All posts filed under: Culinary Adventures

Everything is too delicious – Taste 2012

Published by

It’s my birthday week and I’ll go to a bunch of awesome foodie events if I want to. I love this shiz. Food, wine, good music and the best company. Yes please! My friends Coco and Livvy went with me to opening night tonight. Taste of Auckland started today at Victoria Park, Auckland City and boy what a treat. Coco is a seasoned Taste veteran like me and it was Livvy’s first time. We are all pretty adventurous eaters so it was fun to share our dishes. We arrived keen as beans, just after 5.30pm and stayed until the 9.30pm closing. I would recommend the full 4 hours to get a well paced walk through and a class or two of your choice. The weather was perfect with only a the tiniest hint of drizzle later in the evening. Not enough for us to head to shelter or pull out umbrellas. From the 11 restaurants represented, we tried 9 dishes from 9 restaurants. Not bad, maybe with an extra person we could have made it to …

Taste of Auckland is almost here

Published by

Taste of Auckland at Victoria kicks off tomorrow and runs through until Sunday. Last year it coincided with the Rugby World Cup with an additional Taste at The Cloud event and was renamed Taste of New Zealand, but this year it is back to it’s original name. I look forward to this every year because it’s just another excuse to be a glutton. Seriously though, the food at Taste is stunning to look at a even better to eat. It’s different to The Food Show as it is more fine dining and gourmet products. I think of The Food Show as the supermarket expo and Taste as the fine dining and gourmet expo. What’s on There are various masterclasses: whiskey, coffee and cocktails as well as chef cooking demonstrations on stage. This year, 11 restaurants will be featuring 3 dishes each at about $8-12 a plate. Gourmet food, wine and booze producers will also be out in full force and Taste is always a great opportunity to taste new things and grab bargains. The Menu The awesome thing about …

No love

Published by

When you can’t decide what to order at an unfamiliar place, I’ve always figured your best bet is to go with their specialty. At a steak house? Order steak. Sushi shop? Order sushi. It should be a no brainer. If in doubt, don’t order the seafood platter in a burger joint. Don’t order the cheeseburger in a fish and chip shop. Both will usually contain frozen elements and possibly nuked back to life. There’s a trend for places to offer too wide a menu and instead of doing a few really things well, they do many things badly or average at best. An Australian coffee chain was offering “authentic” Thai cuisine not long ago. Really? I wish I could have a Thai fish cake with my espresso…said no one ever. The other day I went out for lunch with The Koala. Going out for lunch is a treat that every worker should reward themselves with once in a while. It breaks up the day and for a moment during the week, you can pretend you don’t …

Beasts of the Southern Food – Movie ticket giveaway

Published by

New Orleans is right up there on my bucket list as a place to eat my way through. Every time anything remotely New Orleansy (is that a word?) comes my way, my ears prick up and I’m on high alert. Crawfish boil, shrimp, gumbo, jambalaya, deep fried beignet, po-boys, Oysters Rockefeller, red beans and rice. Yes please. Director Benh Zeitlin and screen writer Lucy Alibar’s new film Beasts of the Southern Wild conjures up a magical fantasy world under chaos sometime in the not too distant future. Think Where The Wild Things Are and Pan’s Labyrinth meets New Orleans. Dubbed “the best movie about New Orleans ever” even though many claim that it isn’t about New Orleans at all, this hero tale is set in a fictional place called “The Bathtub”. No story accused of being about New Orleans would be complete without food references. This movie is going to be a good one. Films for Foodies Next month, as part of Rialto Cinema’s monthly Films for Foodies event at their Newmarket location, there will be a very special screening …

Attempt Mozzarella

Published by

Last week, a friend delivered some raw, organic milk to us. Lucky! They were struggling to get through the milk this week with some family away and the cow producing a whopping four to six litres a day. A day! That’s mind boggling to me. The Koala and I can go through one day’s worth in a week if we try really hard. With that in mind, sharing a milking cow with up to six other households would be wonderful. Still on the cheese making buzz, I tried my hand at mozzarella. Something must have gone terribly awry because the texture wasn’t the mozzarella I was hoping for. Instead, the nubbly, slightly crumbly, cauliflower-like balls firmed up into firm white rubber. Not my finest cheese making moment, but if anyone is looking for cheese that looks like cauliflower, look no further! Still, we grated it and melted it onto home made pizzas: smoked chicken and black olive, smoked salmon and capers. It tasted just fine. I made pizza dough for the first time in forever …

