Author: Bunny Eats Design

Foodbox 2

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Our second Foodbox arrived yesterday afternoon and though we had a dinner date, I couldn’t help but sample one of the lovely ambrosia apples before we left. Easily the best apple I have eaten. Ever. I made the amateur mistake of putting the apple core in my office bin instead of the heavy, lidded kitchen bin. When we got home from dinner, the rubbish was knocked over, the apple core missing, scattered seeds in the hallway and one nonchalant rabbit. I guess we’ll never know who did it. First impression Good. Seemed just as heavy as the last box though I couldn’t be bothered weighing everything this time. Some exotic things to our regular shopping list. A good thing as it’s a chance to experiment a bit with cooking and eating unfamiliar things. Vegetables Kale (cavalo nero) x 1 Mini white cabbage x 1 Sweet stem broccoli x 1 medium bag Spinach leaves x 1 large bag Mung bean sprouts x 1 medium bag Potatoes x 8 Carrots x3 Swede (rutabaga) Italiano Cherry heritage tomatoes x 1 …

Tomato Soup

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It’s been raining all weekend and we spent a hungover day holed up at home, wrapped in blankets, watching movies and feeling pathetic. It’s not super cold yet, but when you are feeling fragile, comfort is priority. Soup and grilled cheese sandwiches was just the ticket – pretty easy to make and to eat. I always have canned tomatoes in the pantry. I buy 3 to 4 cans at a time because one brand or another will have a special deal on. Canned tomatoes are a handy base for pasta dishes, nachos, stews and more recently, tomato soup. In terms of equipment, you really need 1 large saucepan and a stick blender. You can use a regular blender if that’s all you have. I would use 1/2 a cup of milk minimum. If you’re prefer a bit more milk or even full fat cream, go for it! Tomato Soup Serves 4 Ingredients 1 tablespoon cooking oil 1 onion 1 clove garlic 2 cans of canned whole or diced tomatoes (400 grams/14.5oz each) 1 can of …

Simple Hash Browns

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Who thought that something so simple would be so popular? I cooked this for The Koala on the weekend and shared a photo on this blog and the response was overwhelming. So here is my recipe. Easy enough for a man or a child accomplice…or a man-child accomplice. This recipe made two large hash browns, but you could easily divide it into four thinner hash brown, just do not cook as long. Simple Hash browns Makes 2   Ingredients 3 medium potatoes 1 free range egg Pinch of paprika Generous grind of sea salt Dried or fresh herbs of your choice (chopped) 1 tablespoon oil Preparation  Peel potatoes and grate. A handful at a time, squeeze all the liquid from the potatoes, discarding the liquid (I do this over the sink) and put squeezed potato into a mixing bowl. Add the egg, paprika, salt and herbs. Mix well. Leave for 10 minutes. More liquid will be expelled. Squeeze liquid from potatoes again, discarding the liquid. Divide the mixture into two and in your hands, press …

Our Growing Edge April Round Up

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Every foodie enjoys a good foodie bucket list. We read them like a true/false quiz. Bucket lists really light my fire and several foodie bucket list items were tackled this month right here on Our Growing Edge. We cooked and ate home made pastas, master level baking, new vegetables, social occasions and experiments. This month’s challenge was largely dominated by New Zealanders and we also had bloggers from Singapore, Australia, Canada and the US. Danielle from Keeping Up With The Holsbys conquered one of her culinary nemesis: gnocchi. She even went a step further and made it gluten free! Rants, Raves and Rations made homemade pasta with lovely step by step photos and report to prove it. Jessie from Purple House Cafe made a stunning raspberry white chocolate croquembouche to tick off her bucket list. Jess is Canadian and did a stint here in New Zealand where she learned to pour a real coffee. Over in New York, ex-pat Hayley from Condiments On A City Life whipped up a casual soufflé. Jess from Jessness Required …

Monday Bunday: Old Gold Boutique

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Everywhere I turn these days, I see bunny themed stuff hidden amongst *regular* stuff. I recently stumbled upon Old Gold Boutique, an online store specialising in gold hued jewelry. They have quite a range of bunny related jewelry. You can find all these and other interesting pieces over at their website http://www.oldgoldboutique.com. And one more delightfully hilarious foodie necklace that I had to share with you: A rotisserie ring.

