All posts filed under: Eats

Crunchy yum bacon quiche

Published by

I love pulling out random ingredients from the fridge and being able to make something cohesive . I keep a constant supply of streaky bacon and puff pastry in the freezer and eggs are usually around too. Then it’s a matter of using up whatever vegetables are in the fridge at the time to fill up the rest of the quiche with and to make a side salad. We were lucky to have a bit of beetroot chutney too. Otherwise it would have to be tomato sauce and/or Kaitaia Fire Kiwifruit & Habanero Pepper Sauce. Also time to show off my new tea towel from the Fisher & Paykel stand at Taste of Auckland. Fisher & Paykel are a major appliance manufacturer based here in Auckland. Fisher & Paykel are pretty smart with their online presence. They’ve realised that people that buy their products like to cook and be inspired by foodie things. So they’ve set up their own food blog called Our Kitchen. Brilliant! See how two of the pastry corners curled over and two …

Coffee Italiano Cook Off

Published by

I was invited to a dinner at my friend Linh’s flat. I thought it was just going to be your average potluck dinner. She did mention themes and prizes but I’ve never been to a cook off before. I might have upped my game if I had realised it was competitive. The 2 categories were Italian for mains and Coffee for dessert and there was a prize for the winner of each category. There was a crown for each winner and a crown (but no prize) for the best failure. Everyone had to try every dish and vote for their favourite in each category. I roasted portabello and button mushrooms with red wine, balsamic vinegar and garlic. It was well received but didn’t win. That’s ok. The 3 other entries were lasagna, risotto and pizza. All very Italian. The lasagna with it’s whole portabellos, eggplant, blue cheese and mince was the winner on the day. It was delicious. Maybe I’m starting to warm to blue cheese after all. As an ingredient mind you, not as …

Birthday quiche!

Published by

35 quiche. Only 1 quiche was sacrificed to quality control. At my work, it’s tradition to organise something for a morning tea shout or lunch shout for your birthday. The last 4 years I have just bought food from the local bakery to share, but this year I decided make something. We don’t have much of a kitchen at work so it really had to be something that could be served cold or could be microwaved. I’m not much of a baker, but I can make a pretty mean quiche. I made 36 of these quiche filled with eggs, cheese, tomato, broccoli and onion. They took much longer than I anticipated due to only 1 muffin tin. If I were to do this again, I’d buy or borrow some more tins. Everyone at work seemed to enjoy them with most scoffing back 2 quiche. Based on my recipe here.

Pork ♥ Apple

Published by

I love pork belly and this time I tried paring it with green apple. I think it’s safe to say that pork loves apple. It’s funny, pork belly is one of those cheap cuts turned glamourous by celebrity chefs all over the show. Since I often shop at a Chinese butcher and the Chinese have long prized pork belly, it’s not really a cheap cut at all. Oh well, win some, lose some. The rough guide to Aromatic Pork Belly and Apple Ingredients: Pork belly, granny smith apple, onion, garlic, ginger, 5 spice powder, cloves, star anise, black vinegar, raw sugar, soy sauce. Preparation: Brown the pork and then simmer with all the other ingredients for about 1.5 to 2 hours in a little water with lid on. Remove lid for last 15-20 minutes and turn up heat to reduce the sauce into a thick syrupy elixir. Served with rice and greens and plenty of green tea. All the apple, garlic and onion disintegrated into this intense, delicious sauce. This hearty dish does not require teeth …

First fava harvest!

Published by

Our fava beans or broadbeans are finally ready for a small harvest. I knew that the first thing I wanted to cook with these would be something simple and delicately flavoured to compliment beans. A creamy prawn and rice concoction was just the ticket. I wrote this recipe down first, then cooked it and made a couple of adjustments. With the price of frozen prawns these days, I consider this dish to be suitable for a gourmet pauper. Fava pods bursting with potential. Shelled and waiting to be blanched. Not much meat from those pods. A sexy close up… Creamy Rice with Fava and Prawn Serves 2 Ingredients 1 cup shelled fresh fava (broadbeans) 1 cup whole shelled prawns or prawn meat, defrosted 4 garlic cloves 1/2 cup cream 1 and 1/2 cups long grain rice 1/3 cup white wine 1 cup chicken stock Butter Salt Black pepper 1 lemon Handful of fresh herbs, chopped Preparation Quickly fry the prawns in a little butter until just done. Remove from heat and set aside. Cook the …

A three course, nourishing, guilt-free meal!

Published by

Sorry, I haven’t posted much food lately. My SLR is sick and being repaired. I hope to pick it up real soon, but in the meantime, I’ve had to make do with our point-and-shoot. I wasn’t going to make a 3 course meal. Honest. It was mid week and not a special occasion. I was just intending to use up a huge broccoli by making a soup, then serving a main course after that. Simple. But then I went to Nosh Food Market and got inspired to make an easy dessert. Piako yoghurt was on special and I spied some gorgeous strawberries at the vegetable shop. The vegetable shop were closed but I begged them to let me buy a punnet of strawberries. They relented. Yusss! I’ve been pondering about ethical meats lately, while reading Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s book Hugh Fearlessly Eats It All. Not long ago, I thought free-range and organic was an expensive luxury for the kinds people that we are not. I’ve bought, cooked and eaten organic chicken. I wasn’t convinced of any …

It should look slightly obscene, like a demented butterfly.

