All posts filed under: Culinary Adventures

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

Published by

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 …

April isn’t just red hair and a yellow jumpsuit

Published by

Hope you had a lovely Easter. Our Easter was spent catching up with friends and feasting of epic proportions. We drank a lot. We ate a lot. There were cooked breakfasts, hot cross buns, chocolate, pizza, ice cream, burgers, fish and chips, BBQ…and ended a 4 day weekend with a roast pork and crackling. I could fast for a week on the residual calories. I woke up this morning and squeezed on my skinny jeans to punish myself. Yes they fit, but boy, are they skinny. It’s April already and I’d like to thank Danielle from Keeping Up With The Holsbys for curating and hosting Our Growing Edge last month. Read the amazing highlights over on her blog. She has excellent taste and her blog is totes amaze. April’s event is now up and running so tick off your foodie bucket list or try something new this month. Come and join this link up! I am hosting April and I’m looking forward to seeing some cool new foodie experiences. More info on the event can be …

Deal to a freshly caught fish

Published by

The Koala, Tofu and I are lucky to have lovely neighbours who we share our yard with. They have been fishing this summer and this week we were gifted two red snapper. I was stoked to able to cross off a bucket list item: Deal to a freshly caught fish. First I scaled both fish. With the fish and your hands in a plastic bag seriously cuts down on flying scales and mess. From what I’ve read, it’s also a good idea to scale fish outside, but I prefer to be by our sink. Our neighbour had kindly gutted one fish so I used that as a template. In case you didn’t already know, fish guts are disgusting. To be honest, I never gave it much thought. All the fish I’ve cooked or eaten have come to me sans guts. Fish guts look like a mini version of the people guts that you might glimpse in a zombie movie. It’s not all pink and red, but some orange and yellow hues. Gruesome. As revolting as …

I’m not done yet

Published by

“A year from now, you will wish you had started today.” – Karen Lamb For those that have been following this blog for a while, you will know about my seasonal to do lists. Since winter of 2011, every season I have written a to do list of about 10 foodie challenges to push my cooking skills and eating experiences. I am leaps and bounds ahead where I was before I started. I feel confident enough to think “Ok, I can do this” as long as I pay a healthy respect to recipes and the advice I glean from those more experienced than I. It’s been an amazing ride. There’s immense smugness satisfaction in telling people that I’ve made bacon or ice cream or cheese or tomato sauce or a pavlova. I guess gloating rights is part of the accomplishment. If you own a sweet car, you want to show it off right? (That’s a genuine question, I’ve never owned a car) Many of the things that went into my lists were foods that I …

Our Growing Edge First Edition! (Jan/Feb 2013)

Published by

It’s coming up to midnight, I’ve had an espresso and ironically, I’m writing this on an empty stomach. I think I would prefer Chinese water torture over missing dinner and then compiling a lengthy food filled post. In the spirit of the Oscars this week, I would like to give a huge thanks to all the foodies who joined the very first edition of Our Growing Edge. This event would be nothing without your passion, skill, hard work and hungry bellies. With 35 submissions to Our Growing Edge this month, there was plenty of variety in the new foodie experiences. This event showed a surprisingly well rounded cross section of what foodies are doing. Blogs from New Zealand, Australia, UK, USA and Canada were well represented. Blogs from Asia or with Asian culinary backgrounds also made an appearance. Success! Before we move onto the highlights… It would be wonderful to have Our Growing Edge hosted on different blogs all around the interwebs. To host a month, all you have to do is write a round …

The Demystification of Cheesecake

Published by

Mum always had a few baked goodies in her repertoire. When I lived at home and was asked what caked I wanted for my birthday, “Cheesecake!” is what I would say. Mum would make a GIANT pan of cheesecake. Not typical a family size cheesecake that fits in on a plate or a 23cm (9″) round tin, but a family-reunion size glory that could only be assembled in a roasting pan. Everyone else would have polite obligatory slices, only making a dent in it. I would get to polish off the rest of the cake over the following days. Good times. That was well over a decade ago now and I never once tried making a cheesecake for myself. Don’t get me wrong, I still eat cheesecake, I’ve bought lots of cheesecake and requested them to be made for me too. I guess cheesecake has always been somewhat of a delicious enigma. I add things to my bucket list because I want to understand them and get to know them better. This post is the demystification of cheesecake. …

