Welcome to our blog!
We are two very passionate foodies who spend a lot of time and energy with everything food related – it is the axis to which life revolves.
Our blog began life during the COVID-19 lockdown when life was scary and strange and we found solace in food. Having a food blog has been something we have talked about for quite some time and we are excited to share this with you.
On our blog you will find recipes, party ideas, restaurant and book reviews, musings and a love of all things food. We hope to show you the things we love, things we are cooking and maybe give you some little tips that we have picked up along the way and who knows, maybe even inspire you.
Thank you for visiting our blog and we hope you like it. Kelly does most of the food, post planning and the words, Rhona the precise cutting and the pics! Please leave a comment and follow us on social media.
Kelly and Rhona x
Kelly
I am a typical foodie, totally obsessed with food. I spend much of the day thinking about food, talking about food, planning food, researching food and reading books, magazines and blogs… all about food. Cooking makes me happy and helps me to de-stress.
Just a few of the things I love are eating, cooking, going to restaurants, having friends over, getting a new cookbook, discovering new recipes, finding new equipment and ingredients and on and on. Nothing gives me more pleasure than sharing food and my love of it with the people I love. For me the social aspect is what brings food alive and makes it special.
Friends have been telling me for a very long time to do a blog or cooking classes and it has taken this lockdown period for me to actually pull out my finger. I have been road testing cook along with Kelly sessions with friends which are so much fun, cooking step by step with people and watching them produce beautiful tasty dishes and seeing how happy it makes them, it makes me beam inside with pride and happiness for them. I have also been road testing children’s cooking on the weekends with my son and some of his friends and their mums, ahead of this launching to see how best to do these. It is amazing how much we have all enjoyed it and much we looked forward to it every week. I am extremely lucky. I am also extremely lucky that my daughter Victoria helps me test weekly.
I feel much more at peace with the world without the daily commute and being lucky enough to end the day doing something I love. I am now spending more hours than I thought possible connected to food. I am relishing being surrounded by my food library and having the time and energy to research and read so much. I can get up, put on the kettle and drift into my little library and start reading while I wait the 6 minutes for my tea to brew. A small change and a big impact.
My love of cooking stems from my childhood. My mum was a single parent and had to work extremely hard to support my brother and I to make sure there was food on the table. Very occasionally if she had a good week and was left with a little money then we would have a something special to eat and, on her occasional afternoon off she took the time to cook with us cakes and biscuits. A particular favourite of ours was mint flavoured green butterfly cakes. That time felt precious and fun and something I remember with a smile. I am sure that this is the reason James and I both have a love of cakes and desserts and we both still love mint. Another thing we both loved was the lime milkshake from Wimpy and now as adults, key lime pie.
Mum enjoyed food very much and liked cooking and eating things deemed ‘exotic’ such as Bolognese and chicken curry It is amazing to think these were deemed exotic when I was growing up. My brother James was a really fussy eater as a child and so the curry would just be for the two of us. Mum especially loved fish and seafood and scallops were her absolute favourite. Although we only had them a few times I can still remember the very first time she cooked them for me, she beamed from ear to ear and was so excited to share them with me. James of course didn’t touch them but I thought they tasted incredible. Scallops are so sweet and are probably still my favourite seafood although it is a very close contest with crab.
I hope I have passed my love of cooking and food on to my children, I have lots of wonderful memories and photos of cooking with them throughout the years and hope that they remember this as they get older and cherish the many hours we spent together as much as I do. Victoria loved making chocolate brownies on a Saturday night just before Strictly Come Dancing and this became something we both looked forward to every Saturday. We would make the brownies and get them in the oven and she would then change into her princess dresses and dance around the lounge. Matthew is a complete chocolate fiend, he literally loves it so for him anything we cook is fun but if it contains chocolate he is in heaven. When we cook now I have to factor in the chocolate we need for the recipe and the chocolate I know he will have his eye on!! One for the bowl, one for Matt.
Throughout this website you will probably read me say love and hate a lot, I am one of those people that feels passionately about most things with very little middle ground. If there is something you would like covered or a recipe you would like then please get in touch, we have hundreds of half tested recipes or recipes we want to try, having a focus on which to pick is always helpful.
Follow me on social media (kellythesocialfoodie) and tag me when you make any of our recipes.
Kelly x
Rhona
I'm a typical South African, I like braai (BBQ), I'm mostly a fair weather braai-er so when the sun is out, there is nothing like making a fire and cooking outside, however you'll occasionally find me cooking outside when the weather is not so good, especially now I'm living over here in the UK ;)
The reason I enjoy braai-ing is not only because of where I'm from or because it's a sociable affair; even more than that it's a nostalgic memory from my early years - standing beside my father when all I was allowed to do was be the "fireman/woman", so when the flames shot up I was allowed to strategically sprinkle water on the flames to stop them from burning the meat and at the same time not put out the fire. We spent hours talking about anything and everything, and that's where it all began... Food was and is still a big part of my life.
My father was a great cook, from braai to fish and chips to baking and making jam. He never ever peeled his potatoes with a potato peeler as he said the potato peeler was wasting potato as it took off too much skin, said he could do it better with his knife (and he could). I use a potato peeler ;) however I am obviously quite capable of using a knife if need be :)
We didn't have bacon much as kids (my mother is not a big pork fan). Toasted bacon and egg sandwiches take me back to summer holidays driving down to the coast, stopping to fill up the car and get breakfast, which for me was always a toasted bacon and egg sandwich and a milkshake (banana or strawberry). It's also during these long journeys I decided I didn’t like chocolate ice cream until I made my own. I have got really into making ice cream. I am definitely a more savoury kind of person, but ice cream is still one of my favourite sweet things - there is something about the cold that makes the sweet not so sweet.
My mother used to make the best apple tart, and I do not have the recipe and she cannot remember it, which has made me realise how important keeping hold of old recipes are, or making note of them before it is too late. I would give an arm and a leg for that recipe!
Now, I enjoy cooking, outside or in, it's relaxing and de-stressing and I enjoy trying different things. Mostly when I cook (especially outside), be prepared for a late one. If I had a fast food restaurant I would go out of business on day one :) but hopefully the wait is worth it!
I am also the very amateur “photographer” for this blog and as with a good red wine, I very much hope to improve with age and time…