All posts tagged: vegetables

Coriander Chimichurri

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I am obsessed with polarising flavours and ingredients. “What is your favourite food?” is such a common question but I think, “What is your least favourite food?” is far more interesting. My own list of hated foods have evolved over the years and I imagine yours is ever evolving too. If we were meeting for the first time – making conversation – I might ask you, “What food do you hate?” and you might answer, “Coriander” (or cilantro). Known as coriander in most parts of the world but known as cilantro in Spanish (and in the US). Fresh and leafy, the entire plant: leaves, stem, root and seed are used in cooking. The root and seed taste notably different and should not be substituted in place of the green parts. Probably the most polarising herb in the world, those who dislike it call it foul, soapy or grassy. Those who love it describe it as fresh or citrus-y. I don’t taste citrus but it goes beautifully with lemon and lime IMO. Buy coriander in a …

Smokey hummus and roast veggie trumpets (and a giveaway)

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This post was made possible thanks to the folks at Lisa’s and Farrah’s , who know a thing or two about quick and easy meals. Scroll to the bottom of this post to enter the giveaway. I love hummus. My absolute favourite way to consume chickpeas. Who’s with me? I love hummus slathered, spread, dipped or dolloped. I have absolutely eaten hummus with a spoon. Lisa’s is a beloved name in dips and their latest creation is the new Lisa’s Smokey Hummus. Delicately pair Lisa’s Smokey Hummus with the savoury and sweet flavours of roasted vegetables, honey and miso. I’m so pleased with how these turned out. I tested this recipe out on two hungry men who devoured them with glee. Super easy to assemble, hearty and full of flavour, this recipe is sure to be put on rotation at your house. I’ve used Farrah’s wraps which are generously portioned. My recipe uses one wrap, cut in half and cone folded to form two cute trumpets. You will need a microwave for this recipe meaning …

Chicken and vegetable pie with creamy white wine and tarragon sauce

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Hey folks, it’s officially winter in New Zealand. This week we have had bright cold days with beautiful blue skies. Now that we’ve hit the long weekend, the gloom has set in. The rain is relentless today. It’s 9am and as dark as night. We have the lights on, the heater cranking and it is good to be inside. Bring on the comfort food. I’ve been craving pie lately and since leeks are in season (just a dollar each!) I decided to make a chicken and vegetable pie. The creamy white wine and tarragon sauce is stunning. This is a good one to have up your sleeve. This recipe is very forgiving. I’m sorry, the ingredients list looks super long but you can use whatever vegetables you have on hand to the equivalent of about 2 litres (an ice cream container) of filling. Some other vegetables that would try are: mushrooms, silverbeet, pumpkin, and celery. Read through the recipe ahead of time, as steps 2, 3 and 4 can be worked on simultaneously. Chicken and …

Five spice roast pork belly with peaches

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Summer is in full swing. It’s muggy AF and I am chancing mosquitos to sleep with the window open. So far so good. I haven’t left Auckland this summer, instead, I’m enjoying local day trips. I’ve hit 70k steps every week so far – it’s only been 2 weeks – and regularly include Mt Eden summit in my daily walks. I’m a little obsessed with my FitBit and doing well with my “more steps” resolution. Yesterday, The Koala and I explored Duder Regional Park, enjoyed ice cream truck treats and swum at random beach on our way home. We usually stay central, or head north or west so exploring east is new for us. I hope to discover more of Auckland’s regional parks this year. My first recipe of the year is fiercely seasonal and embodies the kinds of food I love to eat. A shit-ton of vegetables (another resolution) and some beautifully cooked free range meat. Yes please! I usually order pork belly if I see it on the menu so it makes sense …

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 #2

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I recently took Fisher & Paykel’s online quiz WHAT’S YOUR COOKING STYLE? and was branded the Freestyler. Freestylers have mastered the basics and enjoy pushing the boundaries and going “off-piste”. The quiz was designed to help you get the most out of your time in the kitchen and results in eight distinct personalities, from the Curious Novice to the Professional and everything in between. Understanding your style can help you to choose ingredients, recipes and appliances to make your kitchen time more enjoyable and efficient. You can find out what type of cooking style you have by taking the quick quiz here. Go on, I’ll wait. Thanks to Fisher & Paykel, I’ve created a series of throw-together recipes that celebrate the Freestyler approach to cooking. These recipes are more templates than traditional recipes. I’ve suggested ingredients, but in all honesty, whatever you have in the fridge can be substituted and you’ll only know if you try. If you enjoy this recipe and this style of cooking, please check out the other recipes in this series. …

