Oxtail potjie and sadza lunch

Still no opportunities for riding, the weather has been terrible and when there has been good weather I have had to work! I started the bike's engine the other evening just to keep the battery up and there was a slight hesitation, I need to ride. Now our family is with us for three weeks so there's still not much time to ride, oh well summer's just around the corner.

The first rally that I know about is the Beaver in Montagu in early November, Frank and I are going to attend that one and I am going to help organise the next Polar Bear run with Des for the end of August, so there are some bike jols coming up.

In keeping with (part of) the theme of this blog I did an oxtail potjie today for lunch and we drank lots of beers, it was raining this morning when I started but that's why I bought the gas braai, so that even when the weather is bad I can still cook outside. This is in reference to the way that I got crapped out by my buddies when I bought it!

 I started at about 07h30 this morning by browning the meat in a very hot pot for about half an hour and then removing it from the pot and setting it aside. At this stage I flavoured the meat with a good amount of Aromat, braai spice and mixed herbs.

To the beef flavoured sauce left in the pot I added some cooking oil and then chucked in five small onions and two green bell peppers which I had rough chopped along with a good tablespoon of crushed garlic and cooked them until they were soft and translucent.

The meat then went back in along with a large cup of red wine into which I mixed a packet of "Rich Oxtail soup" powder and a beef stock cube,

the contents of a bottle of the best beer on the market went in next and then it was time to simmer for at least four hours over a gentle heat.

Time to add the hard vegetables, in this case potatoes and butternut, salt and pepper to taste and then simmer some more.

Test the potatoes and the meat with a sharp knife after about an hour to make sure that they are close to ready and then add chopped mushrooms and cabbage, close the lid and bring the heat up a little more, in the meantime I went into the kitchen to make the "sadza".

 Once everything is ready get the family to have a feed, my son in law helps himself from the pot and above my daughter and my son tucking in.

 I personally cannot resist the old "Rhodesian" way of rolling the sadza and dipping it into the gravy, if the sadza is made properly you can roll it without it sticking to your hands and we would stand around the pot for quite a while eating like that.

 There's the plate of skoff, oxtail, vegetables, sadza, gravy and avocado, a meal fit for a king washed down with some good red wine. Tomorrow morning I will be making "Stuffed sadza balls" with the leftovers for breakfast, I show you those a bit later.

Friday pool at the Rooikrans pub

So Friday afternoon Frank and I met as usual at the Rooikrans pub in Vredenburg for our weekly pool tournament, sometimes it's just the two of us, but more and more often now we are joined by others wanting to play some games. This time Don and Anton came along and as usual it turned into a boisterous session interspersed with expletives typical to a group of bikers. I love it!

In this video clip Frank managed to beat Anton, which doesn't happen all that often, Anton is an ex league player who plays a cautious, tactical game whereas Frank and I tend to hit and hope and you will actually hear Frank playing a "Danny" shot which refers to the way our dear departed brother Danny used to play.

There's Frank, standing like a champ.!

Anton going for his shot.
Any of you fancy yourself as pool players come on over to the Rooikraans on a Friday afternoon, it's where the bikers hang out and talk shit!

Winter blues

Man this weather sucks! Alright I acknowledge that our winter down here in the southern hemisphere is not as bad as our biker brothers and sisters get up there in the north, we still get lovely mild riding days in the middle of winter, but the past week or two has been lousy. If I remember correctly Monday and Tuesday last week were beautiful mild days but I had to work, what the hell good is that? Man this working for a living sucks!

The Meeulanders mcc, which Janet and I have recently joined, has their monthly breakfast run scheduled for Sunday so here's hoping it's a good day so that we can get some saddle time.

For the past many years I have resisted joining any clubs but have ridden with the Meeulanders on many rallies and breakfast runs and they have always accepted me as if I was a member, even as far as loading my gear onto the group's vehicle which carries extra kit to the rally site, hell man at the last Buffalo rally they even erected my tent for me before I arrived!

So it was that after some discussion Janet and I decided to apply for membership and we were happily accepted, we have since been to two of the regular monthly meetings and I must say that right away I emjoyed the spirit of cameraderie there. We have not been "patched" yet but I expect that won't take long, from now on we are club riders.

So of "Braais, beers and bikes" there has only been beers of late, hopefully on the bike soon, not the weather for braais. Talking about food; the other organisation of which I am a member is the local Sheep's head guild and my friend and I went for dinner last Tuesday;

this was my meal, delicious crispy roasted sheep's head. Not to everyone's taste I accept, but I love it.

 Accompanied by a good red wine, I can think of no other meal which gives so many different tastes and textures on one plate from the skin and cheeks, the eyes, the tongue and the brains - it's all good. I look forward to each occasion.
I'm meeting Frank for our weekly pool game this afternoon, sometimes we are joined by other players and it gets quite noisy, I'll take my camera along and show you some pictures, stay safe out there.
Happy fourth of July to my American friends.