Se7en + 1 Review Justin Bonello’s Latest Book: Road Tripping… And it’s a GiveAway!!!

‘Tis the season for a new Justin Bonello CookBook to come out. Every year for the last couple years, just as a new series of Ultimate Braaimaster is about to launch on television… Penguin Random House and Justin Bonello with Helena Lombard, launch a new cook book and we rather love them all and this one especially.

The new edition to the Justin Bonello Collection of Books, Road Tripping, is as ever a wonderfully inspiration travel book. These books cover the dusty back roads of South Africa like no other books ever do. Packed with anecdotes and things to do, and not just a few recipes either… these books are simply the best guides to life in South Africa. From the North to South and the East to the West… Justin Bonello and his team will have you covered… what to eat, what to pack and where to play.

At this stage Justin Bonello books, are close to being their own unique brand – they have a different feel to most books. There paper is rugged, they have rich smell, pages and pages of superb photographs and a layout with such attention to detail that you feel you could almost lift items right off the pages.

1. The Travel: As he travels with his team, on their relentless journey to discover South Africa’s Ultimate Braaimaster, they must have been rushed, dashing from point to point always with a deadline looming. Cooking, filming, photographing… and yet the reader is left with a feeling of relaxing on a stoep in a hammock, watching the sunsetting after a hot day, with a cold drink.
2. The Kuier (Visiting): You have a sense that the authors are sitting on your stoep chatting with you… what should you pack for your road trip, what are the best games to play, even the music you should be listening to. They paint a very vivid picture of the actual trip and you could be forgiven for checking for dust under your shoes.
3. The Food Tips: How to shuck an oyster; how to clean mussels; how to make every single type of pap; not to mention how to prep an make biltong by hanging it above your dashboard as you drive cross the Namib dessert.
4. Border Crossing Tips: Just a couple of vital things you need to know for crossing the border into Namibia, the papers you need for taking a car into Namibia and what times the border posts will be open,
5. The Best Spicy Combos: There is a fabulous list of the best combinations of spices brought to you by the famous spice brand, Robertsons. The best combo of Chicken spice, Dukkah, Cajun spice, and heaps more, even Jamaican Jerk.
6. How to Make Ice-Cream in the Desert: Because everyone needs to know how to do this. Basically, this is ice-cream in a ziplock bag, but on a galactic/grand scale. Some party tricks are worth perfecting and this is most certainly one of them.
7. Creature Comforts : There is a whole list of the crew’s choice of creature comforts and in a family of absolute minimalist packers it is full of pocket size ideas that could make the difference between comfortable and well, spartan.
8. Well Hello, Braai Tips: I think people the world over love to cook over an open fire… this book and in fact all the books in this series, are about the best place on earth to start. For fabulous tips and ideas of things that you never might have imagined that you could cook on a braai… good ideas for good tips for good times.

Justin Bonello books are actually food books… recipes and travel, really what could be better. The kind of food that can be made on the road, over a fire and certainly with crowds of friends.

1. Make Your Own Quick Roti’s:

For the family that is mad about curry, this is more a life skill than a recipe to try out… and it was a huge success. We have entered the land of cooking roti’s… and will never look back.


2. Upside Down Banana:

This is definitely a case of the recipe in the book looked so much better than the one we made, but seriously you can’t beat caramelised bananas. Our gang devoured it and loved it and have asked for it again and again and again.


3. Butternut Bread:

Pretty much the easiest bread recipe in the world… topped with roasted butternut and pumpkin seeds. This is an absolute winner and a great way to add just one more vegetable to a feast.


4. Apricot Malva:

This recipe gets ten out of ten for impressing my mom-in-law… I always forget how easy halva pudding is and then I make it and everybody loves it. The special feature of this traditional recipe is that instead of your typical halva pudding made in a large oven dish, we popped them into a muffin pan and serve little individual puddings… not to mention adding some dried apricots… for the win!!!


5. Zesty Potato Salad:

Everything to love about this potato salad with a bight to it… not your typical potato salad and some of my guys took a little convincing – because old habits die hard. But the next time we had potato salad I noticed our champion zester reaching for the lemons and limes.


6. Mielie Bread:

For our overseas friends mielies is the local name for corn, and mielie bread is a recipe I can hand over to the kids as lunch time approaches and it is so easy you cannot fail. Corn bread and salad have become our standard lunch since we first made this bread, a recipe we have simply put on repeat.


7. Pyjama Pants Pasta:

Just the name of this… screams, in a joyful way, comfort food. There is bacon, and mushrooms, and chillies, not to mention cream, as well as a few other delights and takes as long to prepare as it does to cook a packet of pasta. My kind of meal exactly.


8. Sweet Potato Roly Poly:

We made these one morning and then got stuck into school and completely forgot them in the oven… ages later the whole house was rocking to the smell of sweet potatoes and cinnamon, did we remember that there was a treat waiting for us… treat it was, and though ours had been in the oven somewhat, read “way,” longer than we intended they still went straight onto the “make these again soon” list.


9. White Chocolate Baked Cheesecake:

When a recipe book includes something call White Chocolate Baked Cheesecake you just have to bake it, if only to see if it lives up to it’s name – it totally did. This went straight onto the list of “this will satisfy almost every guest that pops over for a meal.”

1. Justin Bonello’s Cooked in the Karoo…
2. Se7en + 1 Review and GiveAway Justin Bonello’s Road Less Travelled, Ultimate Braai Master Book 2…
3. An Exclusive Interview with Justin Bonello…
4. Se7en + 1 Review Justin Bonello’s Ultimate Braai Book…
5. Se7en Review Justin Bonello Cooks For Friends – Brilliant!!!
6. Se7en Visit With Justin Bonello.
7. Cooked Out of the Frying Pan by Justin Bonello.
8. Cooked in Africa by Justin Bonello.

We have a copy of this brilliant book to GiveAway… one lucky reader will be all set for the summer…

This GiveAway works in the usual way, leave a comment, tell us what you like to cook on an open fire, before the end of play on National Braai Day, 24 September 2015, and we will draw and publish the winner in the next Fabulous Fun Post After That. I won’t respond to your comments as I do on our other posts because I don’t want to be included in our own giveaway. This GiveAway is open worldwide. If you have won a GiveAway before never fear – enter away.

Road Tripping with Justin Bonello was given to us for review purposes, and one other copy for a giveaway, by Penguin Random House South Africa. It is not a sponsored post, and the opinions expressed are as usual entirely our own.