Make Hollandaise Sauce

Published by

I made a ten egg hollandaise sauce once. Don’t be impressed, it wasn’t my intention. Years ago, long before I got into cooking, I tried to make hollandaise sauce. The sauce split on me. The recipe I found had the tip to salvage split sauce by adding it to egg yolks in place of butter. So I took my split sauce and added it to two egg yolks. It failed. So I tried to salvage it again. Ten eggs later, I had ten egg hollandaise sauce. That experience meant that for years, I didn’t attempt hollandaise sauce again for fear it would take ten eggs to get right. Well, it was time to put on my big girl pants and give it another try. Here in New Zealand, Eggs Bennie (Benedict) are held in high regard. On their own or with couple of strips of streaky bacon or smoked salmon and the compulsory toast or toasted English muffin, this dish can be found in cafes in every nook and cranny of the country. It takes …

Another local foodie mecca

Published by

At the end of the month or in November, there’s to be (yet another) supposed foodie mecca around here called Ponsonby Central. There will be cafes, specialist food stores, a street food strip, a fresh produce market and even an in-house radio station. It looks like there may also be some character office space available so if I stumble across a wad of cash, this might just be where I’ll plonk our new design company. Dreams are free. The focus on the process of making fresh food is sure to appeal to your average foodie. On site there will be coffee being roasted and bread being baked. At the butchery, carcasses will be hanging up and these will be cut behind glass doors for all to see. Sustainability and recycling are also big issues at Ponsonby Central and the old building was pulled apart and the materials re-used. All businesses have signed on to a recycling initiative as part of their contract. Stores to include Produce market Bakery Fish monger Butchery Cheese shop Street food …

Halloumi with Balsamic Reduction

Published by

There is an almost unbearable smugness that comes with frying up a piece of home made halloumi. It might be a bit of work, but the satisfaction and the cheese is completely worth the journey. A couple of weekends ago, I roped in my best friend Coco into a day of cheese making. She is more adventurous than I when it comes to cheese, but we have a mutual love of squeaky cheese or halloumi. As a virgin cheesemaker, I didn’t have a single specialty item I needed to make cheese, so instead of buying each new item on it’s own, I opted for the easy way out and bought a Mad Millie Fresh Cheese kit. There are several kits available, but for me, the fresh cheese kit meant quick results so fresh cheese it was. The fresh cheese kit also makes feta, quark, cottage cheese, cream cheese and ricotta. It’s not cheap at $70NZ but the items soon add up when bought individually and at least I knew I have all required pieces. The …

Didn’t we do well?

Published by

It’s Saturday and I’m so glad the challenge is over. This week has been torturous, emotionally, physically and mentally draining. Here’s a rough visual on what I ate while living below the line this week. I didn’t take photos of every freaking peanut butter sandwich or toast, so each picture of toast is just a symbol for the slice/s of toast or sandwiches I ate. I stuck to 3 meals a day over the first two days, but I soon found out that the portions were either too small or not nutritious enough and I wasn’t coping. So from day three onwards, I had more meals. Note a whopping five meals on day four! I can’t get over how tired I was all week and even light headed and dizzy at times. I was super forgetful and felt stupid and foggy a lot of the time. It could be caffeine and sugar withdrawal as well as lack of nutrients. Most days after work, I ate something and then napped for a few hours, got up, …

LBTL Challenge: Day 5

Published by

Day 5 Menu Congee 2 or 3 slices of peanut butter toast Satay fried noodles with a fried egg More congee New Zealand welfare has many great things going for it including benefits, healthcare and education, but school lunches do not exist. Even though school lunches in other countries are regarded as culinary horrors, the truth is that a culinary horror is better than no food at all. If you would like to know the state of the lunches of our kids, please watch this interesting 8 minute video on a recent social experiment. Too many children go without lunch in this country and it is heartbreaking. Living on $2.25 a day this week, for the Live Below The Line Challenge has highlighted to me how distracting hunger can be. I haven’t missed a single meal. I’m eating 3 meals a day, sometimes more and I still feel foggy. I have trouble concentrating, I’ve had dizzy spells, I am weak and tire and need naps and bed early. If kids in this country are hungry, they …

