Peta de Wet grew up in the hospitality business; her parents were hoteliers, and her father a chef, too. On the face of it, it seemed to be a natural progression that she would end up following in their footsteps. “Having said that,” she laughs, “I fought against it and took a different route.”
But, as fate would have it, Peta ended up owning and running an event management and
function decor business for well over 20 years. “It was huge fun and insanely hard work with ridiculous hours, and I loved every minute of it. However, when the last changes were made to the BEE regulations, business started to dry up rapidly, and then, with Covid, it
came to a grinding halt.”
In the back of her mind, Peta had been playing around with the idea of having her own deli, called the Blue Pomegranate, making all the accompaniments and serving her kind
of food. “It was an expensive dream,” she says, “so I decided to start with the products instead, and the Blue Pomegranate was born. We booked a stall at a market and sold out. I was hooked, so I cooked and cooked some more, attended the odd market here and there and kept selling. I had found an outlet for my products and people loved them.”
Several people started asking Peta to create a market in Mbombela, so after much deliberation, she started the market up at the old airport. For a while it went well, but as it was a little way out of town, she moved it to the botanical garden. Although it was a
stunning location, parking was a huge issue, and when Covid hit, everything came to standstill.
In September, Peta launched the I Love Local Market at the Crossing Shopping Centre in Mbombela, not only providing an outlet for her own products, but also an opportunity
for many locals to earn an income during these very trying times. “We also recently started the Casterbridge Country Market in White River, which is a Sunday event,” explains Peta. “I
have a passion for the Lowveld and her people, and creating these spaces is my way of assisting my community. We need to support one another. For me and my husband, Clint, it’s all about our market community and giving them as much support as we possibly
can. And, I suppose, the eventing bug never quite leaves your system!”
Peta’s first love, though, is still cooking. She loves playing around with flavours and ingredients, always trying to take her products to the next level. “There are so many different chilli sauces doing the rounds, but our sriracha sauce is something special… It’s not your average chilli sauce. Just ask its loyal following,” she laughs. “I will push the flavour boundaries as far as I possibly can. First and foremost, it’s about flavour, quality ingredients and cooking with integrity. We try and source as many of our ingredients
from local farmers and what we can’t, we grow ourselves. Our latest batch of Thai sweet chilli sauce is made with home-grown tomatoes, chillis and garlic… Now that was an achievement, considering that my hubby and I have no clue about farming.
“We do not water down our products at all; no artificial flavouring, preservatives or colouring is added. Our roasted jams are so concentrated – 20 pineapples yield just nine bottles of jam. Yes, you pay a little more, but you are getting pure, undiluted scrumptiousness in a bottle. We add no pectin or gelatin to any of our jams. As much as it is possible, we allow the natural pectin in the fruit to set the jams and jellies. The apricot
jam we make is really something special; it’s the only one of ours that is not seasonal, because we use dried apricots. It’s apricot jam that is thick, packed with flavour and so very tasty.”
Peta’s delicious wholegrain mustard recipe took six months to perfect. “We were at a market in Hoedspruit,” she recalls, “and a tourist from Bavaria bought an entire case to take back with her… Now that was a feel-good moment!”
With the way things are in our world at the moment, many of us are resorting back to the old way of doing things; growing our own veggies, preserving what we grow and stocking our pantries with our results.
Peta put together two easy recipes, one for peanut butter and the other for blueberry jam. Both are healthy, have no additives and taste delicious. Just bear in mind that you cannot use the peanut butter for baking, as it is not stable enough to handle the heat.
Details
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Home-made peanut butter
You’ll need
1½ cups of roasted peanuts – unsalted and skinned; 1 tbsp of peanut oil
What to do
Pop everything into a food processor or blender and blend until smooth.
If you want it crunchy, keep about ¼ cup of the nuts aside. Add them at the end and pulse a few times until you are happy with the consistency. Once done, seal in a sterilised jar.
Voila – home-made peanut butter. But play around with various nuts, and you can whip up some nut butters. If you want your peanut butter a little sweeter, add a bit of honey. Start with a teaspoon at a time until you are happy with the sweetness. You can also add a pinch of salt.
Home-made blueberry jam
You’ll need
5 cups of fresh blueberries; 1 cup of sugar; 1 tbsp of fresh lemon juice; a pinch of salt
What to do
Pop everything into a medium pot and give it a bit of smash. A potato masher will work just fine. You want to release some of the juices.
Bring everything up to a boil, turn the heat down to medium and let it bubble away for about 25 minutes. Stir it every now at then so it doesn’t burn.
Transfer hot jam into hot sterilised jars and seal.
Once cool, you can pop them in the fridge.
You can use frozen berries, but cook them on their own first for a few minutes to soften, and get rid of the water before mashing and adding other ingredients. Your cooking time will also be shorter – about 18 minutes.