Flirting with a Russian ballerina

Published by

I’ve always been scared of making pavlova. The crisp but delicate shell and frothy interior threatening to any non-baker. The fancy Russian ballerina name doesn’t help any either. What is it trying to be exactly? Any kind of baking that is more science than art is taboo to me but I was determined to give it a whirl. I put it on my bucket list at the start of summer and I’m glad that I got to conquer it. I was never been a huge fan of pavlova. It is a national treasure here in New Zealand and the dessert kiwis think of fondly in summer. A pavlova melts in the mouth like a cloud and doesn’t require any chewing, just a quick inspection in the mouth to get the flavour and and down it goes. Made mostly from egg whites and sugar, it lacks…substance. After reading many recipes, I settled on Nessie’s recipe from Baking Equals Love. Nessie is a fellow kiwi and an accomplished baker, only recently blogged about her first pavlova. I …

Try A New Grain

Published by

I get bursts of foodie enlightenment from non-foodie movies. Years ago, when I watched the Japanese epic film Seven Samurai, I learned that  millet was a food. In the movie, the poor, desperate villagers offer their precious white rice to the samurai when they could only afford to eat millet. I always wondered what could possibly be less precious than rice? In my life, rice has always been cheap. Many people will screw up their noses at millet as it’s known as bird feed. Not so glamourous and hardly something today’s foodie would choose to eat, right? Millet is technically a seed but used as a grain so for blogging purposes, I’m calling it a grain. Millet is gluten free and being a seed, it holds decent nutrients and makes a great substitute for pasta, rice etc. It’s very easy to cook, lasts in the pantry for ages and fairly versatile it seems. Tomatoes are in season here but if they are not, feel free to omit them or replace them with capsicum (peppers). I used …

Mid-week holiday

Published by

Waitangi Day in the middle the week is freaking AWESOME. I completed 2 of my 10 summer tasks. If we had public holidays on Wednesdays more often, I’d get more shit done. Not burnt out enough to need a full day’s quiet time, not tacked onto a weekend to lead to 2 days of partying plus one of nursing a hangover. Waitangi Day is unofficially considered New Zealand Day and there’s a whole lot of history if you want to get into it, but for most kiwis, it is a public holiday that can be guaranteed to be sunny. My morning was spent nursing a bowl of leftover pasta, attending to emails and blogging while cooking up a batch of tomato sauce. Eager to take it for a test drive, the afternoon was spent with a van-load of friends at Cheltenham Beach. This is our favourite swimming beach at high tide (don’t even bother at low tide). We enjoyed fish and chips with my bottle of home made tomato sauce, a refreshing swim, making sand …

Foodie Mecca

Published by

Coco and I checked out the eagerly awaited Ponsonby Central yesterday. It was busy and happening with a good number of people enjoy the sunshine and foodie mecca. With butchery, fresh produce, fish, bakery, cafes and many street food style, Ponsonby Central is foodie heaven. They have office space upstairs too and I swear, if I win a substantial prize in the lottery, I’m buying office space here to freelance in and preparing to get fat. Hands down the most popular place in the street food lane is El Sizzling Chorizo who specialise in Argentinian BBQ. The big hunks of smokey marinaded meat cooking in their open kitchen looked fantastic. We had a day of moseying planned so were not quite in the mood for a meat feast (one should have a lie-down/siesta booked immediately after). Judging from the happy eaters, this is the place to get a meat fix. We started at the furtherest end of the eating lane at Maldito Mendez. This place is all about the fresh and punchy flavours of South …

A sucker for scallops wrapped in bacon

Published by

I’ve been gorging on seafood and booze all weekend and today is the final day of the Auckland Seafood Feastival. Please note, it wasn’t until late afternoon that I realised that it was a feastival rather than a festival. On a blue skied Saturday, I attended with my three of my friends at the opening time of 11am and we didn’t leave until closing around 6pm. I would say we gave it a mighty good bash. Scampi Street I’d been raving about Scampi Street since last year so we grabbed two plates of BBQ scampi to share. Scampi Street was slightly relocated this year and didn’t have the same “street” or alley feel. I recently learned that scampi are known as langoustine so if you know that term for it, you’ll know that these are sweet and fleshy and can be good eating. The scampi were smaller than last year’s and were not cut in half (crayfish style) for easy eating. The result was messy and a little disappointing. After I’d hyped it up so …

