The Art of Simple Living: Purpose & Breakfast Bars (with a cup of coffee)

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It’s Monday morning… and there’s nothing quite like starting the day on our Kalahari porch, coffee in hand, watching the first light stretch across the savannah. That first sip of freshly brewed coffee, paired with a crunchy rusk (like these!) or one of these go-to express breakfast bars (recipe on next page), is pure magic.

Be still and know (recognize, understand) that I am God. – Psalm 46:10

There’s something sacred about these quiet moments—the world slowing awakening, the soft glow of dawn, the gentle rhythm of nature unfolding without hurry. Be still and know that I am God. It’s a whisper in the wind, a reminder in the stillness to let go, to stop striving, to simply be. Let God be.

Too often, we rush from one thing to the next, filling every moment with busyness. But here, in the hush of a Kalahari morning, I am reminded that life isn’t about chasing—it’s about knowing, recognizing…understanding…

And so I sit, I breathe, and I embrace the stillness—fully present, fully at peace—knowing that in this moment, I am right where I’m meant to be. – Aldalene

How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

– Annie Dillard
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The Simple Truth about Happiness… and an Orange and Yoghurt cake

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Orange is the happiest colour. — Frank Sinatra

In the Kalahari winter, the desert’s chill seeps into every corner of my kitchen, where the crisp, invigorating air contrasts sharply with the summer’s dry heat. A basket of vibrant winter citrus fruits sits prominently on my kitchen table, their zesty fragrance wafting through the space and infusing it with a refreshing burst of scent. The house is quiet. As I sit with my journal, gazing out over the cold, dry savannah, I am reminded that our search for happiness often leads us in many directions, sometimes missing a simpler truth. True and lasting happiness is not found in happenings or external circumstances but in a deep relationship with my Father. Psalm 144:15 assures me: “Blessed (happy) are the people whose God is the Lord.” And Ecclesiastes 2:26 adds, “To the person who pleases Him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness.” As this truth wraps around me like a comforting blanket and I am filled with a profound sense of peace and contentment.

This feeling of tranquility carries over into my kitchen as I prepare to bake an Orange and Cardamom Yoghurt Cake—perfect for a Friday treat. Yes! It is weekend! The aroma of spices—cinnamon, star anise, and cardamom—fuses beautifully with the citrus, creating a captivating scent that envelops me on this cold morning. From the instant I start zesting the oranges, the kitchen takes on the inviting aroma of a charming bake shop. This cake is especially perfect right now—with oranges in season and the warming spices adding their special touch, it’s ideal for these cold winter months.The mingling fragrances of spices and fresh fruit transform my Kalahari kitchen into a warm, joyful retreat, a true celebration of winter’s embrace and the comforting presence of happiness found within.

This is a winter must bake! This cake is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face and add a delightful touch to your weekend.

Orange and Cardamom Yoghurt Cake

Ingredients

  • 250g butter (room temperature)
  • 250 ml (1 cup) castor sugar
  • zest of one orange
  • 3 extra large eggs
  • 375g (2 1/2 cups) self raising flour
  • 5ml (1 teaspoon) grounded cardamom
  • pinch of salt
  • 375ml (1 1/2 cup) greek yoghurt
  • 125ml (1/2 cup) desiccated coconut
  • 30ml (2 tablespoons) poppyseed

Syrup ingredients

  • zest and juice of 2 oranges
  • 125ml (1/2 cup) fresh lemon juice
  • 60ml (1/4 cup) water
  • 250ml (1 cup) caster sugar
  • 60ml (1/4 cup) honey
  • 5 star anise
  • 5 cardamom pods
  • 2 cinnamon sticks

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 180C
  • Grease a medium-sized ring from pan and dust with cake flour.
  • Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
  • Incorporate the orange zest into the mixture.
  • Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
  • Sift the flour, cardamom, and salt together in a separate bowl.
  • Fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture alternately with the yogurt, starting and ending with the flour mixture.
  • Gently fold in the coconut and poppy seeds until evenly combined.
  • Pour the batter into the prepared tin and smooth the top.
  • Bake for 50 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

While the cake is baking, prepare the syrup.

