Author: Bunny Eats Design

Ron Mueck

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Ron Mueck Exhibition Christchurch Art Gallery 2 Oct 2010 to 23 Jan 2011 Ron Mueck’s exhibition starts in October at Christchurch Art Gallery. We’re heading to Christchurch in November so we’ll be checking this one out if it all goes to plan. Our thoughts are with all those Christchurch businesses that will be closed or suffering during this normally busy lead up to Christmas. For those that don’t know, Christchurch had an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter Scale on Saturday morning and they’ve been having aftershocks ever since. We are happy to report that our family are safe and there is relatively minor damage to the family home in Lyttelton. Some photos of Ron’s past works:

The Face of Siu Mai

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Siu Mai are my favourite dim sums at yum cha. So it was only a matter of time until I’d give these pork and prawn dumplings a whirl in the kitchen. Siu Mai are open face dumplings with an orange garnish of roe or carrot. I’ve used grated carrot. Seasonings include shitakke mushrooms, coriander, ginger and spring onions. Today I bought a large bamboo steamer and Siu Mai ingredients from my local Chinese supermarket. I loosely followed a recipe from this month’s Taste Magazine and served these Siu Mai with udon noodles, broccoli and broth. Here are the results:

Monday Bunday 1: Rabbit-Kun

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Welcome to the first Monday Bunday! Monday Bunday will look at the special combination of Bunnies and Design. This is Rabbit-kun (translates to Dear Mr. Rabbit), a sweet plastic bag with eyes, an X-shaped mouth, and a pair of bunny ears that double as handles. Brought to you by by Tokyo-based creative group MAQ Inc. Rabbit-kun aims to inspire a more responsible attitude toward waste by providing a cute and stylish way for people to carry their trash home after a day outdoors. Whether it’s a picnic in the park, a hike in the mountains, or a day at the beach — or any place without public trash cans — Rabbit-kun is charming enough that you might actually enjoy carting your garbage all the way home.

Salmon, my love

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Salmon is my number one favourite fish. It cooks well, is never dry, can be undercooked or overcooked and it’s creamy, fatty, melt in your mouth texture makes me swoon. I’ll eat it raw, baked, fried, steamed, poached…you name it, I’ll eat it. There is a couple who come into our workplace every week or fortnight with a box of fresh seafood. It is very, very hard to resist. I usually buy a “necklace”. It is a chain of vacuum packed smoked salmon portions. Probably the most delicious necklace I’ve ever owned. I’ve also bought scallops from them, a bag of about 30 scallops for $26NZ. Fresh from Whitianga. Here’s a roundup of salmon I’ve dished up in the last year: Pan fried salmon with oregano and lemon slices. Potato mash. Beans and tomatoes from the garden stir fried with garlic and yellow capsicum. Close up! Baked salmon with lemon and tarragon. Place a salmon steak in the middle of a piece of foil. Sprinkle with lemon zest, a good pinch of tarragon and a …

Scallops and Bacon

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Scallops and bacon are a match made in heaven. The seafood couple came into work again. They had fresh scallops from Whitianga this morning and seeing as it is the Whitianga Scallop Festival this weekend, what could be more appropriate than eating a whole lot of scallops? 2 course dinner with Scallops and Bacon Starter: 5 Pan fried scallops wrapped in bacon with tartar sauce. Wrap each scallop with a strip of bacon and secure with a toothpick. Pan fry with a bit of butter. Season lightly with herbs, salt and pepper. Serve with tartar sauce. Tartar Sauce: mayo, sour cream, chopped gherkins, finely chopped red onion. Main Course: Scallops and Bacon pasta Cook pasta according to instructions. Saute vegies in a little oil: sliced courgette, sliced red onion, sliced garlic. Remove from heat and set aside. Finely chop 4 slices of bacon (I tried Danish eye bacon) and fry in oil. Add scallops to the pan. Once scallops are done, add 2 tablespoons of sour cream, 2 table spoons of tomato paste. Drain pasta and …

Chicken dinner roundup

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Chicken. It can be versatile. It can be boring. I often cook chicken at home, but hardly every order chicken when I dine out. Here is a selection of home cooked chicken dinners from the last few months. Ginger roast chicken drums, mustard potato and ginger coleslaw. Easy, yummy noms. Can you tell I like purple food? Breaded chicken stuffed with camembert, tomatoes and lettuce from the garden, onion garlic rice. Spicy chicken with black beans and baked tortilla chips. Hearty fare! Sour cream would have made this OMG but all we had was cheese. Chicken breast stuffed with fresh mango, spices, onion and garlic. Mushrooms cooked in leftover mango stuffing. Shackin up with buttery brussels sprouts, broccoli and mash. Chicken salad with baked cheesey cauli for dinner. In New Zealand, chicken salad doesn’t have anything to do with sandwiches or mayonnaise. I’m loving this Mexican spice mix I got from Taste and Gregg’s cooking demo a few weeks ago. Great for adding some kick to meats but mild enough not to overpower the natural …

