a delicious family menu Cos Lettuce with Blue Cheese and Pecans Glazed Meatloaf with Cheese, Baked Potatoes and Onions on video! Courgette Ribbons with Cherry Tomatoes Crustless Milk Tart

Cos Lettuce with Blue Cheese and Pecans

Serves 4-6

Cos lettuce is often overlooked as a health food. It is packed with vitamins A, K and C and is an excellent source of fibre. Combined with blue cheese and nuts it makes for an easy, delicious starter.

1-2 cos lettuces
½ cup (125 ml) Ina Paarman's Blue Cheese Dressing
½ cup (± 60 g) crumbed blue cheese or cubed brie/camembert
½ cup (50 g) pecan nuts

Divide washed and trimmed leaves in half lengthways Arrange on a platter. Drizzle with dressing and sprinkle with cheese. Top with nuts. Pass at the table.

VARIATION:

Add perfectly ripe, fresh pear slices when in season.

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Glazed Meatloaf with Cheese, Baked Potatoes and Onions

Serves 4-6

Who says meat loaf is not good enough for guests? Properly made, it will always be a winner. This recipe is exceptional, the cheese and concentrated beef stock ensures outstanding flavour. The BBQ glaze gives it an appetising gloss and baking it on the perforated foil prevents a soggy oily base. Besides, cooking the potatoes and onions simultaneously works like a charm.

¾ cup (180 ml) grated cheddar cheese
2 T (30 ml) canola oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 x 25g Ina Paarman's Concentrated Beef Stock
2 T (30 ml) finely chopped parsley
3 t (15 ml) Ina Paarman's Salt Reduced Garlic & Herb Seasoning
500 g lean beef mince
4 T (60 ml) Ina Paarman's Tomato Pesto
1 egg, lightly beaten
¼ cup (60 ml) fresh white breadcrumbs
½ cup (125 ml) Ina Paarman's BBQ Marinade

POTATOES

4-6 unpeeled potatoes, cut into wedges
1 onion, peeled and cut into wedges from top to bottom
2 t (10 ml) Ina Paarman's Potato Spice
olive oil

Spread the grated cheese out on a plate and leave it in the freezer to firm.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Place an oval plate on a larger piece of heavy duty foil and roll the foil up around the plate to form a rim.

Remove the plate.

Put the foil on a trivet or wire rack and poke draining holes into it with a sosatie stick, as illustrated in video. Sauté the onion in the canola oil until completely soft and lightly browned. Add the two sachets of undiluted Beef Stock Concentrate. Add the parsley and Garlic & Herb Seasoning. Leave to cool.
Use a medium size mixing bowl and add the mince, Tomato Pesto, egg and breadcrumbs. Mix lightly with a knife. Mix in the onion. Crumble the frozen cheese into the mixture and lightly mix it in. Shape the mince into a domed oval loaf ± 4cm high and transfer it to the prepared foil. Coat the top generously with half of the BBQ Marinade.

Cut the potatoes lengthwise into wedges and place them in a roasting pan. Tuck the onion, cut into small wedges, in-between the potatoes.

Season generously with Potato Spice and drizzle with olive oil.
Place the trivet, with meat loaf on, over the potatoes.
Bake for 35 minutes. Re-baste the top of the loaf with the remaining BBQ Marinade and bake for another 10 minutes.

Turn the oven up to 200°C. Remove the rack with meat loaf and allow it to rest, lightly covered, while browning the potatoes for another 10-15 minutes at the higher temperature.

Remove the potatoes and onions.

Prepare a gravy in the roasting pan on top of the stove using Ina Paarman's Brown Gravy Powder (± 1½ T Gravy Powder to 2 cups (500 ml) of water).and serve with the meat loaf.

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Courgette Ribbons with Cherry Tomatoes

Serves 6-8

Courgettes (baby marrow) are much more flavourful, if sliced into flat ribbons and briefly sauteéd.

olive oil
Ina Paarman's Green Onion Seasoning
6-8 (one punnet) courgettes, sliced lengthways into long thin strips on a vegetable slicer or with a potato peeler
1 x 200 g punnet cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

Sauté the marrow strips in 2 T (30 ml) of oil until bright green and just beginning to soften. Season with Green Onion Seasoning. Spoon into a serving dish. Sauté the halved cherry tomatoes in another 1 T (15 ml) of oil for about 2 minutes until just beginning to soften. Season with Green Onion Seasoning and toss with the marrows. Serve warm.

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Crustless Milk Tart

Serves 6 - 8

MILK TART

If you prefer, line the plate with puff pastry and blind bake before filling. But the tart can happily be baked crustless. May be served with stewed apple on the side.

2 cups (500 ml) milk
1 stick of cinnamon, broken up into long splinters
4 T (60 ml) butter
3 extra large eggs at room temperature
¼ t (1 ml) almond essence
1 cup (250 ml) Ina Paarman's Vanilla Cake Mix

CINNAMON SUGAR TOPPING

¼ cup (60 ml) sugar
1 t (5 ml) cinnamon

Bring the milk and broken cinnamon to the boil. Cover, remove from the heat, add the butter and leave to draw for 20 minutes.

Butter a 23cm pie dish thoroughly and shake 1T (15ml) of the cake mix in the dish to coat sides and base. Adjust oven rack to middle position. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Remove the cinnamon stick from the milk. Separate the eggs. Gently pour hot milk over egg yolks while beating with a wire whisk. Add almond essence. Leave until lukewarm - give it a stir now and again. Add measured dry vanilla cake mix and lightly beat into egg custard. Whip egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add one third of beaten whites and stir through with whisk. Add remaining egg whites and gently fold in with a spatula. Dish into pie dish.

Mix sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkle over Milk Tart.

Bake for 25 minutes until puffy. Switch off the oven and leave to stand in the closed oven to cool for 15 minutes. This milk tart, like a soufflé, will deflate on cooling.

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This month's recommended wine pairing :
Van Loveren Chardonnay 2010 and Van Loveren Merlot 2010

VAN LOVEREN is offering a bottle of their Van Loveren Chardonnay 2010 and a bottle of their Van Loveren Merlot 2010 to each of our five March winners !

Van Loveren Chardonnay 2010 For the white wine drinkers a "food friendly" wine with enough body, but not too overpowering, to enjoy with the meatloaf.

Van Loveren Merlot 2010 Soft, little tannin, juicy and enough fruit to compliment the meatloaf. Weight of the wine is not too heavy to suit the dish