Author: Bunny Eats Design

Like a Chinese Paella

Published by

The other night, The Koala and I got takeaways from Love A Duck on Dominion Road. While waiting for our meals, I was pleased to see that during winter, they offer a range of claypot cooked dishes. Claypot Chicken Rice Claypot Chicken Rice is popular in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. For those not familiar with this style of cooking, rice, chicken and various sauces and flavoursome ingredients are cooked in a claypot. The rice sticks to the bottom resulting in a fragrant, delicious mess like a Chinese version of paella. Chicken Can’t have this dish without the hardcore marinated chicken. Cantonese love bones and I always make this with chicken wings but you could use boneless thigh or breast to make this a kid friendly dish. Lap Cheong Chinese dried sausages or Lap Cheong are dry cured sausages normally made of pork and fat. These are smoked, sweetened, seasoned and taste like awesome. The sausages I buy from my local are vacuum packed and hail from Canada. You might like these if you like streaky …

French food and truffles

Published by

I had a lovely foodie day yesterday celebrating Bastille Day.  I adore French cuisine (who doesn’t) and it is a dream of mine to one day eat French food in France. Yesterday, some of us at work dressed up in French inspired garb and we had an incredible feast for morning tea. Morning tea is a big deal at my work. Because we have a lot of early starters, not everyone is around for afternoon tea so morning is the only time we can get everyone together. Our French inspired morning tea consisted of: Baguette Croissants Pain au chocolat Chicken and cranberry pâté Mushroom and brandy pâté Cheese Cream cheese Ham Cake Pickles It was so delicious and a lot of fun assembling your own bite sized morsels of goodness. I forgot how much I love pâté. We ate as much as we could and there was plenty left over. If only the French had siesta I could crawl under my desk and have a nap. Sabato Field Trip A couple of hours later, I gathered …

Malthus, Meal A Day

Published by

Meet Malthus. Malthus is an aquaponics* unit that is designed for the next generation’s home kitchen. This is a conceptual piece and has a planned production of 100 pieces. It grows 1 portion of salad and 1 portion of fish each day. I love the concept but I wouldn’t enjoy eating the same food every day. You wouldn’t enjoy me blogging about fish and salad every day! Or would you? Maybe I could rename the blog “365 ways with fish and salad”. I could write a cookbook for future generations. But…if you could grow 1 portion a day of any meal, what would it be? More info here at Conceptual Devices. * I’m guessing aquaponics is a portmanteau for aqua+hydroponics.

A Dinner inspired by South East Asia

Published by

  I had a hankering for the stuff we ate while in South East Asia. Hot, sour and savoury soups, banana pancakes were eaten in balmy countries. But what about on a cold winter’s night? I thought they would translate quite well so I made a brothy soup with noodles with some nice sirloin steak. I made this up on the fly using some of the flavours I enjoyed in South East Asia. This was followed by a dessert of asian-inspired banana pancakes with melted chocolate. Yum. Bok choy is cheap and it is super easy to grow. I know this because I’ve grown it before. But at $0.50 for a bag of 2 or 3 bok choy at my local Chinese supermarket, I don’t bother to grow my own. So easy to prepare, just wash and slice into quarters lengthwise. Good rabbit food too. When we have bok choy, Tofu the rabbit also enjoys bok choy. Beef Noodle Soup Beef Ingredients 1 piece of sirloin steak enough for 2 (200-300g) A little sesame oil …

Wedges Are Friends With Homemade Burgers

Published by

  As much as I like fast food, homemade burgers with real beef patties you have formed yourselves are world apart. Every time we make burgers (and it’s becoming quite a regular occurrence) we manage to find this and that in our fridge until the burger becomes a towering monstrosity. So this time, even though I thought we had virtually nothing, there was still cheese to be melted, an onion to be sliced and fresh rocket from the garden. Not a towering world wonder, but still mighty good. With plenty of practice, I’ve perfected oven baked wedges. These are a perfect friend for your homemade burgers. Oven Baked Spicy Wedges Ingredients 3 large potatoes 1 tablespoon oil 1 tablespoon flour 1 tablespoon chili seasoning* (Mild, try 2 tablespoons for medium) Salt Pepper Preparation  Pre-heat oven to 200°C / 390°F.  Cut potatoes in half lengthwise and then into quarters and then eighths. All lengthways. You know, like wedges.  Place in a clean, airtight plastic bag.  Add all the other ingredients, twist the top tight and give …

Moon Duck and Whale

Published by

I drew these for my nephews. Lukas just turned 2 and James is brand new. When we went down to Christchurch for Easter, Lukas referred to the baby bump as Moon Duck. I’m not sure if this is what he had in mind, but the idea made me happy. Lukas has a soft toy whale. It’s not your average teddy bear, but he loves it so I drew whale in the ocean We were supposed to fly down as a surprise (party crashers!) but the ash cloud surprised us. I posted these down to them, but would have loved to have seen his face when he worked out what the pictures are of.

