All posts filed under: Green

Broadbean shoots

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on broad beans: The top few centimetres of growth on the main stems of your broad beans need to be pinched out anyway when their flowers are just starting to wilt, to stop the plant growing any taller and help it pod up. These “pinchings” have a lovely leguminous flavour – delicious as a side veg just lightly steamed and tossed in butter, and perfect in an omelette or tart. But you can also grow bean shoots “to order”, harvesting when a few inches high. I’m growing broad beans at the moment in the filing cabinet planter that we upcycled. No actual beans as yet and I finally got round to tying them up so they stand nice and tall. So I thought, what they hell, might as well eat some pinchings. What’s good enough for Hugh is good enough for us! It’s kinda funny how the landlord leaves a bit of long grass around the planter, so that you can’t see the faces of the painted rabbits, only their ears. Brussels sprouts, cauli flower …

Monday Bunday 1: Rabbit-Kun

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.

Organic Box

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.