LBTL Challenge: Day 4

Published by

Day 4 Menu 2 slices of french toast and 1 sliced banana A small bowl of leftover egg fried rice (from dinner last night) Chicken noodle soup Satay fried noodles with a fried egg 1 slice of peanut butter toast I’m getting into the swing of things now by giving myself enough to eat during the day. Eating 4-5 times a day is working for me. I didn’t have good start to the day when I found that a quarter of my banana was black and slimy because of how I’d ripped it off the bunch at the store. When you have a single piece of fruit for the week, quarter of a banana is a lot of banana to miss out on. I took a lemon and 3 slivers of ginger to work today to add to my steaming hot mugs of water. It’s like a flavour explosion compared to plain water. I’m drinking a cup of ginger tea while I’m typing this. Just a slice of ginger and hot water. Simple but beats …

LBTL Challenge: Day 3

Published by

Day 3 Menu 1 bowl of Congee (made with 2 cups of chicken stock, no meat, garnished with a clove of garlic and ginger matchsticks) 2 Peanut butter sandwiches 2 slices of toast with peanut butter Egg fried rice Today I’m halfway through the 5 day Live Below The Line challenge. I feel good in the morning and at night, but at work, I haven’t allocated enough to eat. This afternoon in the office, I felt lightheaded and dizzy and started seeing stars. Generally, I feel foggy from a couple hours after a meal until the next meal and god help me if I have to do any work that requires a lot of concentration. I wouldn’t trust myself to operate heavy machinery or drive. Luckily, I don’t have to do either. Breakfast was yummy and the 1/4 cup of rice that sounded like so much yesterday was gone too quick. I ate one sandwich at morning tea and the other at lunch and I was still very hungry so it was a long, long …

LBTL Challenge: Congee Recipe

Published by

Congee is a simple rice soup or porridge that has been eaten all over Asia for centuries. The two essential ingredients are rice and water but many different meats, vegetables, sauces and spices can be added to it. Congee is a cheap dish and quite filling considering and it is eaten as comfort food for the unwell, the very young and the very old. It is usually eaten for breakfast, but also lunch or dinner. It is so common that even McDonald’s sells congee in many Asian countries. I’ve eaten congee from when I was a tiny baby and I’ve eaten rice soup and porridge in many Asian countries in my travels. I always find it very comforting, especially for a traveller’s tummy. When I first signed onto the Live Below The Line challenge, I thought I wouldn’t be eating meat. But when I saw chicken frames at $1.99 per kilogram at my local Chinese supermarket, I knew I had to use it. So at the start of this week, I cooked up one kilogram …

LBTL Challenge: Day 2

Published by

Day 2 Menu 1 soft boiled egg on 2 slices of toast Satay Vegetables on rice with broccoli, cauliflower, carrot, garlic and ginger Chicken soup (Chinese style) with a bowl of rice Day 2 of the Live Below The Line challenge was much easier than yesterday. I’m going to blame yesterday’s fogginess on a lingering hangover. I felt a combination of sick, hungry or stoned all day. After a bowls of chicken congee, a nap, 2 more bowls of chicken congee and great night’s sleep I fixed myself and I got up early this morning for breakfast and to cook my lunch. I cooked 3 cups of rice last night and was surprised that it made 5 generous portions. With 5 cups of rice for the week, I’m going to have more than enough rice to eat. Good thing I love rice! This is the meal I made for lunch today and the amounts can easily be multiplied for more mouths. I haven’t worked out exactly how much this costs but it’s less than $1 …

LBTL Challenge: Day 1

Published by

Day 1 Menu 2 slices of toast with peanut butter 1 fried egg sandwich 3 bowls of Chicken congee (rice porridge) I had a big dinner last night and even had seconds before bed because I thought I should. I wasn’t hungry when I woke up still full so bumped breakfast to be eaten at morning tea. Feeling good, but tired. No coffee or tea. Just lots of hot water. The hardest thing today was was lunchtime. I made the mistake of going into the kitchen to top up my water. Someone was having a big plate of lasagna that had been cut up into six pieces. One or two pieces would be enough but he was eating all six pieces for lunch. Hard not to comment on the portions size when you’re feeling hungry, but I really don’t want to be that asshole. I usually hate when people comment on my giant lunches! Tomorrow, I’m avoiding the kitchen at lunchtime. Food Waste I watched Tristram Stuart’s talk The Global Food Waste Scandal last night. …

