Food

Posted on Mon, 19/01/2015

We had a few days off over Christmas, which is time that we've really come to appreciate. It gives everyone a chance to kickback and relax after what is invariably our busiest few weeks of the year, and readjust for the...>>>

Posted on Sat, 22/11/2014

The season for Somerfields strawberries is very short - only  a few weeks between Labour Weekend and Christmas, and so we only get to feature them on the menu for that short time. At the moment they're being served...>>>

Posted on Fri, 08/08/2014

It has become increasingly commonplace in restaurants/cafes to have a lineup of homemade preserves positioned somewhere. A gentle visual prompt that says the kitchen is serious about making foodstuff from scratch and which...>>>

Posted on Sat, 06/07/2013

I cooked some corn beef this week. Something I haven?t done in years, but some reading I?d been doing for the Hands on Cookschools got me to thinking about braising and poaching, and at some point it occurred to me, that...>>>

Posted on Mon, 08/04/2013

The living room of our house, opens  on to the restaurant side of the property, and so it was that as I was sitting here  doing some research,  surrounded by books and notes, I happened to get whiffs of the...>>>

Posted on Tue, 26/02/2013

Butter gets much discussed in cookschools ? not fortunetly in the way it used to be, when people often asked what they could use instead of butter when it came to baking. For a number of years there was a deeply marketed...>>>

Posted on Fri, 08/02/2013

Maybe its because I?ve finally got my home kitchen back to myself, and am no longer encountering other bodies in there, when I plan on cooking something, that I?ve suddenly found myself amidst a plethora of recipes that...>>>

Posted on Mon, 04/02/2013

We had a very pleasant lowkey evening last night, which was Courteneys last before she flies out to California to her teams two week training camp. She will be back after that for another 5 weeks or so, before the racing...>>>

Posted on Fri, 25/01/2013

I wrote a blog earlier this morning in which I mentioned that I would probably be heading to Nigel Slaters Tender cookbook on vegetables for some inspiration in terms of what to do with the rather large courgettes that are...>>>

Posted on Wed, 21/11/2012

Cheered myself up yesterday by heading into the kitchen and trying out a couple of recipes that I was curious about, before I took myself out on a walk. Rick and I have just had another slice of the Glazed Ginger cake which...>>>

Posted on Tue, 20/11/2012

Rowie called in during a cookschool last week, and because I was tied up with the class I was only able to speak to her for the briefest time, but long enough to promise her that I would send her through the recipe for the...>>>

Posted on Sat, 27/10/2012

We are going to have to have crepes to eat at some stage tomorrow, because I?ve just finished reading the copy of Simple Cooking that arrived in the mail today, and virtually the entire edition was based on the subject...>>>

Posted on Fri, 21/09/2012

That was not a good idea! Jamie has just brought me over a bowl of pork ribs, which I really shouldn't have eaten, because I'm about to get on the spinner for an hour, and doing that shortly after devouring a bowl of ribs...>>>

Posted on Mon, 10/09/2012

Courteney and I are heading down to Christchurch in a couple of hours for her to have the surgery she requires on her artery tomorrow. I'm trying to remain cool, calm, and collected about the whole prospect, but  in...>>>

Posted on Thu, 23/08/2012

By chance in some of the food reading I do online, I had happened to come across references to these pastries known as Kouign Amann, a couple of times over the period of a couple of months, and had been impressed enough by...>>>

Posted on Tue, 21/08/2012

Croissants are sorted. I made another batch on Saturday, using some more of the restaurant poolish, and this time making some amendments to the recipe to allow for dry yeast. And although I started making them in the morning,...>>>

Posted on Wed, 15/08/2012

It is hosing down outside. Again. And while I bemoan the fact, I remain very aware that people in the South Island are coping worse then we are, so while its unpleasant yet again, it is bearable. I was out for a walk...>>>

Posted on Wed, 08/08/2012

Inspired by the cooking culture in Italy and France I am trying very hard to get myself organised and have interesting food in the house for meals. We tend to get busy and sidetracked, and then when we remember to eat, make...>>>

Posted on Fri, 15/06/2012

Rick drove up to Auckland today, to bring back a trailer load of Hannah and Andrews household effects. She's in the middle of exams, and when they're over, she and he will be moving out of the flat and flying over to meet...>>>

Posted on Fri, 08/06/2012

Rick headed out for a run this afternoon and I got on the spinner  - and afterwards we sat down to a Somerset pie for dinner, and not having had a pie in ages I just have to share how good it was! We did baby versions...>>>

Posted on Sun, 05/06/2011

Remarkable how a good, busy service in the restaurant can completely restore my sense of equilibrium, but so it has always been with me. Life can be feeling distinctly gloomy, and then we have a busy nite at work, with a...>>>

Posted on Tue, 26/04/2011

Back in July 2007, we had a butter making session with David, a customer of ours who happens to be a diary scientist. For Rick and I it was a revelation, becos although we knew that butter was made from cream, we really hadn't...>>>

Posted on Thu, 21/04/2011

It is a grey, drizzly unpleasant day. The afternoon is turning into evening and I'm not far from  getting on the spinner for awhile in front of Mash, since its too miserable outside to want to venture out for a walk,...>>>

Posted on Tue, 22/06/2010

I went for a walk around the Mount this morning, after 3 weeks of complete inactivity and misery, caused by a cold, that didn't seem to want to release me from its grip. There hasn't been any energy or enthusiam for exercise-...>>>

Posted on Sat, 30/01/2010

Rick has a love for boiled dishes, and I usually try and discourage him when he wants to put some sort of poached meat on the menu. Pot au feu may be much loved in France and Bollito misto is recognised as a classic in Italy,...>>>

Posted on Fri, 25/09/2009

There was a text on our phone this morning from our youngest daughter, who heads home over the Kaimais every Friday afternoon to stay for the weekend. asking if by chance there would be a sultana cake baked some time today. Being...>>>

Posted on Wed, 23/09/2009

This exquisite goats cheese arrived today from Te Aroha - and I can vouch for the fact it is beautiful- Rick and I had the walnut one for lunch with a roasted beetroot and asparagus salad, and orange dressing, and we've been...>>>

Posted on Tue, 19/05/2009

I didn't see the Sunday programme on TV the other nite where Mike King talks about the intensive farming in pens,  which are in sheds, of pigs that is happening, legally, in NZ. I've just had a quick look via TVNZondemand,...>>>

Posted on Wed, 13/05/2009

The pups are fed and asleep - one currently, comfortably ensconced in Ricks arms- the lights are dimmed, and we're tiptoeing around just as you would for human babies, which is maybe a bit over the top. But we're finding...>>>

Posted on Fri, 16/01/2009

Rick made some menu changes last nite - the most obvious change was to move on from berry fruit into stone fruit which is now in plentiful supply. The strawberries that were  leftover in the chiller, I've made into icecream,...>>>

Posted on Wed, 31/12/2008

Our Christmas break is nearing an end, and tomorrow I will have to bestir myself and start thinking about being nice to people again. Over the few days we've had off, we haven't exactly been hermits, but there has been a...>>>

Posted on Fri, 25/04/2008

One of the strongest impressions I've brought back from our trips to France and Italy was the fact that so many of the food stores concentrate on a small range of goods. I found that bemusing, becos we are so much more used...>>>