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. …

Pumpkin Soup for Pumpkin Haters

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I know I sound childish and not at all like a sophisticated foodie when I say, “I hate pumpkin”. Maybe hate is too strong a word, but I have a strong dislike for it. Whenever we get roast dinner takeaways (best hangover food) I transfer my pumpkin pieces onto The Koala’s plate. The Koala loves pumpkin so he accepts it happily. I say pumpkin, you say squash Before I go further, I should mention that here in New Zealand, we call all things in the squash and pumpkin family simply, “pumpkin”. So when I say, “I hate pumpkin“, elsewhere, I would say, “I hate squash“. Anyway, I know it’s good for you and when it’s in season, it’s everywhere. Since The Koala loves pumpkin and pumpkin soup, and since pumpkins keep appearing in our Foodbox, I’ve been experimenting with pumpkin soup recipes. This recipe is for the pumpkin haters among us. Spices I’ve used garam masala and cinnamon, feel free to also try turmeric and ground coriander. Spices make pumpkin palatable. A little cream doesn’t hurt either. …

Bunny Eats Design turns 5 – Foodbox giveaway

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I got into Foodbox a few years ago when I was investigating different food delivery services in Auckland. Foodbox was the most well rounded service I found with fair prices for the average household. Foodbox began with with a few fruit and vege box options, now they offer many more items to make cooking at home a breeze. Foodbox offer quality free range meat, seafood, free range eggs, milk, bread and artisan goodies along with their main fruit and vege boxes. Fruit and vege are mostly local except for bananas and the odd grape or pineapple in winter. Thanks to Foodbox, I have a Big Bang worth $45 to give away. To enter, you must follow Foodbox’s Instagram account and answer a fun vege related food question. Entry form at the bottom of this post. “The Big Bang is brimming with New Zealand grown fresh fruit and vegetables for your week. It is our medium sized mixed fruit and veg box which is specifically designed for 3-4 people but would suit a vegetarian couple and/or a small family with 1-2 young children.” Due to logistics, this prize …

Mr Fancy Cabbage Pants

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The Koala enjoys cabbage boiled, I prefer it cooked quickly on high heat. We both eat cabbage either way. Sometimes, I tease The Koala about how white people smell like milk and cabbages. It’s not true. I love milk and cabbages just as much as the next girl, maybe even more than the next girl. We don’t smell like milk and cabbages (unless we’re immune to the smell). Kale was fashionable in a big way, then came brussels sprouts. I think cauliflower tried to knuckle in (particularly with cauli rice and cauli crust pizza) but it’s time for the humble cabbage to make a comeback. Of all the brassicas, cabbage is the most affordable by weight. A dependable, good value vegetable. It’s time to get creative with cabbage. Very Pinteresting I kept seeing grilled cabbages on Pinterest. To be more precise, cabbage wedges with a special dressing. I browse Pinterest quite a lot and grilled cabbage food porn kept popping up as different bloggers posted variations of the recipe. It came with glowing reviews like: “I don’t really like cabbage, but I fixed this recipe …

More mushrooms!

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Another lovely box from The Honesty Box this week. It’s inspiring to get this bounty delivered to our door each week. I figure it’s not laziness, it’s making sure there’s plenty of nutritious stuff to eat each week. This is a better variety than I could have picked myself. The Koala and I were both impressed at the thoughtfully paper-bagged mushrooms. They arrived in perfect condition. We had two of them with dinner on the first night. Seasonal things come in fours, apparently: 4 portobello mushrooms 4 tamarillo 4 feijoa Delighted with yet another avocado. These things are having a long season this year and these tomatoes are still as good as in summer. Still, I’m finally carrying a jacket most days so soup weather is upon us. Here’s a guide to what we’re eating this week: BREAKFAST Porridge with sliced banana, chia and maple Fejioa and banana muffins and a steaming mug of tea Breakfast burrito with beans, scrambled egg, mushroom and guacamole Banana yogurt smoothie Turmeric and herb tomatoes on toast   LUNCH Chickpea, tomato …

A Healthier Meal Plan

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We are getting this The Honesty Box delivered every week now. For $39.40 including delivery to Auckland central, our F&V small is 8kg (sometimes 10kg) of fresh fruit and vegetables. Shared between The Koala and I, this needs careful planning to eat everything before the next box arrives. I’ve been testing out gluten-free recipes and I think avoiding processed food is good practice regardless of my health concerns. I’m seeing an Endocrinologist (for the first time) today and hopefully there will be time to discuss diet and Graves Disease with him. I’m fairly adamant at this stage I want to try medication and diet only before than permanent options like surgery or radiation. If possible, I’d like to stay away from radiation. It’s starting to get cooler but since we’re still receiving salad ingredients, we shall eat salad this week. Here’s a guide to what we’re eating this week: BREAKFAST Avocado and tomato on toast Banana and peanut butter smoothie Cumin hash brown with a fried egg and grilled tomatoes Fruit and vege juice and soft boiled eggs Rice noodle soup …

Tofu Tuesday: Bok Choy monster

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Bok choy is one of Tofu’s favourite vegetables. He always begins at the dark leafy end. If he gets lots of bok choy, he will only eat the leafy end of each leaf, leaving the lighter stems behind. But if given bok choy sparingly, he will finish the whole thing. Selective eating. People all over the world do it. So now I only give him a couple of leaves at a time. When he finishes leaf and stem, he can have more.