Unagi at home

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Unagi: freshwater eel. Often served as unadon or unagidon (on rice). From what I’ve read, in this country at least, restaurants buy their unagi pre-cooked and pre-sauced. I love unagi, but why pay someone else to microwave pre-cooked, pre-sauced unagi when you can do it yourself? You can find unagi packs with sauce in the frozen section of your local Asian market at about $9NZ each. I’ve bought these before from a Japan shop and also a Chinese grocer. All you have to do is remove the eel from the packaging, zap for a few minutes then pour on the sauce. Serve with rice, maybe a salad or greens and some edamame and presto! 2 bags of unagi can feed 2 or 3 people for dinner.

Bangers and Mash

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With lamb sausages, champs, peas and red cabbage. Champs Ingredients 3 potatoes, peeled and chopped Splash of milk 1 stalk of spring onion, sliced finely Knob of butter Salt Pepper 1 egg Preparation Boil potatoes for about 20 minutes until tender. Drain potatoes. Heat milk, butter and spring onions gently in a small pot until the butter has melted. Mash the potatoes with a pinch of salt. With a spoon, quickly stir in the egg and then the warmed milk mixture. Serve immediately.

Hainanese Chicken Rice

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I ate Hainaese Chicken Rice a lot as a kid and I often crave it. The chicken is smooth and silky and the rice is fragrant and full of flavour and you get a bowl of comforting broth to sip on with your meal. Because it is not fast food (slow, slow food) not many restaurants offer it. I roughly followed this recipe that I found online. I couldn’t bear for the water to get cold (scared that the chicken wouldn’t get cooked enough) so I turned it up to a simmer at about the half way mark and then back off. I used chicken pieces instead of a whole chicken. Hainanese Chicken Rice Ingredients Salt and freshly ground pepper 1 whole (3- to 4-pound) chicken, trimmed of excess fat Several cloves smashed garlic, plus 1 teaspoon minced garlic Several slices fresh ginger, plus 1 tablespoon minced ginger 1/2 cup peanut oil, or neutral oil, like corn or canola 3 shallots, roughly chopped, or a small onion 2 cups long-grain rice 1/2 cup minced scallions …

Liver for breakfast

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A group of scientists that have been doing a study on rats… In testing, two groups of rats: one group eating a meal of steak, mashed potatoes, vegetables, and vitamins each day; the other eating nothing but raw cow liver. The rats were tested each day for how long they were able to swim in a 55 gallon drum of water. As the days and weeks passed the scientists found the rats eating just the raw liver were steadily swimming far longer than the other group. The group eating the meat, potatoes, and vegetables with vitamin supplement were consistently swimming for 15 minutes and then starting to sink like lead. The 15 minutes never made it past that point. However the raw liver eating rats reached the point where they were swimming far longer than anyone wanted to bother testing which brought the test to an end. Every since I read that story, I’ve always wanted to include more liver in my diet. I want to be a super rat or at least swim until …

Adventures in Pancetta

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I’ve been thinking about pancetta since the weekend when we saw it at Nosh Food Market. I really wanted to try pancetta so went to Sabato in my lunch break today and bought some. I love gourmet food stores. I got to taste lots of stuffed olives, porcini cream, salami and cheese. Heaven! They even do free coffee there but I didn’t have time for a coffee today. Sliced the pancetta up and fried it with calamari, cauliflower, garlic and dropped it onto some fettucini. Did some reading and pancetta is like bacon minus the smoking. At over $70 per kg, it sure would be sweet to try making some pancetta. Especially since pork belly is so cheap! Still got a small half of the pancetta left. I’m thinking that it will go great in some onion/garlic stuffing shoved inside some poultry. Nom.