SweetNZ: My First Carrot Cake

Published by

Our oven has been cold for a week and I hope a new oven is on it’s way soon. Not new new, but newer will do. Until then, no oven-based recipes. At least I can bask in the glory of this wee cake that I baked over my holidays. I’ve been meaning to make an “easy” cake for a while now. Those I know who bake always say to start with a banana cake or a carrot cake. Tofu the bunny adores carrots and carrot cake sounded delightfully blog worthy. When we eat carrots, Tofu gets the tops and the peel. Carrots are gold in this house. I also figured it was worth finding out what exactly was in the cream cheese frosting that I adore so much. I used Mama Dorosch’s Carrot Cake recipe from KitchenTrials.com and it was a successful first go. The cream cheese frosting is as follows. Cream Cheese Frosting Makes plenty for one cake  Ingredients 250 grams cream cheese 100 grams butter  2 cups icing sugar (powdered sugar) Preparation Bring …

Officially ruined

Published by

Let me get something straight. I’ve always been an instant coffee girl. Quite happily. Yes, espresso is lovely, but without an espresso maker, who can afford to buy a daily espresso? Not I. Espresso was a once a fortnight treat. Until now. The Koala and I were very spoilt and received a ROK manual espresso maker from my parents for Christmas. I’ve been enjoying a lot of espresso lately. The ROK is a breeze to use and best of all, it’s FUN. Make something fun to use and it will practically run itself. Why we love the ROK: Great tasting espresso Easy to use Easy to clean Fun 10 year warranty Does not require electricity (just add boiling water) Beautifully designed Comes with spoon/tamper (spamper) Makes a double shot espresso by default I’ve been avoiding coffee at work because I fear instant coffee wont live up to espresso, but after a couple of weeks of espresso, I had my first instant coffee and I found it tasted like ass. What have you ruined for yourself …

Double pass to om nom yum

Published by

I am pleased to announce a double pass worth $40 to give away to one lucky reader courtesy of the Auckland Seafood Festival. All you have to do is share one word that best describes your favourite seafood in the comment section below. Delicious words like Mills & Boon 50 Shades for food voyeurs. Terms and Conditions One entry per person Valid email address must be supplied with entry and winner will be contacted by email Entries close midday Monday 21 January 2013 Winner drawn on Monday 21 January 2013 and announced on this blog and on the Facebook page You must be able to attend the Auckland Seafood Festival on any of the festival days: 26, 27 or 28 January 2013 Prize not transferrable for cash. No food, booze, flights, travel or accommodation expenses will be provided. You make your own way there You must be aged 18 and over to enter To be eligible, entries must fulfill the competition requirements Bunny Eats Design reserves the right to reject any entry if it does not meet the criteria above …

Dreaming of plump, sweet scampi

Published by

Auckland Anniversary means that our little city enjoys a 3 day weekend. This mid-Summer holiday means locals flock to the beach and the outdoors and gorge on fine food and booze (New Years resolutions already forgotten). If you’re interested in feasting on incredibly fresh, beautifully cooked seafood, head down to Halsey Wharf at Wynyard Quarter next weekend for the Auckland Seafood Festival. A community project with proceeds going to local charities, there’s all sorts of good juju in attending this festival. Not to be missed if you love seafood. With over 65 seafood dishes on the menu there is surely several dishes to tickle the tastebuds of seafood lovers. The Wild Seafood Challenge is on again and for $12 a good way to tick off some seafood boxes. This year’s Wild Seafood Challenge includes: Raw Kina Marinated Sea Cucumber in Coconut with Ginelli’s Lemon, Lime and Cucumber Sorbet Marinated Grilled small fish with Kawakawa aioli Grilled Octopus The Mussel Mary with Ginelli’s Champagne sorbet Grilled Scampi Last year’s super popular Scampi Street will be back and …