The Koala’s Taters

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The aioli I made today paired wonderfully with hot smoked salmon, roast broccoli spears and The Koala’s special potatoes. Our kitchen is mostly my domain, but The Koala has a few recipes up his sleeve, one of them being these fried potatoes. These potatoes are easy to make and uses very few ingredients. We usually have these with steak or fish and the crunchy outer gives way to a fluffy interior. Koala’s Taters (The Koala’s special recipe) Serves 2 Ingredients 3 medium potatoes 1 cup cooking oil Salt Preparation In a medium saucepan, bring 1 litre of water to the boil. Peel the potatoes, leaving whole. Once water is boiled, add potatoes and cook for 15 minutes. Drain potatoes and once cool enough to handle, cut into 1.5 to 2cm (about 3/4″) thick slices. Heat 1 cup cooking oil in a deep skillet or a saute pan. Once oil is hot, using tongs carefully add potato slices to the oil in a single layer. Fry for 10-15 minutes until golden, turning once. Remove potato slices …

THE HONESTY BOX 3

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I’m testing out a few CSA and produce delivery companies in Auckland. If you are curious about CSA and like see what other people around the world are getting each week in their boxes, please check out at the weekly link party What’s In The Box over at Heather’s blog In Her Chucks. First impression Once again, a branded The Honesty Box arrived with a smart but simple typographic print. There was 10.5kg of produce in this box and at $37.50NZ including delivery, the average cost was about $3.5NZ per kilo. Good value. My first impression was that this box was very optimistic of the season. It’s early spring yet eggplants, capsicum and strawberries!? Amazing! No doubt, grown in greenhouses, it’s pretty awesome to see these in the box. It should be noted that the vegetable and fruit ratio was almost even this time round at 54% vegetables, 46% fruit. Vegetables 5.8kg Fancy red lettuce x 1 Celery x 1 Baby potatoes x 25 Eggplant x 1 Avocado x 1 Capsicum (red pepper) x 1 Carrots x 2 Onions x 2 Kumara …

The Honesty Box Menu 2

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Another well thought-out box from The Honesty Box. This is what our 11kg of produce is being turned into this week. The Honesty Box Menu 2 Items in bold are from The Honesty Box Porterhouse steak with The Koala’s fried potatoes and broccoli with cheese sauce Creamy scrambled eggs with spinach, garlic, thyme, onion with Swiss-style cheese on toast Deviled sausages with onion, kiwifruit and apple. Served on potato pumpkin mash with steamed broccoli Beetroot and Chevre (soft goats cheese) risotto with fresh thyme and lemon slice (pictured) Pumpkin and rosemary soup with soft buttered bread rolls Spicy chicken nibbles with pumpkin and rosemary wedges Braised beef, carrot and beetroot with star anise, cinnamon and soy. Served on rice Smoked salmon and spinach fettuccine with garlic parmesan butter sauce Cheeseburgers with beef patties, red onion, beetroot, avocado and wasabi mayo Sangria (with fruit)

The Honesty Box 2

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Way, way back in the late ’80s, a young boy at Glenholme Primary School in Rotorua, New Zealand accidentally slammed his fingers in the classroom door. I will never forget it because he also happened to be holding a tamarillo at that precise moment. The horrific tamarillo mess will be forever etched into my mind. As the news spread that someone had squished their fingers in the door, the fact that he was also holding a tamarillo dropped away. To our active imaginations, it was finger guts that bloodied the classroom entrance. I have honestly never bought a tamarillo in my  life. I guess subconsciously, finger guts are pretty far down on the list of my preferred fruit. It’s a shame really, because I just found out that The Koala adores tamarillos. This winter, I’m testing out a few CSA and produce delivery companies in Auckland. If you are curious about CSA and like see what other people around the world are getting each week in their boxes, please check out at the weekly link party What’s …

The Honest Box Menu 1

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Since the success of my first pulled pork, I’m doing another twice the size this week with plenty of leftovers to play with. The Koala does not mind one bit! This week we received a whole pumpkin from our F&V small box from The Honesty Box. Sharing a 2.4kg pumpkin between two means  it features heavily in this week’s menu. I’m not a fan of pumpkin but I know what I like and as long as it’s cooked with plenty of aromatic spices I’m good to go. The pouch of herbs will be thrown willy nilly into soups and stews. The Honesty Box Menu 1 Items in bold are from The Honesty Box. Orange pulled pork with smashed garlic, onion and bay leaves Pulled pork rolls with lettuce, red onion and sour cream Pulled Pork Tortillas (see notes below) Rice noodles with pulled pork and broccoli Spiced Pumpkin and kumara soup with smoked cheddar toasties Pumpkin and chickpea curry with garlic, onion and tomato paste. Served on rice with a dollop of sour cream Sirloin steak medium rare …