All posts tagged: mushrooms

Vege Wonton Noodle Soup

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This post was made possible thanks to MAGGI 2minute Wholegrain Noodles – They are made with the goodness of wholegrain and are 99% fat free. Available at all supermarkets. Do you have a favourite meal? Is it comfort food? I am all about comfort food. As stated on my ABOUT page, wonton noodle soup is my favourite meal. I grew up on wontons and back in the day, I folded many, many wontons for our Chinese take away. Unpretentious. Easy to portion to suit your current appetite. Easy to digest. While I love the Cantonese classic of pork and prawn, I decided it was time to reinvent this old favourite to be vegetarian-friendly. Perfect for spring, this light yet satisfying meal is a hug in a bowl. I make no claims on the authenticity of this recipe. It is fusion at best. Win! MAGGI 2minute Wholegrain noodles come in Chicken or Beef 5 packs, are baked, not fried and are 99% fat free. Thanks to MAGGI’S 2minute Wholegrain Noodles I’m giving away a set of …

Freestyler in the Kitchen: Throw-together recipe #1

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Hey guys, I have a confession… Even though this blog is FULL of recipes, I am NOT a good recipe follower. I use recipes as inspiration – a starting point to leap from and aside from recipe testing, I seldom stick to the script. I like to make things up as I go along, eyeballing quantities, changing it up with whatever ingredients I happen to have. I season to taste or mood. I am not the kind of girl to cook an exact dish twice. What’s your cooking style? So, when I took Fisher & Paykel’s online quiz WHAT’S YOUR COOKING STYLE? I wasn’t surprised that I was branded the Freestyler. Freestylers have mastered the basics and enjoy pushing the boundaries, putting together flavours and textures that complement each other. They also enjoy going “off-piste”. I shall wear the Freestyler badge with honour. The quiz was designed to help you get the most out of your time in the kitchen and results in eight distinct personalities. Understanding your style can help you to choose ingredients, …

Balsamic garlic mushrooms

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We are obsessed with mushrooms at our house. I disliked mushrooms as a child but now I don’t go more than a couple of days without eating mushrooms. I love that mushrooms are great for breakfast, lunch or dinner and you can bet that I have eaten them at all times of day. In fact, I have distinctly awesome memories of eating mushrooms from The Burgerie on K Rd late, late at night (or is that early hours of the morning) after a night out. If you haven’t had those mushrooms before, they are dangerous morsels of delicious molten lava. You have been warned. Four mushrooms or a handful is considered a good daily dose to reap all the benefits mushrooms offer. Mushrooms can be eaten raw or cooked, raw is healthier, cooked is tastier (in my opinion). It doesn’t take much time to prep mushrooms and even The Koala can rustle up some tasty mushrooms. Thanks to Meadow Mushrooms I have a mushroom prize pack worth $25 to giveaway to one Auckland mushroom lover. …

Goodbye April, Hello Meal Plan

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The Honesty Box delivers again! We’re most excited about the two tamarillo and two portobello. The Koala ate a tamarillo (ahem, his tamarillo) immediately after I took this photo. Quite likely, he’ start eyeing up my tamarillo and I’ll either split it with him or let him have it. I am an older sister and he is a younger brother and it was like that in both our families. The Koala’s big brother and I would save and The Koala and my little sister would feast. Then start eyeing up their older sibling’s uneaten bounty. Was it like that in your family? Tamarillo are still a like bit finger guts to me, but I admit the intense savoury flavour is exciting and unique. They’re still too rare for me to to cook with but I’ll work up to that when the novelty wears off. Feijoa season is intense and short here in Auckland. Our landlord had our feijoa tree removed (for reasons that baffle me). So we’re grateful for any feijoa that come our way. For those …

