Author: Bunny Eats Design

Bitch and Wine

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Here are the tasting notes from Saturday’s cheese and wine tasting party. The budget was $15 which is a common budget for all the drinkers in the group and I asked my guests to buy a wine that they had never tasted before. There were 6 wines and they were all reds. I really enjoyed being able to taste the reds side by side and there was no shame about trying one and then another and then going back to the first one just to “make sure”. Drinking wine helps the creative review process. Whether it is a valid opinion is…up to you to decide. Disclaimer! The following are the drunken opinion of a group of 11 amateur wine tasters. These notes do not reflect the feelings of this blog or of sober adults. Right to creative license reserved. In alphabetical order… 1. Durbanville Hills Pinotage South Africa, 2009 “Gives me grabby hands” Looks like Purplish Smells like Food A petrol station on fire with a terminator walking slowly from the flames Kind of gritty, …

Say Cheese!

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The cheese tasting notes from my cheese and wine tasting party on Saturday. With 8 cheeses, there was good range including 3 blues which were wildly different from each other. It wasn’t surprising that the blue cheeses were the most polarising and there was a mixture of blue cheese haters and blue cheese lovers in the group. Countries 5 Cheeses were from New Zealand, 1 from Denmark, 1 from Italy and 1 from Basque (Spain/France). Beasts 6 cows milk, 2 ewe’s milk and there were no goat’s milk cheeses. Types Soft: Brie Semi-soft: Karu, Maasdam, Havarti (2) Blue: Gorgonzola Dolce, Bleu des Basques Brebis, Castello Blue Below are the tasting notes from the cheese and wine tasting party. More info about it in yesterday’s post. In alphabetical order… 1. Castello Bleu From Denmark “The gateway blue” “I like blue cheese but I don’t like this” “Don’t like blue but I love this” Looks like Cream cheese Smells like A warm cat (a nice cat) Tastes like Creamy, salty Goes well with Crackers Bread Stars out of 10 3 and …

Cheese and Wine Tasting Party

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Yussss. Got to cross off something from my to do list by throwing a cheese and wine tasting party. I suddenly had a free weekend so got together a few friends for a party on short notice. My geekiness was met with understanding and all the tasters were great sports at sharing their opinions on the cheese and wines. It’s not surprising that the opinions got more colourful as the bottles of wine emptied out. Rules Bring a cheese or a wine that you have not tried before Budget $15 Some guests brought both cheese and wine and we ended up with 8 kinds of cheese, 6 kinds of wine as well as plenty of breads, crackers, antipasto and oils to share between 11 of us. I had a box of backup wine in case we ran out. Can’t have guests going thirsty! We gathered around the dining table with wine glasses in hand and rotated around the table tasting each item until there was pretty much nothing left. We tasted everything once, going back …

Prawn Pizza

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Fun to make and fun to eat. Ingredients Prawns, pan-fried and cut in half (lengthwise) Fresh, ripe mango, cubed Mozzarella cheese, grated Seafood sauce Glass Eye Creek Wild Meat Sauce Tortillas Mushrooms Onion Garlic

Free farmed vs. Free range

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Hellers Free Farmed Streaky Bacon $8.75 for 250g ($35 per kg) Freedom Farms Streaky Bacon $11.70 for 250g ($46 per kg) I bought Hellers the other day instead of Freedom Farms. It was the cheaper choice but I noticed that it was “free farmed” rather than “free range”. So, what’s the difference? I didn’t know, so I did a little investigating… Free farmed: 20% of New Zealand pigs are free farmed. Considered an ethical choice, it is more common in NZ than free range. Free range: 1% of pigs farmed in New Zealand. Pigs have complete free range. The difference is free range pigs are allowed to move freely between paddocks. Free farmed means that pigs are only allowed to move freely within their own paddock. If you are interested in more information including the difference between the farming styles in NZ, visit Pig Farming In NZ here. There are lots of interesting facts about NZ pork including: …None of the pork, bacon or ham you eat  is ever in an individual crate or cage. Only …

1 week countdown

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Just a week to go until We Can Create’s first ever edition. It seems like yesterday when they announced Frank Kozik as a speaker and I bought myself an earlybird ticket. Like a true geek, I usually take copious “cool stuff to look up later” notes when I go to see creative people talk. There’s so much cool stuff to absorb you can’t possibly remember it all. The WCC website has info an all the speakers as well as a handy little box where you can pose questions to any of them I’ve asked Frank Kozik a simple 2 word question: Why rabbits? Speakers are: Hort Morag Myerscough KesselsKramer The Rumpus Room Sara Blake Stamen Design Kris Sowersby Rafaël Rozendaal Chris Graham Imaginary Forces Frank Kozik Patrick Reynolds I’m also looking forward to seeing Sara Blake. Her gorgeous illustrations will make you weep. It’s not too late to buy or win tickets. I don’t have any to give away, but there are a few places online offering the chance.

