Karoo Dining

Guests are spoiled with true Karoo Cuisine prepared by our Resident Chef in the quaint dining room, or try alfresco dining under the stars, maybe you prefer your meal served in your unit family style. A unique dining experience awaits you here at Morning Glory Cottages.
Marene vd Walt joined the guesthouse in January 2012, after being away from the farm since 1996, she returned to her Roots in the Karoo that she cherished so much.

From Farm to Table

The mother and daughter team has been developing a lush vegetable garden and orchard.
Planting various fruit trees and 50 pecan nut trees, different varieties of tomatoes, leafy vegetables, squashes & pumpkins, sweet corn, potatoes and experimenting with a variety of herbs. With the help of two wizardly green finger gardeners Johnson and son David, every visit to the vegetable garden presents a new surprise, working side by side we plant new varieties and learns through patience, trial and error what can survive in this harsh and arid world and in time creating an oasis of ingredients straight to your plate. Tapping through scribbled notes and of grandparent's old hand written notebooks to see what and how they produced in the past.

Dinner is designed around what is available and picked from the garden that day, when out of season, we try and support local traders in the vicinity which source & selects our ingredients from grocers in Bloemfontein. Incorporating new ingredients and trends from modern society we try and create Honest Homely Karoo cuisine, but never losing touch with old techniques and flavours.
Dinner can be The Farm Table a delicious buffet, or a Three Course Plated meal or buy a Braaipack from us and "braai" your own Karoo lamb to your liking, served with two salads, roosterkoek or freshly baked bread. Choose a wine from our wine selection in Schalkies Place to accompany your meal. Carefully planned desserts can be enjoyed with a dessert wine specially imported from selected Klein Karoo Estates.

After dinner enjoy a nice coffee in the bar lounge in the company of new friends made in the Karoo Hartland. Or sitting outside next to the fire pit gazing at the stars

Scrumptious Breakfasts are on offer the following morning. The Farm Breakfast enough to keep any farmer "oops" traveller going for the rest of their trip. Free range farm eggs, bacon, homemade sausage, etc. If you leaving early you can arrange with management to prepare a breakfast pack for the road, Please Note: please arrange before 5pm the day of arrival.

We have a strong connection with our local heritage and traditions, recipes passed down by grandmothers, mothers, aunties and sometimes even uncles, also learning from the families that have been working on the farm for generations. Returning to centuries of knowledge re exploring all the old methods of preserving and cooking food before we had all the modern technology in our kitchen today. Remembering flavours experienced on the farm as children, long lost on today's supermarket shelves. Some favourites have been for the last sixteen years. Like Emily's green beans, Christa's sweet potato crumble, Ouma Kokkie's flop proof malva pudding, Auntie Drienie's koeksisters or my Dad's favourite hertzoggies, Maggies delicious noodle salad, Betjie's "roosterkoek" or "krummelpap" Moms phillistyne pudding born out of pure desperation for un expected visitors one weekend. Some of these dishes were the instilled in our youthful minds as children growing up in a Karoo farm kitchen. Sitting on the stoep with Granny and popping freshly picked peas in your mouth. Watching Ouma Tinie pouring silky sweet syrup over the apricot halves in bottles ready for the pantry shelf until the winter. Fighting over juicy pomegranates or spending the Sunday afternoon picking thorns from our fingers after cleaning prickly pears for lunch.

Free range Karoo lamb or Venison reared and farmed here on the Farm, is always on the menu, Rubicon Merino's & Game grazing on natural grass and Karoo bushes in the veldt, therefore its distinct flavour. Also finding its way on the menu every now and again is the Nguni beef farmed with on the farm since 1983. This indigenous animal, native from Africa, known for its colourful hides, also produces succulent and tender meat, which is sometimes used in our home made sausages.

Curing meats in the winter time, bottling and preserving fruit and vegetables in the summer, making Jams and Chutneys, pickling fruit, producing goats cheese and yoghurt.
These are just but a few delicacies produced at Morning Glory Cottages and all grown, reared and cared for on the farm. Smoking and potting pates.
The smell of freshly baked bread straight out the oven, served with pates or homemade preserves "what a delight!"