Published by

I’ve seen butterflied chickens for sale at the market, but never bought one. I love stuffing so if we have a whole chicken, it usually gets stuffed. I’ve recently had my knife sharpened, so I decided that I’d butterfly a chicken myself. Butterfly is such a lovely word. To be butterflied, is not so lovely. Hopefully you will find this recipe lovely. One of the benefits of butterflying a chicken is that you can marinade both sides. Inside and out! Ideally, you would marinade this for a few hours but I wanted to eat asap so this recipe should take less than 1 hour from start to finish. Change it up if you have time to marinade. Use whatever root vegetables you like. This time, I used red skinned potatoes, red onion and parsnip. A Recipe for a Demented Butterfly Ingredients 1 smallish chicken An assortment of root vegetables and a few cloves of garlic A fresh salad Marinade 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped Zest of 2 lemons Juice of 2 lemons 1/2 teaspoon ground …

Onion Weed Dumplings

Published by

Maybe you have a ton of onion weed in your backyard like we do. It’s chive smell can be experienced every time we or a neighbour mows the lawn. Onion weed is actually quite pretty with it’s fairyland looking flowers. It’s hard to imagine that it is so offensive to some people (being a noxious weed and all). If you are unsure, don’t eat it. Otherwise, happy foraging! Tofu the bunny doesn’t pay onion weed any attention. Since our neighbour mentioned they eat onion weed in dumplings, I’ve been dying to try it out. So here’s a recipe I fudged together. Enjoy! Onion Weed Dumplings Makes about 50 dumplings Ingredients 500 grams (1 pound) pork mince 10 leaves onion weed 7 onion weed flower tops (about 5 flowers each) 12 dried shitaake mushrooms 1 tablespoon black vinegar Salt 2 tablespoons soy sauce 1 teaspoon chili seasoning 1 teaspoon minced ginger 1 teaspoon sesame oil 1 cup of water 1 packet of dumpling wrappers Preparation Soak the mushrooms in 1 cup of hot water for a 5 minutes. …

Eating noxious weeds

Published by

Onion weed grows everywhere in New Zealand and is considered a noxious weed. Why  it hasn’t become a national ingredient is beyond me. We have a lot of onion weed in our backyard and I found out a little while ago that it was edible, but I hadn’t decided how to use it in my cooking. Our neighbour came around to our house last week – he and his baby daughter like to visit Tofu in the garden every now and then. My neighbour’s wife is Mongolian and he mentioned that Mongolians eat onion weed. His wife uses the leaves and flowers in dumplings. I often use spring onion or chives in pork dumplings, so onion weed would be an easy substitute. My first attempt to cook with onion weed was nothing fancy, just some scrambled eggs. My bouquet of onion weed, sage and coriander just before I chopped it up and added it to my scrambled eggs. Onion weed scrambled eggs with an onion weed flower as a garnish. The flowers have a much milder …

Crispy stuffed skin

Published by

I felt like eating stuffing, but didn’t feel like roasting a whole chicken on evening, so I dreamed up this instead. I made a stuffing mixture using breadcrumbs, salt & pepper, fresh sage from the garden, oil and garlic. Using my fingers, I loosened the skin of 2 chicken legs and pushed a layer of stuffing into the space between the skin and meat. I replaced the skin and brushed the chicken skin with a bit of oil, salt and peppered generously and baked in a hot oven 200°C for 30 minutes. Turned down the oven to 170°C and baked for another 30 minutes. The result is crispy skin chicken with stuffing soaking up lots of the chicken juices. Reserve the cooking liquid to mash with kumara or potatoes. Roast chicken flavoured mash. Yum!!!

Moki Moki Moki!

Published by

So you might already know that my favourite fish is salmon. I adore white fish too, but white fish is white fish to me. Whether it’s $40 snapper, or $25 Tarakihi, or $10 Moki. I don’t have a preference, I’ll eat them all. Maybe this horrifies you. Maybe it doesn’t. What it does mean though, is that I will never pay $40 for snapper when a $10 Moki will do the job swimmingly. Herb Encrusted Moki burgers Serves 2 hungry punters for a big lunch or normal dinner Ingredients 1 fillet firm white fish. About 10cm x 20cm size. About 400-500 grams (up to 1 pound) Half a cup breadcrumbs 2 tablespoons dried herbs 1/2 teaspoon salt Generous grind of black pepper Knob of butter, melted A handful of salad greens 2 slices of tomato Fresh buns Mayonnaise Preparation On a plate, mix breadcrumbs, herbs, salt and pepper. Cut the fillet into 2 square pieces. Brush melted butter onto fish and push onto breadcrumb mixture so that all sides are thickly coated. Heat a non-stick …

