All posts filed under: Eats

Adventures in Pancetta

Published by

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

Published by

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

Published by

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!

Published by

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

Published by

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

Published by

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

Published by

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

Published by

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.

Flounder baked in foil

Published by

This plate of food cost about $4 in groceries. Thanks to all this talk of flounder (you know who you are) I’ve been craving flounder hard out. I’ve never cooked whole fish in my life, only fillets so I decided that flounder was a good place to start. I had to serve these in the foil because our plates were too small for the fish without the foil. What does it mean when you need bigger plates? Baked Flounder Ingredients 1 Flounder per person (gutted and scaled*) 1 clove of garlic A smear of chilli sauce or half a red chilli Splash of soy sauce 1 tablespoon of oil Salt Black Pepper 2 Kaffir lime leaves Ginger – cut into 5 matchstick size pieces A lime  Preparation Preheat oven to 200°C. Wash the flounder and slice a large X on both sides of the fish with a sharp knife. Tear off a piece of foil large enough to fit the fish on and to wrap up. Lay this on a large shallow roasting dish. Lay …

Strawberry Pastries

Published by

Easy summer goodness. Did you ever notice that strawberries look like hearts? Make this for your Valentine why don’t ya? Strawberry Pastries with Butterscotch Sauce (for two) Butterscotch sauce ingredients 4 teaspoons sugar 4 teaspoons water 4 tablespoons palm sugar 4 tablespoons butter A dash of milk Preparation In a small saucepan, simmer 4 teaspoons of sugar with 4 teaspoons of water. Add more water if it looks like it will burn. Stir for a few minutes until thick. Add palm sugar and stir until dissoved. Stir in butter and milk. I promise you this stuff is hot. DO NOT blow on the spoon and then lick the sauce. It will burn you. Molten sugar is hot like lava from the pits of hell. Trust me! I know! Strawberry Pastries ingredients 1 sheet of puff pastry A small punnet of strawberries (we ate some of the punnet already) Preparation Preheat oven to 200°C. Cut a square sheet of puff pastry in half and put each half onto a grease baking sheet. Wash and remove tops of strawberries. …

Spring lunch

Published by

We were quiet at work today so I decided to take the rest of the day off. Came home and made this meal: Mushroom, onion and cheese quesadillas, soft boiled egg on freshly picked rocket from my tiny garden. I figured what’s the point in having a half day if you can’t have a cocktail to go with it (I suspect this might become a regular half day mascot) so I made myself a lychee and pink grapefruit cocktail. Yes, that’s Tofu’s lunch in the background.

Organic Box

Published by

I’d read about CSA boxes from American foodie blogs so I wondered if there was anything like that in Auckland. I’d never heard about it but I suspected that it was one of those things that wasn’t advertised a lot. I found a few local farms that delivered their produce so I picked one and ordered a box of random goodies for $25. We got apples, carrots, half a pumpkin, potatoes, pumpkin, feijoa, little oranges (or maybe mandarins), a broccoli. I didn’t know what that big green plant was so after some internet investigating, I identified it as kale. Kale isn’t popular in NZ and it was cool to get something in the box that we’d never had before. It was fun to be forced to eat and cook things I wouldn’t usually buy, but personally, I enjoy going to the shop and choosing things. So I probably won’t be doing this again in a hurry.

Feijoa chocolate muffins

Published by

We have a feijoa (pronounced fee-jo-ah) tree in the backyard! We are looking forward to a whole season of these babies. For those that don’t know what the fudge a feijoa is, it’s a type of guava and has a strong, tart, sweet flavour. They have bright green skins that you don’t eat and inside is a mellow cream colour. Seeds are tiny and never an issue. They have a short but abundant season here in  New Zealand. Feijoa chocolate muffins 1 egg 1/4 cup oil 1/2 cup sugar 1 cup milk 2 1/2 cups plain flour 3 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 cup chocolate buttons 1 cup chopped feijoas Preheat oven to 200C. Beat egg, oil, sugar and milk in a bowl. Sift flower, baking powder, cinnamon and add to egg mixture. Add feijoa and chocolate and mix lightly so that it is just combined. Spoon mixture into greased muffin tins. Baked at 200°C for 15 minutes. Nom. Makes about 10 muffins