Author: Bunny Eats Design

Happy December!

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Happy December! December always seems to be a month of decadent food and plenty of drink. This week I have woken up with a hangover three mornings in a row, so today was thinking that I wouldn’t be drinking again for a little while. I thought I  wouldn’t be buying any booze at the market…that is until I saw the Wild Side Cider that I featured on Monday Bunday this week! A sucker for cute labels and especially one that I featured this week, I decided to get a bottle “for research purposes”. I hope you all have more willpower than I. A new month means a new Our Growing Edge Event. Last month’s Our Growing Edge roundup will be posted by Becky at My Utensil Crock and December’s event will be hosted by Leah from Sharing The Food We Love. Join us!  

Monday Bunday: Wild Side Cider

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This bunny illustration for Wild Side Cider (Strawberry and Lime)  is by Auckland-based illustrator Galima Akhmetzyanova for creative agency BARNES, CATMUR & FRIENDS. In this series there are other flavours with their own creatures but I bet the bunny labelled strawberry and lime cider tastes the best. You can see more of Galima’s work at her Behance page here or her Cargo Collective page here. “The rugged landscape of Central Otago makes it the perfect breeding ground for all sorts of wild fruit. Unfortunately it’s also a breeding ground for wild rabbits, and if there’s one thing that breeds like rabbits, it’s rabbits. Famous for terrorising motorists and annoying farmers, they’re also keen strawberry pickers. We are too, so we put them in our cider.”

Duck fat two ways

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I refuse to believe every “new fact” I read about food because facts change as science and attitudes change. You can shop around for the truth you want to hear. Once you find it, you can hold onto it tightly. Blind to other truths. So today I read that duck fat is considered by some as a healthy fat. Healthier than butter, closer to olive oil. Oh GOOD. Because I bought a jar of duck fat just last week. One version of the truth is good enough for me. A new fat I’ve never cooked with duck fat before, so in the spirit of research here’s two simple recipes that might inspire you to cook with duck fat. Duck fat can be found in glass jars in the oil section or in plastic tubs in the meat section of your supermarket or at fancy food shops. You can even make your own duck fat as a by product of cooking duck like this. Duck Fat & Sage Roast Potatoes Sage is easy to grow and …

Deep Fried Duck and wanky dumplings

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Please excuse me. I am fresh from an evening of fine booze and delicious, oh so delicious food. Quote of the night: When did we become so wanky?  Seriously. Between the “That’s not jam, that’s couli.” or trying to identify the six flavours of the Fisher & Paykel experience — which by the way, I tasted barley, marjoram, maple syrup, black garlic, coriander and black olive — it was sure as hell wanky but so much fun. I saw a few “World famous in New Zealand” food bloggers and food personalities walking about too. Taste of Auckland is like Disneyland for foodies. My friends Coco and Livvy, two fine foodies came with me on opening night (again) and we shared a bunch of dishes (again). I could visit Taste of Auckland every day (mentally, not economically). I’d go back or seconds, thirds even. The weather was divine, sunny, even warm at times and the 5.30pm to 9.30pm session a good amount of time to eat and drink your way through various restaurants, vineyards, liqueurs and food producers. …

Lovely little plates of yum

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Taste of Auckland is tomorrow! If I possessed a foodie calendar, Taste of Auckland would be the highlight of it. I have blogged about here and here and it’s a chance to enjoy lovely little plates of yum by many of Auckland’s best chefs. Taste is a global franchise and next year there will be eighteen Taste events worldwide. It is possible I am a little bias. I haven’t missed a Taste event yet. With that track record, they must be doing something very, VERY right. Call me an earnest fangirl. As part of Bunny Eats Design’s 3rd year anniversary celebrations I was delighted to give away 2 double passes to Taste of Auckland next week. But if you missed out, GA tickets are $25 but don’t forget to allocate some spending money too. Expect to spend between $30 and $60 depending on how much you like to eat and drink. The Menu Click to enlarge     I recommend 3 to 4 dishes per person, depending on how many free samples you try (and how much you drink). Take a foodie …

Our Growing Edge October Round-up

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Alice over at Nom Nom Cat has posted up the round-up for Our Growing Edge October. View it here to see what foodies have been pushing themselves with last month. This month’s event will be hosted by Becky from My Utensil Crock. If you have a blog and think you might be trying eating or cooking something new this month, click below to join.