The Multi-task Cook

Published by

Do you ever cook more than 1 meal at time? I multi-task. As I write this, I am also cooking. Plum sauce chicken thighs roasting in the oven Rice in the rice cooker 8 individual bacon and egg quiche are baking for tomorrow’s lunch On the stove top, a pot of congee bubbling away Chicken wings marinating in the fridge to go with the congee Choy sum (Chinese mustard greens) sitting in pieces on the chopping board with sliced ginger and garlic, ready to be thrown into the pan when the chicken is almost ready. Tonight’s dinner, tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch prepped and cooked in just 1 hour. I don’t usually pump meals out like this, but it’s good to know I can load up my bases if I need to. I’ve got a million projects on at once at the moment (eating and design). It’s fantastic and I’m enthusiastic about all of them, but I need to prioritise so I don’t burn out. I already knew this was coming. My horoscope predicted the year …

Georgina Baker’s Family Silver

Published by

I had a lovely leisurely lunch with my sister on Sunday. The bacon hash at ThirtyNine is an absolute favourite and it didn’t fail to impress this time. Newspapers, crosswords, coffee. After that, we hit Ponsonby for some serious browsing. Photo taken by my sister. Jewels for Foodies Texan Art Schools stocks Georgina Baker’s work and I was blown away by how something so simple and “every day” could be so beautiful. My favourite were the ornate teaspoon handle earrings and also the spoon pendants. If I didn’t have stretched lobes, I would have snaffled the earrings up in a heartbeat. Buy for youself or your foodie friend. Geogina Baker’s website: www.georginabaker.co.nz Texan Art Schools: http://www.texanartschools.co.nz

Monday Bunday: Father Rabbit

Published by

This logo exudes class and tradition with a touch of whimsy by the looped ascenders, suggesting lagomorph ears. Did you like my typography design geek speak? Too much? Yeah, maybe… Father Rabbit is an online shop run by Nick and Claudia out of their Grey Lynn villa. This is a store for the discerning rabbit friendly home. They stock a good mix of overseas and also local designers like Bunnyinabirdsuit (Auckland), Bianca Lorenne (New Plymouth), Workroom Design (Auckland) Being an online shop, it really doesn’t matter that they were just a few suburbs over from me, but it’s nice to see and appreciate the aesthetic of locals. I want just about everything from their shop for our villa. These gift sets give you a good idea of the items they stock. Some other pretty pics from their gallery… They even have a fledging recipe section. And of course I love the Belle & Boo cushion they have. It’s double sided! Lots of lagomorphs on the back. Swoon. http://www.fatherrabbit.com

Pork Shank with Incredible Sauce

Published by

Mum gave us a bag of oranges the other day. I’m not a fan of fruit. No sir. So I immediately started brainstorming what I could cook these oranges with. I had a large pork shank in the freezer, waiting for it’s time to shine so I summoned it on a cold winter evening. I started this a few minutes after 5pm and it took close to 3 hours to make. So it’s not the one if you want to eat fast. But if you have a few things to do and can wait for an amazing dinner, this could be the one. We had a big can of Guinness on the side of this. The sauce is sweet, flavoursome and very rich. Make it for someone you love. This would be a great recipe to translate to a slow cooker if you have one. Pork Shank with Incredible Sauce Serves 2 with leftovers for lunch.  Or serves 2 with a food coma for dessert. Ingredients 1 large pork shank 3 oranges 2 tablespoons of …

Maketu Pies

Published by

I spied the Maketu Pie shelf in the deli section at the supermarket the other day so I bought 2 of their mussel pies. “Kiwi mussels cooked in a beautiful creamy cheese and parsley sauce then encased in our handmade, flakey golden pastry.” I feel like I’m a late bloomer when it comes to these pies. The few people I’ve spoke to all said they love Maketu Pies. I popped these in the oven and served with a simple green salad with tinned beetroot slices. I really enjoyed this pie. Full of flavour without all the salt. Store bought pies often have so much salt in them you can’t taste anything else. I guess it’s just as well because sometimes the ingredients in pies aren’t things you want to be tasting. I like the fact that these pies have a very short shelf life. As mussels should be. I’ll be buying these again for an easy quick dinner. I actually think the 2 for $6 “special” is their permanent pricing. More on Maketu Pies including a …

Salmon and an easy guacamole

Published by

I had a ripe avocado and I figured it was time I used my mortar and pestle for something other than grinding salt and spices. I’m glad I did. Himalayan rock salt, peppercorns and 2 cloves of garlic were ground down to form a paste… …then I added a whole avocado followed by half a pot of sour cream and a sprinkling of chili seasoning. A big dollop of guac went well with our salmon dinner. Salmon makes my world rosy.

Your first typography book

Published by

Do you recognise this book? Did you spend hours painstakingly tracing it’s characters for school project headers? You my friend, were not alone. You probably didn’t know back then but you were once a typography geek. This book single handedly turned a whole generation of school kids into font admirers. It was the typography bible for those too young to contemplate what a typography bible was. The cover design makes me giddy with happiness and when I showed The Koala, he got the same feeling. His favourite was the bubble lettering. What was yours? Do today’s kids know the dedication and the joys of hand lettering? It makes me sad to think kids these days might create their assignments on the computer and print them out. You don’t get intimate with fonts that way. No sir. The Lettering Book by Noelene Morris was published by Scholastic in 1988. I can’t find any information online about Noelene. Where are you? What became of you? Did you know when you wrote this book that it would studied …

Overeat at a Steamboat

Published by

For those who are unfamiliar with this style of cooking, a brief introduction: Steamboat begins with simmering stock to cook a range of raw (or pre-cooked) ingredients at the table. Everyone at the table participates and take turns fishing out their cooked treats. Various sauces are used for dipping. Personally, I prefer a beaten raw egg with a little oil, soy sauce and chili. The egg helps to cool the food so that you can eat it fairly quickly. Other names include hot pot or Chinese fondue. Many different cuisines have a variation of this and are known as Shabu shabu in Japan, Thai suki in Thailand and Lẩu in Vietnam. It’s easy to overeat at a steamboat because you never really know how much you have eaten. So you cook a piece and eat a piece until you can’t do it any more. Steamboat is usually a big social affair and with lots of people, there are usually lots of different dishes. This time it was just my parents, sister and The Koala and …