Foodbox Menu 1

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This the first week of our Foodbox deliveries. If I didn’t plan out a menu, we wouldn’t have a hope of finishing all the produce. I have decided to receive a Foodbox once a fortnight instead of once a week. I rediscovered a jar of laksa paste in our fridge so features heavily on this week’s menu. I got personal with the paste and a free range chicken at the start of the week and a spatchcock chicken led to dinner for two and 2 lunches. Foodbox Menu 1 Items in bold are from our Foodbox. Hash brown, garlic butter mushrooms, free range bacon and fried egg. (pictured) Scrambled eggs with parmesan and onion on Vogels toast. Avocado and parmesan on Vogels toast. Chicken salad with lettuce, tomato, boiled eggs, broccoli florets, dressing. Roast chicken sandwiches: lettuce, edam, mayo, mustard, pickles, tomato. Spatchcock chicken, smeared with laksa paste, roasted with potatoes, kumara, courgettes, onions, carrots and garlic Laksa with fat noodles, prawns, lime, mushrooms, broccoli and onions. Pan fried salmon with butter lime sauce. Served with sweet corn, courgette and millet. Courgette pasta …

Foodbox 1

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“Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing that a tomato doesn’t belong in a fruit salad.” Miles Kington It is Autumn and daylight savings means I wanna cut corners. I don’t want walk to the market after work in the rain and dark, so I get stuff delivered. It’s convenient, not lazy. Lazy would be ordering takeout because there’s no food in the house. Last winter, we ate through 3 months of Ooooby deliveries. I loved receiving a weekly delivery of produce and extra tasty add ons. I am trialling FoodBox for a month or two, to compare the experience. First impression Our first Foodbox arrived this week and we received the Appetiser which is $33 per week including delivery. A major difference for us this time round is that we now have a vegetable garden so I’ve put a few things on the “do not want list”. No point in eating home grown lettuce and store bought lettuce each week. The box weighs over 7kg and I’m a seriously …

Home Grown Radishes

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This post is part of Our Growing Edge, a monthly blogging event to encourage us to try new food related things. I am the host for this month’s event. If you have a blog and have tried something new with food this month, come and join this event. Growing vegetables gives me a sense of child-like wonder. I get excited about each new advancement and I’m eager to visit the bottom of the garden every other day to view the changes. I’m proud of every little thing and show off each new thing to The Koala and to Tofu the bunny (one is semi-impressed, the other just wants to devour everything). I’ve never tended to a vegetable garden before but I’m sure glad for all the resources available these days. According to numerous websites, radishes take 4 to 6 weeks from seed to harvest. So every other week for the from 5 weeks, I would pull up a finely prickled plant to check if the radishes were ready. They weren’t. They weren’t bulbing and there …

Monday Bunday: Bunnies In The Office

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Like many of you, I spend most of my day at a desk. I think personal touches around your desk are a fact of life. I have a bunny at one desk and a couple of bunnies at my other desk. I have a messy looking pile of paper and a handful of other useful and semi-useful trinkets. I have the cool calendar that The Koala and I designed and it’s filled with the busy scribbles of my life. I never understood companies that prohibit people from personalising their workspace. Desks that are devoid of personality make me suspect that a serial killer resides. Whenever I have to sit another person’s desk, I enjoy seeing pieces of their character in there. You can tell a lot about a person from the thokcha at their desk. If there is nothing, I get that eerie feeling that they have something to hide or have no passions or interests. Like homes that have no personal effects and feel like motels or hotels. Creepy. My rabbit themed office is far …

4 years

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In my world, each celebration is marked with a meal. It is compulsory. Birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, new jobs, babies, weddings are all celebrations and all come with a meal. I’m sure it’s Maybe it is just another excuse to eat well. I don’t need an excuse to eat, but if I can find one, I’ll take it. Today is The Koala and my 4 year wedding anniversary. We met on a summer’s night on Freyburg Square 11 years ago. We fell in love. You marry one person. Make an effort. Celebrate your triumphs. You miss an anniversary, you may as well miss them all. The secret to a lasting relationship? Enjoy and respect each other. Have similar but not identical views and interests. Maintain your own hobbies and friends. Be complimentary persons, not the same person. For example, if The Koala didn’t like pies, it might be over between us. But he doesn’t have to love the same pie as me. As long long as we both agree that pies are awesome, we can respect that he …