Easy Stroganoff

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The other day, I made the bold claim that my parent’s stroganoff was the best stroganoff I ever tasted. There are few problems with this bold claim: I was immediately challenged to a dual (or a stroganoff off) I hadn’t tasted this stroganoff in a good 15 or so years When I last ate it, I didn’t really know what a stroganoff was When I asked mum for her recipe, she gave me a basic low-down rather than a step by step So, armed with mum’s rough guide and my own experience with cooking by feel, here’s my adaptation of the recipe. Use rump or sirloin steak with white button mushrooms. My family always had stroganoff with rice because dinner without rice is not really dinner at all. Feel free to use pasta if you prefer (I did). Did it live up? Yes. Is it the best? I’ll have to test out more recipes to be sure. I see a few slow cooker recipes out there which leads me to imagine you could make a …

Cream cheese stuffed mushrooms

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I have no idea when I moved from the mushroom hating camp to the mushroom loving camp, but I love them fiercely now. There’s something uniquely satisfying about popping a whole stuffed mushroom into your mouth. Maybe it’s the piggish feeling that I like so much. I first tried these stuffed mushrooms when my sister cooked for us a couple of summers ago. My sister Joey can bake and cook. Her version had streaky bacon weaved throughout but I decided to try and make something similar sans-bacon. Not because I’m against bacon, not at all. But even a meat eater can enjoy these tasty vegetarian morsels. Mushroom hating camp may still not be convinced. These stuffed mushrooms are a summer BBQ winner. These can be made a day ahead and they cook quickly on the BBQ so you can pop these on the BBQ just before everything else as a tasty pre-dinner snack. They’re easy to make ideal if you want to employ any idle hands floating around your kitchen. My 30 mushrooms is just …

Dried mushrooms and a recipe from my childhood

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Like many Cantonese children, I grew up regularly eating what I we call Dong Gu. Dong Gu literally means “winter mushroom” and is also known as a Shiitake or Chinese Black Mushroom. Dried Shiitake mushrooms are used in various asian cuisines and are inexpensive, easy to use and if stored correctly, last a long time. Dried Shiitake mushrooms taste nothing like fresh Shiitake. Dried have an intensely savoury earthy flavour and the fresh stuff tastes weak in comparison. Do not substitute fresh for dried! My family always bring back a bag or two of dried mushrooms back from trips to Hong Kong, but New Zealand customs can be frightful to deal with so it’s not really recommended. Luckily, you can buy dried Shiitake at any Asian grocer these days, perhaps even at your general supermarket. Dried Mushrooms Tips: Once open, store mushrooms in the freezer. While they will last outside the freezer, they can inevitably attract moths and other nasties. No need to thaw before rehydrating as the lack of water means these don’t really …

Creamy mushroom stuffing

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A variation of this recipe. 4 button mushrooms (sliced into matchsticks), half a cup of breadcrumbs, 4 cloves of garlic (chopped), half a bottle of cream (enough to give a sticky consistency), salt, pepper, fresh basil, fresh sage. Mix well. Carefully slice a pocket into 3 chicken breasts and fill with the creamy mushroom mix. Bake for 30 minutes at about 200°C. Plays well with peas and roasted sweet potato. Sorry, no after photos. Wanted to eat this in a hurry!

Kai to Pie and World on your Plate: Maori

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Kai to Pie “Kai to Pie — Pie to Chai — Nosh to Posh. Whatever way you slice it, Auckland’s stories can be told through food: from the extraordinary wealth of people and cultures, to its fertile abundance of land, sun and sea, come up to the Museum for a serving of Auckland on your plate.” If you haven’t already been, check out the Kai to Pie exhibition at the Auckland Museum. There’s still 3 weeks until it ends and it’s free to all Aucklanders. 12 June – 25 October 2010 Special Exhibitions Hall Auckland Museum Free entry Here are some of my photos from the exhibition. World On Your Plate: Maori Running in conjunction with this exhibition is World On Your Plate – Saturday demonstrations of cuisine from around the world. I attended the Maori food demonstration by Charles Royal and his family in July. Charles is “a fierce advocate of sustainable local cuisine, indigenous produce”. Sadly, Maori dishes and native ingredients don’t feature in the day to day cuisine of the majority of New Zealanders. …