Caprese Salad

Published by

This post is part of Our Growing Edge, a monthly blogging event I have started to encourage us to try new food related things. If you have a blog and have tried something new this month, come and join this event. I put Caprese Salad on my Summer To Do List because I always loved the simple, contrasting ingredients. Summer tomatoes + soft milky mozzarella fior di latte + green fragrant basil. It looked easy but I’d never made it before. Since I just made mozzarella fior di latte from scratch, Caprese seemed to be the perfect way to enjoy it. The gist of it: Cut the mozzarella and ripe truss tomatoes into thick slices. Alternate slices on a platter. Tuck fresh whole basil leaves here and there. Finish off with a drizzle of good quality extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt and black pepper. Dig in with forks 🙂 Check back tomorrow to see what I made with the rest of the mozzarella.

Notes on Mozzarella

Published by

I couldn’t stand that mozzarella eluded me. Not one to admit defeat, I tried making mozzarella one more time. Much better results! A single ball of mozzarella – enough for a meal or two – can easily set you back $10 or $15NZ.  The unhomogenised farmhouse milk I bought from our supermarket was expensive at $5 for a 2 litre bottle, makes about 250grams of mozzarella so worth the effort. I’m no expert on mozzarella, but I believe failures and learning how to correct failures give you a better understanding of the process. Failures make you better at what you do. If you never fail at something, you might never know how to correct something if it one day all goes horribly wrong. This time I used the recipe by Allison from Pease Pudding, combined with my previous research. I had to add 0.5ml of calcium chloride to Allison’s recipe as my curds refused to form even after half an hour. 5 tips on making mozzarella: If your curds refuse to form, add 0.5ml calcium …

Artichoke Dip

Published by

I’ve always wondered what artichokes were like and while I’m sure that fresh artichokes are different to the canned ones, I tested the canned ones yesterday because they were easily accessible and required no messy leaf scraping. What do canned artichokes taste like? The canned stuff has the textured of leeks and tastes a little like leek in a light brine. I was hoping for something stronger flavoured. I whipped up this artichoke dip on a sunny afternoon when we had some friends over. It didn’t take long at all and would go well with crackers, bread, crudites or with a platter. We also had a dollap on the side of some crumbed, pan-fried fish. It was really good. I admit, it’s mostly fat so resist the urge to eat all of it by yourself. Artichoke Dip Makes a party sized bowl  Ingredients 1 tub of cream cheese (250g) 1 can artichoke hearts (390g) 1 cup finely grated parmesan 2 tablespoons mayonnaise 1 clove garlic, finely chopped Optional: Salt Preparation Warm the cream cheese in …

Turn up the heat

Published by

Without a doubt, summer is here. I have been getting up early to get a head start on a mountain of work and to be honest, it’s not so hard when it’s already light. Working hard makes it easy to be wholesome, though I’m sure December will bring plenty of social appointments. It always does. Tofu the bunny likes getting up early but hides away all day in the heat. It’s near impossible to find him in the backyard in the day, but I suspect he’s dug himself a loaf sized trench beneath the bushes or perhaps even under the house to cool off in. Your growing edge is the part of you that is still learning, trying new things and experimenting. It’s the area of your life that you are improving and working on. I find that cooking new things also helps me understand flavours better and why I love or hate certain foods. To push my growing edge as a foodie, I wrote a list of delicious tasks I wanted to achieve over …

Summer is coming and I’m not ready.

Published by

This spring really flew past. I got busy. I was a machine. I slacked off. I did a ton of designing. I designed a new logo. I designed lots of new logos. I settled on one. I designed a bunch of different headers. I haven’t settled on a header yet. Maybe a revolving header subject to my whims will be the way to go? The list I wrote at the start of spring was a little neglected. In the end, list-wise, I didn’t do nearly as well as I wished. I can honestly say that I succeeded in 6 out of the 10 items on my list. Another 2 were attempted and the last 2 I didn’t even attempt. Here’s a summary of my spring to do list. 1. Declutter the kitchen One half done, one half to go. This is the nice half. 2. Build a compost We didn’t consciously build a recycled palette compost bin, but I realised there’s a compost pile living at the bottom of our garden already. It’s currently the heft of …