One would think, that seeing as I just spent a sleepless weekend, baking and frying Indian sweetmeats, the last thing I wanted to do was still make more sweet treats.

But I did. My father gave up eating left overs on Tuesday and threw a mini tantrum, with his lips hanging that he wanted something else, other than left overs, and not a toasted cheese sandwich, and when I offered him those fire noodles he didn’t want that either.

Not sure what he was hoping for?  A three course meal, no way, my calves were still stiff and I still had brain fog, he had the luxury of getting 7 hours of sleep on Saturday night, and still having an afternoon nap after the prayers. Okay he did do a few dishes to which I was no pleased. What kind of Indian is he, that he only washes enough dishes to create a neat row? When you wash dishes, the drying rack must be sky high and packed like a jigsaw, who has time to wash dishes neatly? Actually I think he just washed enough cups and spoons because there wasn’t clean ones for his tea lol. Shh don’t say I told you so.

The best I could do was make slap chips for supper and as per my father’s instructions, do not make it strong, so I had to season it with salt for the baby’s taste buds who are now unable to eat anything that is spicy. Lord give me strength. I also bought a dozen of potatoe samosas from the new Indian restaurant down the road and my dad could only handle one. The filling was yellow jeera potatoes with no chilli in sight, yet it was strong for him. I give up, I throw my hands up and wave the white flag, I surrender, I cannot handle this eating habits, not to big, not a lot of food, not to strong, no left overs. I need to read my contract and see that fine print that I missed the first time around. I doubt I was ever such a complicated eater ever in my life.

During our prayer time, my mother spring cleans the kitchen from top to bottom, so everything that isn’t used up by then, is thrown up, no matter what it is, if it isn’t going to be used for the prayers, there is no place in the kitchen for it. So when my dad asked for a tea time treat, I had to scratch deep in those cupboards to see what was left over from the prayers that I could use and the only thing I found was coconut and condense milk and I remember coming across a recipe in Fatima Sydow’s cookbook for coconut balls, the recipe also asked for a few other ingredients, which meant that I would have to go to the stores, but thanks to the 60 minute shopping app, I managed to have it delivered to my door.

The original recipe stated to dip the balls in chocolate and allow to set, I had no chocolate on hand and my parents are not huge fans of chocolate, my father says he is brown enough, he doesn’t want to go browner from eating chocolate. I skipped that step and I was glad I did. The end result was brightly coloured balls that would have been hidden away underneath a layer of tempered chocolate. My parents loved these balls, my father invited his friends over to have cake and tea, like what old people. The only thing missing was the grandfather slippers and pipe, seeing as they all are already wearing glasses.

This recipe allows you to run wild, for example I matched the outside of my balls to the inside, pink coloured balls had strawberry infused filling and the yellow one had lemon infused filling and the green coloured balls had mint infused fillings.

Ingredients:

• A few drops of red, green and yellow food colouring.
• A few drops of strawberry essence, lemon essence and mint essence.
• 1 x tin condense milk.
• 400g x fine desiccated coconut.

Method:

• In a bowl, mix together the condense milk and coconut.
• Divide the mixture between three bowls.
• Colour and flavor each bowl, mix well to ensure that the food colouring is mixed thoroughly and all the coconut mixture is tinted.
• Using an ice cream scoop, scoop out spoonful’s of the mixture and shape into a ball.
• Place on a plate and pop into the fridge for 15 minutes before serving.