I love Nosh and Lamb Shanks

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Nosh Food Market opened up this year within walking distance of our house. The time it takes to walk from my house to Nosh and back home, including shopping is exactly 1 hour. I adore Nosh, it’s like my happy place. The staff are knowledgeable and seem genuinely happy to be there. Anything on special at Nosh is better quality and cheaper than the supermarket giants. I’m glad I have a restriction on how much I can buy at Nosh or I’d be spending all my wages there. Anything that I can’t carry in my shopping bag doesn’t get to come home with me. Nosh always seem to have lamb shanks on special and they also have great recipes for their products on their website. This dish is an adaptation of the Lamb Shanks with Parsnip recipe from their website . Lamb Shanks with Chorizo and Beetroot Ingredients 2 lamb shanks Flour Oil 2 beetroot (peeled and cut into wedges) 1 red onion (chopped) 1 mexican chorizo (cut into bite sized pieces) 3 garlic cloves (chopped) …

Gourmet Hot Dogs

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What makes something gourmet? What transcends your average every day fare into something more special? Gourmet hot dogs with coriander and creamy mushrooms on the side Lamb and rosemary sausages (split lengthways), gherkins, fried onions, grated gruyere, tom sauce, mustard and mayo. Coriander (Cilantro) optional.

Quiche pies!

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I make quiche pies about once a fortnight. They can be eaten hot or cold and are wonderful for breakfast, picnics, lunch, snacks or with a salad as a meal. I always change up the ingredients depending on what we have in the fridge. The ingredients I reckon you must have are puff pastry, egg and cheese, the rest you can be creative on. They keep fine for about 3 days…Maybe longer, but never had a chance to find out! Quiche pies Makes 12 Ingredients 3 sheets of puff pastry 6 eggs, beaten with a dash of milk 1 spring onion (scallion) finely sliced 6 sundried tomatoes 4 mushrooms sliced thinly Half an onion sliced thinly Cheese – 12 bite size pieces A bit of butter, melted A bit of oil A bit of salt A bit of pepper Preparation Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) Optional: Fry mushrooms and onion in a little oil until they soften. Remove from heat and set aside. Brush butter onto a muffin tin. Cut each sheet of pastry into …

Cottage Pie Dreams & Shepherd’s Pie Potatoes

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I had a dream last night about cottage pie where the top was thinly sliced potato instead of the usual mash. So I had to make it for dinner. I guess some people have dreams and go on and become prophets. I have dreams and go on to eat dinner. I figured 3 layers of potato and 3 layers of cheese would be enough to do my dream justice. Layer of meat and vegies. Layer of potato, layer of mild cheese, layer of potato, layer of havarti, layer potato, layer of mature cheddar. Baked to golden. Nom. Sunday night dinner: Shepherd’s Pie Baked Potatoes Do you know the difference between a Shepherd’s Pie and Cottage Pie? Shepherd’s has lamb, Cottage has beef. These baked potatoes are great portable food. Maybe for a party or a picnic and I can testify that these are good eaten cold too. I used sausages, but you could use mince also. Ingredients 4 medium potatoes 2 lamb sausages or about 150grams mince 2 mushrooms, sliced 2 tablespoons diced onion 2 …

Lamb Pizza

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We always keep a pack of tortillas in the fridge. They are great when you have an emergency pizza craving or only have a few scraps in the fridge to make dinner. We adore lamb in our household. I was quite surprised to read recently, that Americans on average, eat over 60 pounds of beef a year but less than 1 pound of lamb. 1 pound! In comparison New Zealanders eat almost 60 pounds of lamb a year. New Zealanders also eat about 60 pounds of beef a year, so I guess we just eat a lot of red meat around here. Lamb and courgettes about to be become lamb pizza. Embryonic stages of lamb pizza. A pizza starts to appear. Quite pretty really. Lamb pizza pre oven. Lamb pizza in it’s baked glory. Nom.

3 Course Dinner

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Who said you need an occasion to make 3 courses? Starter: Calamari salad with avocado and lemon mayo. Squid is pretty damn cheap. I got a kilo of frozen squid for $11. The squid you see on these 2 plates cost about $1. Not bad! Squid rings Ingredients Half a squid tube per person (or 1-1.5 whole tubes for a main) Salt Pepper 1 tbspn flour Paprika Oil for frying Ok, I’m terrible with measurements. I don’t measure and neither should you! Learn what feels right. Taste your food and remember for next time. Preparation Clean squid tubes and dry with paper towels/napkins. Put in a shallow bowl and paprika, salt and pepper generously. Add about a tablespoon of flour for each tube. Mix well and refridgerate until needed. Heat about 4cm of oil in a small pot. Carefully lower the squid rings with tongs. They are done after about 2 minutes. Be careful not to overcrowd them. Batches are a good idea! I’ve read that you should drain/dry on paper towels, but there was …

Purple fleshed kumara

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When I saw these at my online organics shop, I had to buy them. But once they were boiled and mashed, they turned out much darker than I had hoped for. Purple fleshed kumara mash with meatloaf dinner. I vowed to try it again – next time with some white potato in the mix so that the purple colour could pop.