Tofu Tuesday: Terraced Pallet Garden

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Growing your own food is uniquely satisfying. I don’t know if it’s my age or the times but more and more of our friends are growing their own food. I’ve hinted at our vegetable garden before, but I didn’t want to share it until we started eating from it. That time has come. If you follow me on Pinterest, you’ll know I have a slight obsession with up-cycled pallets and vegetable gardens. We live in a rented villa so we didn’t want to spend much money on our garden in case we have to move. Both The Koala and I have day jobs that revolve around paper so we have free access to wood pallets. In hindsight, we should have started this garden when we moved in 5 years ago. I could “what if” at my 5 year old vegetable garden all day, but you gotta start somewhere and late is better than never. The bottom of our garden has a gentle slope so we terraced the space using the pallets. Sloped ground drains water in random ways so terracing flattens …

Monday Bunday: Kitchen Timers

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Since we got a new (secondhand) oven, I’ve spent a little bit of time getting to know it. It doesn’t have a built in timer and I also suspect that the thermostat is either out or the oven behaves differently to our previous oven. 1. Apple kitchen timer £3.99 from FenTrader. 2. Bengt Ek Design Rabbit Kitchen Timer £11.99 from Legend Cookshops. 3. Carrot kitchen timer $8 from Seattle Seed Co. 4. Pink dotty egg timer £5.75 from Omlet. 5. Bunny timer for custom print from $4.83 each from Identity Links. 6. Digital rabbit timer $20 for a 12 pack (wholesale) at Daiso Japan. I ended up getting an apple shaped kitchen timer. I couldn’t resist how it would look in our fruit bowl, although the pink polk dot egg would look very sweet nestled in a basket of real eggs.

Autumn is the best.

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Autumn is the best. I relish the crisp air, warm scarves and feijoa laden trees. Green leaves turn to red. Red wine replaces cold beer. Comfort food replaces chilled food. I’ve been feeling a little run down this week and my clothes have been feeling a little taut. You know, when your skinny jeans feel a tad too skinny and you worry what might happen to the shape of your middle when you attempt to sit down. I’m sure it is just the change of season and I’ll accuse daylight savings of lighting trickery. Before we dive into comfort food territory, I think it’s a good opportunity to revisit some of my favourite blog recipes. Light and bright food porn to tickle your fancy. For those heading into spring, this should be good inspirational fodder for you too. All thumbnails jump to relevant posts.

Tofu Tuesday: Mushrooooom!!

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It’s hard to practice any sort of self control when you have two art lovers in the house and an entire art festival filled with reasonably priced pieces. We’re not art collectors as such, we just like a lot of cool stuff. Cool being subjective of course. Over the weekend at the Japanese Art Festival, The Koala and I gained five new pieces of art. This is one of them. The Koala saw it first, fell in love with it and I didn’t need much convincing. The frame is made by the artists husband and I love how it has a really rustic feel. Titled Mushrooooom!! by Masmi Sakakibara, I thought it would be fitting to introduce the mushroom artwork to the rabbit with the mushroom coloured features.

Monday Bunday: Paintings by Joanne Ho

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Some bunny and bunny friend paintings by Auckland artist Joanne Ho. Ok, full disclosure, Joey is my little sister. It’s possible that I’m a little bias, but I love my sister’s paintings. She doesn’t just paint bunnies, but here are some of the bunny highlights plus some non-bunnies at the end of this post. If you like what you see, you should buy her art! Ideal for children of all ages. The Koala and I have been elbow deep helping out for the annual Japanese Art Festival over the weekend. Some amazing pieces shown from Japanese artists and also a handful of kiwi artists. Parp or the farting rabbit is clearly a mythical beast because rabbits don’t fart. I am the proud owner of this painting now. Acrylic on wood. Some of these are still for sale so head over to her Facebook page or her blog for more info or to contact her directly. Here are some of my favourite non-bunny ones too…

Foods You Need to Add to Your Bucket List to Try Before You Die

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I’m delighted to have guest blogger Bridget Sandorford from CulinarySchools.org write about her own foodie bucket list. An adventurous, well traveled foodie, Bridget is a freelance food and culinary writer and has been researching sommelier training. In her spare time, she enjoys biking, painting and working on her first cookbook.  Foods you need to add to your bucket list to try before you die Life is boring when you eat the same foods day in and day out. Too many salads are not good for the soul. You need variety in your life and on your plate! Not only will branching out and trying new foods help you to find new favorites, but it will also give you great stories along the way (even – and  maybe especially if – you try out foods that you hate). My husband and I make it a point to try new foods to add fun, excitement and variety to our lives. Even when we find foods that make us turn our noses up in disgust, we’re glad we tried them – and we …