Tofu Tuesday: Tofu and Cream

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Meet Cream the bunny. Cream is moving from New Zealand to Japan today and we wish him and his family a safe journey. Last weekend, Cream and his owner, Yoshi came for a play date to meet Tofu and to say goodbye. The Koala and I met Yoshi through The Japanese Art Festival which he runs. Over the years we have become friends, first exhibiting our work and more recently, helping with the design, promotion and running of the event. The Japanese Festival will be sadly missed as Yoshi and family move back to Japan. Tofu hasn’t seen a bunny in about 5 years so this was a very special visit. Tofu was the dominant one but Cream had his sight and therefore the upper hand. Cream also showed us a few binkys (random twisting rabbit jumps) to say he was quite pleased. The bunnies were  curious of each other and Tofu took his time carefully examining Cream’s carry case while Cream explored our house. The Koala even got to hold both bunnies at once. …

King Salmon

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“The only reason I travel, is for an excuse to eat more than usual”.  – A Homemade Life, Molly Wizenberg It is hard for me to pass up any chance to eat salmon. I am a salmon eating MACHINE. We saw signs for glacial water fed salmon and I was licking my chops in anticipation. When we passed by the Mt Cook Alpine Salmon shop early on Monday morning, we had to stop. No matter that we hadn’t had breakfast yet. On the edge of Lake Pukaki, mesmerised by the view of Mt Cook, The Koala and I enjoyed fresh salmon sashimi for breakfast. The Koala noted how firm and dense the salmon was and a little research into the farm pleased me very much. This isn’t just any farmed salmon. It is quite possibly the best farmed salmon money can buy. Why Mt Cook Alpine Salmon is so awesome: Eco-sustainably farmed Pure fast-flowing glacier and snow fed water from the Southern Alps of New Zealand. 1,969 feet above sea level, it is the world’s highest …

Mackenzie Country

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The Koala and I went to a wedding at Lake Hawea in the South Island of New Zealand. A great excuse for a little road trip on the other end of the country, we also visited Lakes Tekapo, Pukaki and Wanaka. The area is stunning, rich with photo ops and export quality food production. This is a countryside of milk and honey, lamb, wool, venison and very, very good salmon. The middle of the South Island around the Southern Alps is known as Mackenzie Country. The area has a colourful history and you can read a short summary about James Mackenzie and his sheep stealing escapades here. Driving through Mackenzie Country, it was hard not to fall in love with the alpine pasture and tussock, turquoise lakes, snow-capped mountains and millions of sheep. I squealed every time I saw a particularly adorable lamb. Being spring, there were more sweet faced lambs than you could shake a stick at. We stopped to converse with the livestock and while the sheep were vocal, they did not express …

Hannibal Buress got me into pickle juice

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The Koala and I laugh about pickle juice. Probably too much. To find out why, watch this bit from funny man Hannibal Buress. It’s gold. The Koala is addicted to pickles so we also have an abundance of pickle juice in this house. We usually throw it out. Cooking with pickle juice wouldn’t be part of my radar but the seed was sown. Hannibal Buress made me experiment with pickle juice. I hope he likes this recipe! It ain’t swordfish but the salmon market is pretty stable. 😉 Note: recipe may vary as pickle juice is a man-made product and comes in all manners of strengths. I found ours  mild  with a little sweetness and delicately flavoured the fish. I felt that could have done with a little more oomph but The Koala thought the flavour was just right. I served this with pumpkin mash and some rainbow silverbeet (rainbow chard) for colour. There’s something fun about a widly colourful all-natural plate of food. But if you want to be a bit more subdued, rice …

Tofu says freedom (is overrated)

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Tofu the bunny has free reign of our backyard, but the front yard isn’t fenced and is relatively unchartered territory. He has escaped on few occasions, but not since he became blind. I let Tofu roam on his own while keeping a close eye on him. He had a sniff and a nibble around the front steps but decided on his own that he wouldn’t make a run for it and ended up taking himself back inside.