  • Combine all syrup ingredients in a small pot.
  • Heat the pot over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.
  • Bring the syrup to a boil, then let it simmer for 5 minutes. (The delightful aroma of the spices will fill your kitchen!)
  • Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool slightly before turning it out of the tin.
  • Place the cake on a cooling rack.
  • Gently pour the hot syrup over the cake, allowing it to soak in.

Top the cake with a generous dollop of whipped cream, allowing its creamy sweetness to elevate each bite. For an extra touch, sprinkle some chopped pistachios on top of your cake, letting them adhere to the sticky, sweet syrup. This cake is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face and add a delightful touch to your weekend.

Whoever is happy will make others happy. ― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

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Life and Lemons

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brown plant and flowers

I cannot believe we are one third into 2021. It has been a whirlwind few months with many changes in our home… we are all still trying to adjust to a new normal. Children are far off at college, our house is quiet and we are adjusting to a so called new-normal. 2020 has shown us that nothing stays the same for long–rather, seasons come and go naturally with the predictable (and unpredictable) transformations that our world endures.

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”

– Alan W. Watts

The change of seasons excites me! Days are becoming shorter, evenings longer. I love autumn! As summer’s light dims and the leaves begin to fall, I like autumn’s reminder that a meaningful life isn’t only about productivity, but transition too.

Autumn is a time of beauty, of harvesting and of shedding the old. While autumn is a time of productivity, it is also a time of completion and transition.I love the quote that reads: If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.

Discerning the seasons of our lives isn’t always easy. The Book of Ecclesiastes says there’s ‘a season for every activity under heaven’ it is wonderful to know that our Lord is involved in all this too. God has tasks for us to do, seasons for us to do them in, and wants to guide us through each of them. I am reminded every day through this new season that it is all a choice- a choice to live expectantly. To live attentively. To live with significance. And embrace the seasons of life.

Breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit! And with all the beautiful lemons in season, I am tempted to bake these easy lemon bars. These are classic lemon bars featuring a soft butter shortbread crust and a tangy sweet lemon curd filling that’s baked to the perfect consistency. The lemon layer is thick and substantial, not thin or flimsy like most other lemon bar recipes.

Lemon bars are one of the EASIEST desserts to make but they’re guaranteed to bring a smile to your face; so bright and zingy with all the lemon flavour from the juice and zest, they’re simply irresistible! So Yes! When life gives you lemons- bake lemon bars!!

Recipe on page 2.

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What’s In My Cup?

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It’s that time of year. Shop windows fill up with brightly-coloured, twinkly light holiday displays, and living room windows fill up with Christmas trees. Festive music plays on repeat. If you’re like me, this is the time of year when you realize Christmas is fast approaching and the year went far too quickly.

For many of us, this is also one of our busiest times of the year. If you have school kids, you’re swamped with Christmas concerts, school year end functions and the thick fog of final papers and exams. After lockdown it feels like we are still trying to make up for the missed months. In between all the busyness,you want to create the most perfect family vacation and a special Christmas celebrations. Yes, November/December season is packed with parties, decorations, presents, so many events and above all, meeting everyone’s expectations.

I love this analogy I stumbled upon this week. And it reminds me of the scripture that reads “For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of” (Matthew 12:34; Luke 6:45).

You are holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm, making you spill your coffee everywhere.

Why did you spill the coffee?

“Because someone bumped into me!!!”

Wrong answer.

You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup.

Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea.

*Whatever is inside the cup is what will spill out.*

The bumping is simply the catalyst to reveal what was tucked inside.

Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you (which WILL happen), whatever is inside you will come out. It’s easy to fake it, until you get rattled or busy or frazzled or overwhelmed.

So today we have to ask ourselves… “what’s in my cup?”

When life gets tough, what spills over?

Joy, gratefulness, peace, joy and humility?

Anger, bitterness, harsh words and reactions?

Life provides the cup, YOU choose how to fill it.

Friend, I do not know what is in your cup right now but if you are in any version of normal, there is a lot of coffee-infused exam nerves and cinnamon-spiced holiday stress. The demands are overwhelming and if you are like me, this time of year also brings a reflection of all the ways that 2020 did not measure up to expectations.

