All posts tagged: vegetables

Fresh Food Markets in Luang Prabang, Laos

Even if you don’t buy anything, it’s worth a visit to the fresh food markets in Luang Prabang. There are no supermarkets here and locals buy fresh food daily from the markets. Markets in Auckland are a weekend activity and even then, only a small percentage of the population actually do their shopping at markets. I love seeing all the ingredients in their uncooked state. Ingredients look so fresh and lovely in daylight. When was the last time you bough vegetables that hadn’t seen fluorescent lights? The tourists here are just touristing, people don’t tend to cook while on holiday. We eat out a lot instead. There were plenty of familiar things at the market and also lots of unfamiliar  stuff to concern yourself with. If you don’t like it, that’s fine, but where do you think the local restaurants get their fresh meat and produce from? Street Food There are plenty of snacks to be found at every corner. Fresh Meat This uncovered, tepid meat might horrify the NZ Food Safety Authority, but think about …

Finger food lunch

No utensils required. Chicken nibbles: sugar, soy sauce, salt, pepper, sweet chili sauce, oil. Skewers: mushrooms, tomato, sweet chili sauce, soy sauce, salt, pepper. Baked for 30 minutes in 180°C oven. Served with boiled baby potatoes tossed with butter and fresh herbs from the garden (sage, parsley, rosemary). Simple noms.

The only way to eat leeks

I always write down my recipes after I’ve cooked them. It’s just the way I work. I guess I like freestyling more than I like following recipes. This time around, it was a little different. I had some time on my hands so I typed up this recipe based on ingredients I knew we had, and then followed the recipe. I have made only 1 alteration to this recipe after cooking it. The leek soaked up a lot of stock so next time I would use 2 cups instead of 1 so there can be more of this lovely sauce. After tasting this, you too will believe this is the only way to eat leeks. My husband has decided he loves leeks too after eating this. Creamy Braised Leeks with Broadbean and Chorizo Ingredients 1 leek A knob of butter A splash of white wine or cooking wine 1 cup chicken stock 2 cups chicken stock 4 chorizo sausages (or other spicy sausage) 2 handfuls of broadbeans A splash of cream A sprinkling of herbs, salt, …

Organic Box

I’d read about CSA boxes from American foodie blogs so I wondered if there was anything like that in Auckland. I’d never heard about it but I suspected that it was one of those things that wasn’t advertised a lot. I found a few local farms that delivered their produce so I picked one and ordered a box of random goodies for $25. We got apples, carrots, half a pumpkin, potatoes, pumpkin, feijoa, little oranges (or maybe mandarins), a broccoli. I didn’t know what that big green plant was so after some internet investigating, I identified it as kale. Kale isn’t popular in NZ and it was cool to get something in the box that we’d never had before. It was fun to be forced to eat and cook things I wouldn’t usually buy, but personally, I enjoy going to the shop and choosing things. So I probably won’t be doing this again in a hurry.