All posts tagged: party

Sliders Party

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  The Koala and I had friends over for a sliders party last weekend. We love home made burgers and make them all the time. With The Koala as captain and me as his prep chef, we usually create towering cheeseburgers with all the trimmings that require you to unhinge your jaw to feast upon. Having a burger party was on my foodie bucket list. Having never made sliders before, we might have been too ambitious with our five slider menu. Luckily we didn’t have many guests and everything went smoothly (if a little frantic). We made 50 sliders but this was too many as the sliders were more filling than anticipated. Our eyes were much bigger than our stomachs so we sent everyone home with extras and we grazed on leftover sliders all night. It was hard to pick the winning slider, but the top three were: (in no particular order) Crispy Pork Belly Pan-fried Fish Peking Duck All the sliders were good, some were just better. In future, I would just make the top three flavours. Five kinds was too much …

Fig and Gorgonzola Rounds

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This post is part of Our Growing Edge, a monthly blogging event to encourage us to try new food related things. Phuong from My Kitchen of Love is the host for this month’s event. If you have a blog and you are eating or cooking something new this month, click below to join.   Orleans I’ve been obsessed with New Orleans since I was an angsty teenager. Long, long before I had any interest in food, I fell in love with the people, the French influence, the mystery  and the vampires. I blame Anne Rice novels. I’ve yet to visit New Orleans but it is number 100 on my bucket list. When I “grew up” and my interest for food developed, my obsession with New Orleans deepened. At the start of March, on Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras celebration day in New Orleans) my friends and I converged on the newish Auckland restaurant, bar, speakeasy, smoky blues and jazz club called Orleans, in Britomart. Traditionally the day of debauchery before Lent starts, Fat Tuesday is all about living large with …

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 …

Artichoke Dip

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I’ve always wondered what artichokes were like and while I’m sure that fresh artichokes are different to the canned ones, I tested the canned ones yesterday because they were easily accessible and required no messy leaf scraping. What do canned artichokes taste like? The canned stuff has the textured of leeks and tastes a little like leek in a light brine. I was hoping for something stronger flavoured. I whipped up this artichoke dip on a sunny afternoon when we had some friends over. It didn’t take long at all and would go well with crackers, bread, crudites or with a platter. We also had a dollap on the side of some crumbed, pan-fried fish. It was really good. I admit, it’s mostly fat so resist the urge to eat all of it by yourself. Artichoke Dip Makes a party sized bowl  Ingredients 1 tub of cream cheese (250g) 1 can artichoke hearts (390g) 1 cup finely grated parmesan 2 tablespoons mayonnaise 1 clove garlic, finely chopped Optional: Salt Preparation Warm the cream cheese in …

Mini Party Scones

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Do not trust these seemingly innocent baked goods. Mini items are deceptive. Because they’re so small, they hardly count as food. So you pop one of babies into your mouth each time you walk by and before you know it, you’ve eaten ten. True story. It happened to me and it may happen to you. Scones are not too different in composition from the American biscuit, though they’re usually eaten differently. Cheap and filling, they’re never far away from the menus of cafes and lunchrooms and often one of the first things a child will bake in school cooking class. Sometimes there are different ways to say a word: the posh way and the common way. I’ve always called a scone a “skon” which rhymes with con, swan and Tron, but the posh way to pronounce it would be to call it a “skone” rhymes with bone, phone and loan. I play pretend posh and I jokingly call it “skone” so often that it’s part of my vocabulary now. So call it “skon” or “skone”, …

Celebrating VD

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The freakiest, exotic and un-romantic meal I’ve eaten with The Koala was in Vietnam. At a restaurant where such things happen, The Koala killed a snake and I swallowed it’s raw heart in a shot of vodka. Then we proceeded to eat the rest of the snake over 8 courses cooked by professionals. Supposedly an aphrodisiac, but after we washed down our snake soup shots of Hanoi vodka, we were feeling more sloshed than sexy. Our love is a rom-com. With that in mind, there is world of sexier feasts out there and this coming Tuesday could be a day to eat them. Caviar, oyster and chocolate sellers must look forward to this day. Even if these foods don’t actually get the juices stirring, the purpose is people want to think they’re getting into the mood. The whole aphrodisiac thing is more about rituals than medicine. Since Valentine’s Day falls on a weekday, and because it is red and has a cool name, I leave you with a recipe for Virgin Bloody Mary Shooters. No …

Cheese and Wine Tasting Party

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Yussss. Got to cross off something from my to do list by throwing a cheese and wine tasting party. I suddenly had a free weekend so got together a few friends for a party on short notice. My geekiness was met with understanding and all the tasters were great sports at sharing their opinions on the cheese and wines. It’s not surprising that the opinions got more colourful as the bottles of wine emptied out. Rules Bring a cheese or a wine that you have not tried before Budget $15 Some guests brought both cheese and wine and we ended up with 8 kinds of cheese, 6 kinds of wine as well as plenty of breads, crackers, antipasto and oils to share between 11 of us. I had a box of backup wine in case we ran out. Can’t have guests going thirsty! We gathered around the dining table with wine glasses in hand and rotated around the table tasting each item until there was pretty much nothing left. We tasted everything once, going back …

Eating in Haad Rin, Koh Phangan

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KOH PHANGAN, THAILAND. Haad Rin is the Full Moon Party beach and it’s known for it’s party atmosphere. It can be a bit crazy at times but if you’re here to party, you might as well be right in the thick of it. The Koala celebrated his birthday here and what a way to end our 65 day South East Asian adventure than with a birthday and a Full Moon Party. The food is generally on the expensive side but there are a few bargains to be had. There is a lot of variety with cuisine from most parts of the world represented. We stayed right on Haad Rin beach on Koh Phangan and it is not a mecca for foodies. Not even close. But there’s food and you do what you can to get by. Buckets, booze and beach. Yes, this is a food post, but you can’t do a post about Haad Rin without first mentioning the drink. The drink of choice on the islands are buckets. Buckets are actual plastic pails that hold about …