Salad, pie and pudding

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Easy mid week 2 course dinner. This is the second Maketu Pie I’ve had and like the mussel pie, this smoked fish pie is flavoursome without being too salty. Salad Lay down a handful of spinach leaves, top with 2 slices of peppered havarti and 2 sundried tomatoes. Drizzle with french dressing. Pie Unwrap a Maketu smoked fish pie. Bake for 30 minutes at 180°C. Pudding Pear Pudding: Melt 2 tablespoons of butter with 1 cup of milk. Sift 1 cup of self raising flour and about half a teaspoon of cinnamon, mix with half a cup of sugar. Mix liquid with flour. Beat in 1 egg. Pour into 2 buttered ramekins. Slice 1 ripe pear and arrange in a circle on top of batter. Sprinkle with more sugar if desired. Bake for 40 minutes at 180°C. Since the pudding will take longer in the oven than the pie, you can put the pie and the pudding in the oven at about the same time. Serve with custard or ice cream or be greedy like us and …

Monday Bunday: Top 5 Bunny Banks

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I couldn’t stop at showing you just one bunny bank.  I know Tofu the bunny isn’t good with money, but perhaps if you look at a rabbit as a symbol of exponential growth, then bunny banks are a positive way to save. Top 5 bunny banks from the interwebs: 5. Bunny Money Bank R217 ($31.50US / $38NZ) from Egg Junior. 4. Lucky Forest Bunny Money Bank $18 from Liapela. 3. Two’s Company Bunny Bank $5.25 from Tender Treasures. 2. Rabbit Money Bank £14 from Oliver Bonas. And the winner goes to: 1. Grass Flocked Rabbit Bank $22 from Greener Grass Design.

Eszter Burghardt’s Edible Vistas

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I recently stumbled upon some amazing photography by Canadian based Eszter Burghardt. She uses food as props for her landscapes. More of her work can be found here. Is this food photography or landscape photography? They remind me of very specific New Zealand landscapes. These 4 photos conjur up memories of places that I have visited and loved in this country: The emerald lake at Tongariro Huka Falls Thermal pools in Rotorua Milford Sound What do you think?

Roast Chicken with lemon, garlic and herbs

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The second kilo of Turks free range chicken thighs found a home with lemon slices and juice, herbs and garlic. I sprinkled a little raw sugar on these but you could use honey. Our honey was as hard as nails so sugar was the lazy option. The little lemon tree in our backyard is carrying mega lemons. There aren’t heaps of lemons, but the ones we have are big, thick skinned and look like they could win a bar fight. We haven’t gotten sick this winter (yet) and hopefully a bulb of garlic each will keep us going for a little while longer. I slice off the bottom, rub a bit of oil into it and season with salt, pepper and herbs. It’s good. I prefer rice with a roast dinner. To me, they go hand in hand. It probably seems weird to some, but I never had yorkshire pudding to soak up the juices, it was always rice. I guess it doesn’t really come as a surprise that we owned a roast dinner shop …

Happy Pork with Wild Meat Sauce

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I took The Koala with me to Nosh the other day and his eyes widened at a bottle of Glass Eye Creek Wild Meat Sauce. I admit, I’m a sucker for a nice label and this hip flask sized bottle had a manly charm about it. Made in the West Coast of NZ, like all well made sauces, it has well spun story about how it came to be. It looked like a BBQ sauce to me so I always like a bit of pork to go with a good BBQ sauce. Wild pork isn’t as common as it could be and the very next best thing is freerange. There are a few companies now offering freerange pork in New Zealand, but Freedom Farms is the most well known. They’ve just put themselves out there a lot more than other names. Freedom Farms pork steak marinaded in Wild Meat Sauce. Some mashed kumara (sweet potato), cauliflower with cheese sauce and green beans and you have a decent dinner. The meat was a firmer and more filling than the …

Chicken, then egg.

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After the chicken comes the egg. If I’m not making gravy or sauce with the juices from a roast pan, I save that up for another use. Rice is perfect for soaking up the sauce from a honey soy roast chicken and a couple of eggs make this an quick meal. 2 hard boiled eggs sprinkled with truffle salt and black pepper. Served on top of rice and honey soy chicken sauce.

Happy Eats

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It’s getting easier and easier to buy free range and fair trade. Less than a year ago, I turned my nose up at spending so much on happy food, but I’m getting to the stage where I can almost skip the prison chicken. This week, I picked up a bunch of happy eats at Nosh. I try to be realistic, so when free range is on special, it’s a good time to stock up and freeze. Turks Free Range Chicken thighs are on special this week for $7.99 per kilo pack. Other stuff I picked up were Freedom Farms pork rump steak $23.99 kg. All Good Fair Trade bananas $4.99 a bunch. I brushed the chicken thighs with a mix of honey, soy sauce and a good squeeze of lemon. Then baked for 1 hour at 180°C alongside a tray of kumara and a bulb of garlic. Turn up the oven in the last 15 minutes to get a crispy skin. Serve with beans. Super easy. In the past, I always thought that free range were a …