All posts tagged: tips

Tofu Tuesday: Instagram edition

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Although Tofu doesn’t have his own Instagram, any Tofu-related post has always been popular there. I guess Tofu Tuesday just makes more sense on an image-heavy platform. A fluffy bunny just brightens up any foodie’s feed. I haven’t given Tofu a separate account so I can count his followers as my own. Ha! But if you do just want to see Tofu posts, I’ve given him his own hashtag #TofuTheBunny. It’s been exactly one year since I started using Instagram and I’ve recently reached a milestone of 3000 followers. Yikes! Thank you! Somehow I missed the 2000 milestone, I think it was sometime over the summer holidays but this time around, I’m ready to celebrate and reflect. I’ve written a list of 12 things I’ve learned about Instagram so far. One tip for each month I’ve been addicted to Instagram because let’s face it, this is addiction. What I’ve learned about Instagram so far: Experiment. Look at things differently. Shoot outside your comfort zone. See what happens. If it all turns to custard, you can delete your photos. Use …

Instagram update

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I have been using Instagram for 30 days now. I started using Instagram to force myself to take more photographs using my phone. I hated my camera phone a month ago, now I feel more confident. I thought I’d be an average 1 photo a week kind of girl, but one month later, it’s my count is closer to 30. Yikes! Here’s what I’ve learned so far: Instagram is insanely addictive. Photos taken using the Instragram app suck. I use my phone’s camera, then save and post to Instagram. Hashtags and proper tagging gets you more exposure. You’ll probably want to download some cute emoji keyboard. You’ll start looking at your world from a square composition. There are a surprising number of boobs on Instagram. People seem to like boobs. You can share to Zomato or Facebook and another few social networking sites instantly or at a more suitable time. You can add location, hashtag and tag people after you’ve posted. Light is your friend. Latergram. Feel free to check out what I’ve been up to outside of this blog over at …

10 tips for charcoal barbecue noobs

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The Koala doesn’t spend much time in my kitchen our kitchen, but like most red-blooded kiwi males, The Koala is happy behind a barbecue (with beer in hand). We haven’t had a barbecue for a few years so The Koala and I bought ourselves a charcoal barbecue for Christmas. Introducing our Charmate 57cm Premium Charcoal BBQ. There were 3 options for this size which we dubbed the cheapie ($80), the middle of the road ($200) and the Weber ($400). We went for the $200 option and also picked up a cover, a barbecue tool set, a lighter, Manuka wood chips and 2 bags of hardwood lump coal. Yes, we got ourselves coal for Christmas! We must have been bad this year.   Gas barbecues are super popular here in New Zealand because they are quick, convenient and cheap to run. But we figure, we cook with gas in our kitchen every day. We know what gas cooking tastes like. We would like a new experience please!   Charcoal is different to gas (no shit). You get a …

Tofu Tuesday: 10 tips for looking after a blind rabbit

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Uh oh, another surgery So…last week, Tofu’s corneal ulcer went from completely healed to a brand new corneal ulcer followed by a very bad infection. A corneal ulcer is just a fancy word for a scratch on the surface of the eye. With a blind eye that is constantly open, it is prone to things poking in there and scratching the surface which can quickly lead to infection. By quickly, I mean quickly! On Thursday it was decided by the vet he must have his eye removed (enucleation).

Notes on Mozzarella

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I couldn’t stand that mozzarella eluded me. Not one to admit defeat, I tried making mozzarella one more time. Much better results! A single ball of mozzarella – enough for a meal or two – can easily set you back $10 or $15NZ.  The unhomogenised farmhouse milk I bought from our supermarket was expensive at $5 for a 2 litre bottle, makes about 250grams of mozzarella so worth the effort. I’m no expert on mozzarella, but I believe failures and learning how to correct failures give you a better understanding of the process. Failures make you better at what you do. If you never fail at something, you might never know how to correct something if it one day all goes horribly wrong. This time I used the recipe by Allison from Pease Pudding, combined with my previous research. I had to add 0.5ml of calcium chloride to Allison’s recipe as my curds refused to form even after half an hour. 5 tips on making mozzarella: If your curds refuse to form, add 0.5ml calcium …

Blogspiration (Bunny’s guide to blogging)

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About four years ago, a boy I went to primary (elementary) school with, contacted me online. As a designer, a foodie and a better photographer than I could hope to be, we have a few things in common. We’re a breed of people who have to continuously “make stuff” (and eat stuff). We were classmates over 20 years ago and while we have never met as adults, it’s due to his encouragement that I started this blog. I can’t blame it squarely on this encounter, but it wasn’t until that moment I realised that I too, could have a blog. I’ve always kept diaries or written my thoughts online in forums and lengthy emails (just ask my friends). This blog has helped me focus that energy. Blog about something you are passionate about. Otherwise it’s just work. A blog should inspire, inform or entertain. I sincerely hope that this blog does all three. I love the open dialogue with readers and bloggers all over the world. It’s like meeting kindred spirits when you get to …

A Bunny Christmas

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This post is an entry for Sweet New Zealand, a monthly blogging event open to all Kiwi bloggers. Founded by Alessandra Zecchini, this month’s event is hosted by Bron Marshall. See here for more info on this month’s event. This week, my friend Miss A developed a deep and sudden obsession with making a gingerbread house. Her flash of enthusiasm roped me on board. I was super apprehensive about the mission as I’m not a baker. No sir! But I was keen to decorate a gingerbread house. So, with her leading the baking and I leading the decorating, we made this after work, over wine and 2 nights. We didn’t have much of a plan but we are stoked with how it turned out. All we knew is that we were going to make a house, but we ended up with a house, 4 trees, 3 bunnies, a fence and a snowman. Wafer makes a lightweight and authentic roof, but goes soft after just a day. We used this recipe by Tamara Jane of the Good Morning show for the gingerbread …

The secret to making Vietnamese Spring Rolls

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Vietnamese spring rolls (or summer rolls) are one of my favourite things to eat and I always order this as starter when we visit a Vietnamese restaurant. The light, refreshing roll contrasts with a punchy sauce and I feel like I never get enough of these things. The beauty of making food at home is you can have as many pieces as you like. You can eat as many as you like for a main course without confusing your poor waiter. I’ve made these rolls once before but it was a messy failure. My mistake was to soak the rice paper in hot water and for too long. By the time you roll up, it disintegrates and you can forget about trying to eat them with any ounce of dignity. I have found the secret which I will share with you below. When we were eating in Hanoi, Vietnam at the start of this year, I noticed that the rice paper rolls were a tad under softened. That led me to believe that the rolls …

Taking on the Ultimate Gnocchi

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I tried gnocchi for the first time a couple of weekends ago. It was at a restaurant and they weren’t the light pillows of deliciousness that I expected. They were dense and a bit chewy. Thinking I could do better, I was determined to give gnocchi making a go. Pronounced nyo-key and translates to lumps, but may have come from the words nocchio or nocca which mean knot (in wood) or knuckle. Commercial gnocchi look more like fat grubs than knuckles. Gnocchi isn’t familiar to me so I’m not sure if it’s considered a pasta or a dumpling and a quick search online suggests that it might be both. I did a little research and found Cook Almost Anything’s Ultimate Gnocchi article an amazing guide for new gnocchi makers to work with. Apparently, too much flour leads to heavy gnocchi and with the fear of creating chewy bullets, I overcompensated. I made my dough with less flour than suggested. My gnocchi wasn’t so soft it disintegrated in water, but they were really, really light and soft. Is there …