All posts tagged: Hellers

Birthday Ham

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Party in the backyard I took the day off work for my birthday and The Koala came home a little early to help set up for my party. Our new outdoor table is getting plenty of use and the $20 I paid for it was a true bargain. I cleaned up a junk corner of our house last weekend and uncovered some parasols that we used for our wedding over 2 years ago. They’re so pretty that we had to do something with them. The Koala decorated a tree with them and I am stoked with how they turned out. Ham Ham on the bone is one of my favourite porky products and I look forward to Christmas ham every year. But ham once a year isn’t enough! For my birthday, my sister gifted me a Hellers Free Farmed half ham on the bone. From the Hellers website: Hellers Free Farmed products are sourced from selected New Zealand farms. The Sows are outdoors and once weaned, the piglets are raised in barns with no crates or …

Free farmed vs. Free range

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Hellers Free Farmed Streaky Bacon $8.75 for 250g ($35 per kg) Freedom Farms Streaky Bacon $11.70 for 250g ($46 per kg) I bought Hellers the other day instead of Freedom Farms. It was the cheaper choice but I noticed that it was “free farmed” rather than “free range”. So, what’s the difference? I didn’t know, so I did a little investigating… Free farmed: 20% of New Zealand pigs are free farmed. Considered an ethical choice, it is more common in NZ than free range. Free range: 1% of pigs farmed in New Zealand. Pigs have complete free range. The difference is free range pigs are allowed to move freely between paddocks. Free farmed means that pigs are only allowed to move freely within their own paddock. If you are interested in more information including the difference between the farming styles in NZ, visit Pig Farming In NZ here. There are lots of interesting facts about NZ pork including: …None of the pork, bacon or ham you eat  is ever in an individual crate or cage. Only …

Happy Pork with Wild Meat Sauce

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I took The Koala with me to Nosh the other day and his eyes widened at a bottle of Glass Eye Creek Wild Meat Sauce. I admit, I’m a sucker for a nice label and this hip flask sized bottle had a manly charm about it. Made in the West Coast of NZ, like all well made sauces, it has well spun story about how it came to be. It looked like a BBQ sauce to me so I always like a bit of pork to go with a good BBQ sauce. Wild pork isn’t as common as it could be and the very next best thing is freerange. There are a few companies now offering freerange pork in New Zealand, but Freedom Farms is the most well known. They’ve just put themselves out there a lot more than other names. Freedom Farms pork steak marinaded in Wild Meat Sauce. Some mashed kumara (sweet potato), cauliflower with cheese sauce and green beans and you have a decent dinner. The meat was a firmer and more filling than the …