So today, let’s work towards filling our cups with gratitude, forgiveness, joy, words of affirmation; and kindness, gentleness and love for others. For life will bump into us. But a heart full of Jesus doesn’t get bruised when it gets bumped.

And when the hustle and bustle of this season seems to drain you from all your good intentions and you get bumped around, there is always ice cream and coffee. Affogato is an Italian classic dessert and means “drowned” in Italian as it is essentially drowning ice cream in coffee. The hot coffee starts to melt the ice cream and forms a thick foam at the top. The best way to eat an affogato is with a spoon, eat the ice cream first and then drink the coffee along with any melted ice cream.

Affogato is so good, you won’t believe it is so elegant, easy, delicious and only needs two ingredients. Perfect to round off any festive menu or as a late night treat. I am filling my cup now! Recipe page 2

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Life is a Book with Many Chapters

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It is Monday morning and our seniors started with their final exams today. Yes, in Namibia our school year runs with the calendar year and our kids finish their year in December to start a new school grade in January. With Covid -19 and the pandemic that also reached us here in the southwest of Africa, there was a time when our seniors were to only write their finals in 2021.

But thankfully, with prayerful faith, meetings with top officials and hours of negotiating, our seniors could walk into the school hall today to write their Cambridge final exams and close this chapter named ‘school’. I stand in awe at how quickly this crazy but delightful season of school runs, lunch boxes and sport days went by for me as the mother of a bright beautiful young girl..

Our lives are all about chapters and seasons. 2020 may be a year for many of us where we wish we could skip some chapters, skip to THE END. As we flip through the pages of our life, and especially this year, we live through an array of emotions, actions, and circumstances. We had our ups and downs. We laughed,we cried,we won,we lost,we faltered and we grew stronger…in ourselves and in our faith.

Yes, every day adds a new page to our overall journey. Every day offers a new beginning. A chance to act, to live attentively. To start over. To try again to make something beautiful of this journey called life.

The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.”

George Bernard Shaw

The Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes 3:1, “For everything there is a season.” It also tells us in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time.” I love these scriptures, as it encourages me that seasons change and that God is working in my life and the lives of my too-quick-growing children. I can keep the faith and live expectantly! For God is the author of my (and their) life.

So in the next few weeks, we as a family are in the chapter or season called FINALS. Long days of studying, encouraging, late nights, cookies and milk, supporting, praying, biting nails, coffee on the porch, tears, giggles, hugs and chocolate. Lots of chocolate! We have already finished a batch of the most delectable Rocky Roads… and this is day one!

Whoever came up with the idea for Rocky Roads was a genius. It requires no baking, contains lots of yummy ingredients and no one expects it to look picture perfect! It is a family favorite, especially during the exams. This is a no bake cookie recipe that doesn’t require the oven, so it’s super quick and easy to make. Child‘s play! Perfect to keep a batch on hand to serve friends as they pop over and spread some holiday cheer.

The problem will be keeping your family away from it long enough to actually serve to guests! I know my pan has already been devoured and they are waiting for a refill! And we are not even close to vacation time or Christmas! Maybe it is because of exam nerves? ( Mum included!).

While Rocky Roads are the perfect easy treat to put out any time and during any season of year, it also makes for an amazing homemade holiday treat! A great homemade gift for all the teachers,coaches, friends and family over this festive season.

I love to add cranberries and flaked almonds or pistachios for a Christmas touch and then box it with a big Christmas bow! Use your imagination and add dried fruits, candied cherries, Turkish delight, Maltezer chocolate balls, white chocolate, hazelnuts, raisins, choc chips or anything you may have on hand in your pantry. This is your story, your own take on Rocky Roads.

So whatever season you find yourself in, or whatever chapter of your life story you are writing, or if you just want to reach THE END of 2020, there should be a special mention of these fudgy, chewy, and crunchy textured Rocky Road cookies. You will find this a scrumptious, indulgent and easy-to-make Rocky Road recipe. Perfect for the holiday season ( and exam chapter) and so super easy and simple to make. It will bring a huge happy smile to your face and give you the spring in your step you need for the next few weeks. Recipe on page 2.

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