$5 for 5kg

Published by

  I find it hard to pass up 5kg of potatoes for $5. 10kg for $10 is a common occurrence but who can eat 10kg of potatoes before they go funky? I don’t have an army to feed, so 5kg is more reasonable. Loose pototoes go for $2-3 per kilo. So even if you give away half of your 5kg bag, you are still better off. Now, what to do with all these pototoes? We’ve got lemons, sage and rosemary in the garden at the moment, so lemon, sage and rosemary wedges was calling out to be made. Lemon, Sage and Rosemary Wedges A spring time lunch for two. Ingredients 4 medium potatoes 1 tablespoon flour Zest of 1 lemon 1 tablespoon fresh chopped sage and rosemary 2 tablespoons oil Salt Pepper Sour Cream Cheese Preparation Preheat oven to 200°C. Cut potatoes into half and then into wedges. Place in a plastic bag and add flour, lemon zest, oil, salt and pepper. Shake well. Arrange potatoes onto a lightly oiled oven proof dish. Stand every piece …

The only way to eat leeks

Published by

I always write down my recipes after I’ve cooked them. It’s just the way I work. I guess I like freestyling more than I like following recipes. This time around, it was a little different. I had some time on my hands so I typed up this recipe based on ingredients I knew we had, and then followed the recipe. I have made only 1 alteration to this recipe after cooking it. The leek soaked up a lot of stock so next time I would use 2 cups instead of 1 so there can be more of this lovely sauce. After tasting this, you too will believe this is the only way to eat leeks. My husband has decided he loves leeks too after eating this. Creamy Braised Leeks with Broadbean and Chorizo Ingredients 1 leek A knob of butter A splash of white wine or cooking wine 1 cup chicken stock 2 cups chicken stock 4 chorizo sausages (or other spicy sausage) 2 handfuls of broadbeans A splash of cream A sprinkling of herbs, salt, …

OCD on measurements

Published by

I hate recipes that ask of odd measurements. Is that OCD? You won’t see me using three quarters of a can of tomatoes. I’m going to use the whole can, or half a can and save the other half for a second dish. You’ll see that most of my recipes ask for 1 cup, half a cup, 1 can, half a can, 1 packet, half a packet etc. It just makes sense to me. It can be a real pain the arse though. I have a thing about splitting eggs. I know, you can save your bowl of egg yolks or whites for another dish. But I can’t count the number of times that a bowl of egg yolks has sat in my fridge until it is time to throw it out. So now I just avoid making recipes that call for split eggs. Or if it’s possible, I throw in whole eggs. Naughty, I know. What do you do? Do you throw in full measures of things? Or do you stick to recipes? p.s. …

A nice bit of beef

Published by

Nosh sells some lovely beef and this piece was perfect for marinading to make a teriyaki beef with. The meat had a good beefy flavour which is often missing from supermarket beef. I usually buy cheap cuts of beef to stew or braise. But every now and then it’s nice to treat yourself to some more expensive beef to cook medium rare (or rarer). I like my beef to be pink and juicy and this was no exception. Marinade: Sesame oil, soy sauce, mirin, rice wine, sugar and grated ginger. Topped with a sesame seed blend and served with white rice, snow peas and mushrooms.  

EasyPeasy SpagBol

Published by

Spaghetti Bolognese is one of those easy crowd pleasers. Cheap, tasty, filling. I often cook a big batch even if it’s the two of us because it reheats wonderfully for lunches the next day. You can also make the first part in advance and refrigerate, then pop it into the oven prior to serving. I find herbs lose their potency the more you cook them, so in this dish, I add them near the end. EasyPeasy SpagBol Enough for 2 for dinner and some lunch the next day. Ingredients Half a kilo of beef mince Half a pack of dried pasta 1 tin of diced tomotoes 1 onion, diced 1 cup of grated cheese 10 mushrooms, sliced 4 cloves garlic, sliced Salt and pepper A handful of fresh herbs like sage, rosemary, oregano or thyme, chopped Preparation Preheat oven to 180°C. Add onion and mince to a frying pan. Cook until brown and then add garlic and mushrooms. When these are also cooked through, add the tin of tomatoes and stir through. Season well. Cook pasta …

Inspired by Noodle Pillows

Published by

Reading a book about Vietnamese food and travel inspired me to make this chicken noodle soup. No recipe, I just made it up as I went along, so no claims on authenticity here! Vietnamese food to me, is really fresh, simple ingredients that enhance their flavours. Vietnamese food is highly underrated here in New Zealand. Hardly anyone talks about Vietnamese cuisine. I guess because it doesn’t have the hot, bright, bold or loud cuisine of Thailand or India, or the elegant, regimented cuisine of Japan, so it gets forgotten about. Chinese cuisine is pretty big here though, so maybe it’s simply been overlooked because it’s fairly similar to Chinese cooking? Vietnamese cuisine the kind of thing I can eat very often. The food is balanced and light. There is a strong Cantonese influence as well as a French influence on Vietnamese cuisine. It’s like someone grabbed two of the world’s culinary giants and married them up. Herbs help make everything fresh tasting and you are encouraged to interact with your food, adding each ingredient to …