Grootbos Foundation

Recipes through the seasons: Koffie en melktert

While it sleets, snows and hails across the Western Cape, we are staying snug with coffee and milktart, Stanford style. Thank you to the Stanford Food Heroes at the Grootbos Foundation for this perfectly timed recipe.

 

INGREDIENTS
Pastry
2 cups flour
1 egg
½ cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
125g butter
pinch of salt

Filling
4 ½ cups milk
2 ½ tbsp cornflour
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
pinch of salt
2 ½ tbsp flour
1 tsp vanilla essence
a big spoon of butter

METHOD
Pastry
Cream butter and sugar well together and add the egg, before beating well.
Add all other ingredients – making a stiff dough.
Press into one or two round cake tins/pie dishes.
Bake blind for 15 minutes at 180°C (use wax paper to cover the pastry and place dry beans/rice over the paper to weight the pastry down). Then remove the paper and beans/rice and bake for an additional 5 minutes until light brown.

Filling
Bring milk to a gentle boil.
Beat eggs well and add sugar, flour, cornflour and salt.
Mix well.
Pour boiling milk into the mixture and stir well.
Return to stove and stir for 10-12 minutes on medium heat until the mixture thickens.
Add butter and vanilla essence and mix through, then pour into cooked shell.
Allow to cool in the fridge (you do not need to cook the tart any further)
To decorate, sprinkle with cinnamon.

We are pairing this South African favourite with a local Cuppa-Jo. Choose your favourite local brew and smuggle it home in travel mug where you can kick off your gumboots, slip into your stokies and curl up on the couch with a slice (or 2) of melktert!

For tip-top posh coffee in Stanford, try Ou Meul Bakkery, Coffee Corner, Yum Eat Cafe, Graze or La Tratorria or just outside the village at Stanford Harvest.

Words: Phil Murray

The Stanford River Festival 2018 – plenty of water in the Klein River

If you missed it last year, you’ll be happy to know that the Stanford River Festival is back, hosted in the beautiful village of Stanford by the Grootbos Foundation and the Stanford Canoe Club. The Klein River, while little, is full of water and ready to offer cool respite to our friends and family from the drier regions of the Western Cape. Come on down to the riverfront at the bottom of King Street from 16 – 18 March and join in the paddling fun.

The weekend will kick off with a cruise on the Friday at 17:00 to ‘blow out the cobwebs’ in preparation for the main action on the Saturday. Saturday offers events of 5km, 10km, 15km and guppy (juniors) races, open to all– SUPs, K1s, K2s, K3s, sea kayaks, Indian canoes, surf skis and guppies. Registration starts at 07:30 at the bottom of King Street.

2017 Stanford River Festival

The program includes a WCCU President’s Trophy event, in which a number of current and former Springbok canoeists take part and special categories for Surf Ski and SUP participants have been accommodated for.

2017 Stanford River Festival

The event will be supported by a selection of food stalls, a face painting stall to keep children entertained and a local craft beer and wine tent showcasing the local wines and beers of the region. A selection of covetable raffle prizes will be on offer. Be sure to enter for your chance to win. The support market offers plenty of fun, food and music for spectators so slap on some sun-cream, and come and lounge on the lush lawn of the Wandelpad while you cheer in the paddlers.

2017 Stanford River Festival

All proceeds of the event support the ‘Rock the Boat’ Stanford Canoe Development Academy which supports local children accessing the sport of canoeing. This programme has grown to include training three times a week and access to regional regattas.  Watch for the academy juniors participating in the races – you should recognize them by their turquoise T-shirts!

We look forward to seeing you all on the picturesque banks of the Klein River of the Stanford Village!

For further information, contact: Wilien Van Zyl, Stanford Canoeing Academy, Email: vanzylwilien@gmail.com

Or follow the event on Facebook here

Visit the Grootbos Foundation

Stanford is fortunate to be a mere 10km from Grootbos, an astonishingly beautiful guest lodge that reclines discreetly on the fynbos slopes above the Walker Bay Whale Sanctuary. Built from earthy materials like stone and wood, with huge glass windows to maximize views, Grootbos blends into its natural surroundings. Winding pathways curl through ancient milkwood groves, and bright and smiling staff welcome visitors to Forest Lodge and Garden Lodge, two halves of the same destination. Grootbos is also the home of the Grootbos Foundation which is a non-profit organisation fully committed to empowering and uplifting local people by developing sustainable livelihoods through ecotourism, enterprise development, sports development and education. Everyone benefits.

Greener futures for all through learning and growing

From the staff and students at the Green Futures Programme, to the children on the sports fields in Gansbaai, Stanford and Hermanus, to families in Masakane, Gansbaai who have access to a community garden where they can grow and then sell fresh produce, the Foundation is committed to giving back. The Foundation creates jobs, and teaches people sustainability in a world which is only gradually beginning to consider introspection regarding our consumerism. The Grootbos Foundation offers in-house training with certifications in eco-tourism, with the emphasis being on preserving and even expanding the indigenous flora and fauna of our surroundings. One team is working on linking the pristine fynbos nodes in a continuous corridor from the Walker Bay Conservancy all the way to the Agulhas Plains and the Southernmost Tip of Africa. This will not only create jobs and preserve nature, but it will create an experience for visitors to travel, and will improve the knowledge of locals and farmers so that farming and livelihoods can become more sustainable and successful in the future.

A Grootbos Foundation Project: The Community Garden in Gansbaai where people can plant and tend their own allotments, growing food for their families and for sale.

The team at the Grootbos Foundation dreams big, and it puts its money where its mouth is. No plastic or straws are permitted on the property which now bottles underground spring water in glass reusable bottles for lodge guests. The nursery is full of cuttings and seedlings lovingly borrowed from nature. Volunteers and students help coach sport at local schools wherever they are invited, including the Stanford Canoe Development Academy. The general optimism and enthusiasm of everyone at the Grootbos Foundation is inspiring.

Grootbos herbarium filled with every plant species found at Grootbos

Michael Lutzeyer, owner of Grootbos Private Nature Reserve, believes that everyone can grow food, anywhere, and his passion for fynbos and conservation is evident everywhere. The Grootbos Foundation is prolific in the work they do to help people in this region. Their imagination and generosity knows no bounds – all we need to do is to take their hands and walk with them on this amazing eco-tourism conservation journey. This is exactly what Stanford Tourism and Business intends to do.

View from Grootbos

 

By Phil Murray