South African yummies

Tonight we celebrated with some of our closest friends at our fourth annual Very Tribal Christmas. We were a total mess with invitations this year, so our apologies if you received your invitation, like, two hours before dinner or if you never were invited at all. You were not alone. (For some extra context, we still haven't finished mailing our Christmas cards. Yeah.)

Of course I was too busy talking to take any pictures except for these:

Anyway, the dinner was fabulously fun, and I loved having the chance to cook and try new things. I meant to take pictures of the food immediately after I finished cooking the food, but I suspect I was too busy talking to remember to do that. So, there's no proof of the sausage rolls, crab cakes or pizza, but I have proof of three other things. They're easy to make.

Malva Pudding

This is my take on the traditional South African dessert, which is pronounced malfa instead of malva. I used Oprah's recipe from her girls' school in SA but made the cake into cupcakes ahead of time. It was designed so that people could eat them as they wanted because malva pudding is served hot. I put the cupcakes out and then served the sauce in a sauce pan with a spoon. It worked out pretty well I think, and we had some left overs that Leigh and I can enjoy later.

Mint Pudding

I nabbed this recipe from Leigh's aunt this summer. It's so, so, so simple and so, so, so delicious. I served it up in cups so it wouldn't get messy, but it's normally served in a 9x13 pan. I think next time I'll add some corn starch or something to make it a little firmer. Here's the recipe:

* Smash up shortbread cookies or vanilla wafers in the bottom of the cup/pan.

* Sprinkle chocolate/mint chips on top. (I used the Andes kind that I found with the chocolate chips, but Leigh's aunt used chocolate and a sort of rock-candy style mint.)

* Use a mixer to blend 1 part caramel sauce to 2 parts cream.

* Pour on top of the cookies and mint.

* Chill overnight.

Minted Mango

I got this recipe from a cookbook that Leigh's mom got me last year. It's actually minted grapefruit, but turns out you can't buy grapefruit in bulk. So we had a little switch-a-roo.

* Boil 1 cup of water with 1/2 cup of sugar and smashed up mint.

* Pour over a pan of mango (or whatever kind of fruit). Use a flat-ish pan so the liquid seeps into the fruit evenly. The real recipe says to strain out the mint, but I think it looks pretty so I ignored that part.

* Chill overnight, stirring whenever you remember.

* Serve cold, at room temperature or warm. Whatever. We did room temperature.