Blessings Disguised As Rice

Published by

When I was *yea high*, my Daddy and my Uncle Hon owned one of the only Chinese takeaways in our little city. Some afternoons, my Uncle Charlie* would collect me from school and together, we would walk 15 minutes to the shop. * Uncle Charlie was not an uncle by blood but because in my culture, we call all our parents friends uncle and aunty out of respect. When I arrived at the shop, I would carry a stool up to the rice cooker for height, climb on top, fill a small bowl with the fresh batch of rice, drizzle soy sauce on top and tuck in. I loved rice then and I love it now. I’m going to be OK next week for poverty challenge. Keeping to a budget of just $2.25 a day, I’ve allocated 5 cups of rice among other things to get me by. I can’t help but think that I’m lucky that I choose to eat rice. Many are not so lucky and I think as foodies, we forget to …

OOOOBY 11

Published by

This week our CSA box included: Vegetable 1/2 a Squash 21 Dwarf Carrots 4 Celery Sticks 1 Fancy Lettuce 4 Spring Onion 1 Avocado Fruit 7 Gold Kiwifruit 7 Fuji Apples 6 Navel Oranges Add Ons Wild Wheat Ciabatta Apple Juice 2L The most interesting thing in the box: Nothing was particularly exotic this week, but the nubbly carrots are pretty delightful. Menu 11 There might be some erratic eating this week so I’ve kept my menu plan pretty open in case I spontaneously need to binge on something. Trucker’s meal: Steak, fried eggs, chips and salad with beetroot, lettuce*, spring onion* and carrot* Avocado and cream cheese on ciabatta toast Pan Fried Halloumi with Squash* Spring Salad with carrot*, orange* and spring onion* Minestrone with celery*, carrots*, onion, beans and orzo, served with ciabatta* toast French toast with brown sugar stewed apples* * CSA from this week or previous week CSA Link Party I regularly join a CSA box link party. A link party is a weekly or monthly round up of relevant blog links in …

OOOOBY Box 10 and our “Old Girl”

Published by

We bought our Frigidaire when we first moved from an inner city apartment to the ‘burbs. I got her off Trademe for a song, second, maybe even third or fourth hand and we immediately had her resealed by a pro. This fridge-freezer has moved house with us four times and we reckon she could be from the 1970s, making her older than me. Our old girl had a freak out over the weekend. I wish I had before and after photos to show you, as the stalactites were amazing. We shifted her a few inches to the right and I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, but the top third of the freezer turned into an ice cube with icicles as thick as my wrist. Ice expands and within hours it got so bad that we couldn’t close the freezer door. The Koala came to the rescue, carefully using a hammer as an ice pick and excavated the ice from the top shelf and around the seals. I’m now trying to use up everything in …

OOOOBY Box 9

Published by

OOOOBY now offer an organic only box, so this week we’re giving it a test drive. The original box that we usually get is 100% local but not 100% organic. This week our CSA box included: Vegetable Half a Crown Pumpkin 1 Broccoli 1 bunch of Silverbeet 4 Carrots 1 Avocado 1 Fancy Lettuce Fruit 8 Gold Kiwifruit 7 Fuji Apples 4 Navel Oranges 1 Lime Add Ons Apple Juice 2L Wild Wheat Ciabatta The most interesting thing in the box: Colourful carrots. Menu 9 Pumpkin* soup with bacon bits and garlic parmesan croutons (made with ciabatta*) Cheeseburgers with lime* guacamole*, egg, fancy lettuce* and onion served with oven baked fries Salad with yellow and purple carrot*, fancy lettuce, boiled egg, olives, ham, chick peas Parmesan bagels with avocado* and cream cheese Buttery Golden Pan-Fried Flounder with sauteed silverbeet* and mashed potatoes Steak stir fry with broccoli*, onion, garlic and carrots*. Served on noodles Mini quiche with egg, broccoli*, silverbeet* and ham Roast chicken with pumpkin*, potatoes, onion and garlic. Served with rainbow carrot* salad. …

Spring Time Fun Time

Published by

This Spring, my to do list focuses more sorting, new beginnings and the garden with just a few new culinary adventures. Declutter the kitchen Build a compost Plant herbs Get a cast iron frypan Make pesto from scratch Live on $2.25NZ per day for 5 days for charity Make hollandaise sauce Bake something from scratch Make Pâté Make cheese What do you hope to do this Spring?…or Autumn for my northern hemisphere friends.