikely smoothie ingredient until you try it. It brings creaminess, a gentle natural sweetness, and more substance than the usual banana, and with ginger, turmeric and cinnamon behind it the result drinks like something between breakfast and a warm memory of one. We make it with almond milk, which keeps it plant-based, the way everything leaves our kitchen.

If cooking this way interests you beyond a recipe, the Cooking Retreat is four days of exactly this in practice.

The recipe below serves four.

INGREDIENTS

      • 1 cups boiled & frozen sweet potatoes 
      • 1 tsp ground cinnamon 
      • 1 tsp of grated fresh ginger or 1/4 tsp of ground ginger
      • 2 dates
      • 1/4 teaspoon of ground turmeric 
      • 2 dates
      • 1/3 cup oats
      • 1/2 cup almond milk or milk of choice
      • pinch salt

INSTRUCTIONS

In a blender, combine all ingredients. Blend until smooth. Serve right away. Enjoy.

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Pumpkin Porridge for Wintery Mornings

Pumpkin Porridge

Pumpkin is my favourite winter ingredient. Its orange is a small argument against a grey morning, and there is more to it than the colour: it is generous with vitamins and fibre, cheap, and endlessly useful across sweet and savoury cooking.
My favourite use of it is this porridge with tahini dressing. We serve it to guests on winter mornings, and it is one of the recipes that earned its place in our cookbook, Eat Thrive Repeat. It is warming, quietly filling, and it makes everyone smile. 

The recipe below serves four.

INGREDIENTS

Porridge pumpkin

      • 2 cups boiled Pumpkin 
      • 2 tsp cinnamon 
      • 1 tsp all spice 
      • Pinch of salt 
      • 3 Tbsp Coconut sugar 
      • 1/2 cup coconut cream
      • 1 tsp vanilla essence 
      • 1/2 cup oats
      • 1/3 cup soaked cashews (optional)
      • 1/2 cup water from boiled Pumpkin 

Tahini dressing

      • 1 Tbsp Coconut syrup 
      • 3 Tbsp Coconut cream 
      • 1 Tbsp Tahini 

Instructions:

      1. Boil Pumpkin until soft, cool it down.
      2. Mix all the ingredients for the tahini dressing.
      3. Blend the pumpkin with the rest of the porridge ingredients in a high speed blender until smooth. 
      4. Heat up add extra coconut milk if it is too thick.
      5. Serve warm in a bowl. Swirl one tbs of tahini dressing, sprinkle with roasted pumpkin seeds (optional) and enjoy.