Isn't he clever?

Isn't my husband clever?  In the space of 2 weekends he whipped up my new handy herb garden and 3 huge vegetable beds!  What a treat.  We're all planted and ready to go.  Here's to a bountiful summer garden.  Tomatoes, snow peas, cucumbers, courgettes, strawberries, basil, butternut squash, and carrots.

New herb garden right outside the kitchen.



New raised vegetable beds in the perfect sunny spot.

Don't forget the stain!

Great helpers too!

Oops...I almost forgot: leeks!

Back to iron chef with Elleinad Spir and this week's secret ingredient of leeks.  I relied on the jalousie once again to highlight this delicious vegetable.  Puff pastry filled with sauteed spinach and leeks and topped with goats cheese.  It was perfect for an impromptu lunch with the in-laws.

Succcess....well, sort of

Just what the doctor ordered; a dark beer from The Sawmill and an oozy very ripe Camembert.

Local Bordeaux blend wine from The Vintry to accompany the meal

The stuffed mushrooms.  When I opened the package of "chevre" it was actually mozzarella!  They put on the wrong label, dammit.  It still tasted good but was totally different than the goats cheese version I was trying to make. 

Jalousie.  Best dish of the night, says Pete.

And after 3 attempts the panna cotta set with agar agar actually came out with a nice smooth soft texture.  The first two attempts were like hockey pucks.  Note to everyone: only use a tiny amount of agar as a setting agent, like 1/4 of what is recommended in recipes.

Anniversary Day

6 years ago today we had an amazing wedding in San Remo, Italy with 35 close friends and family.  One of the highlights of the day was our lunch at Ca' Mea, a restaurant in the village of Badalucco in the Ligurian hills specializing in mushrooms.  10 courses were served, each with mushrooms as the main component.  It was beyond memorable; it was absolutely amazing. In honor of that day.....

Am I being too ambitious trying to cook this menu today while looking after the two littlies?  Time will tell........the results to be posted tomorrow!

Let the kaimoana fest begin again

It's that time of year again when I lose my husband to the sea. Scallop season has opened, daylight savings has begun and Peter has finished building his smokehouse. This translates into diving on the weekends, fishing after work until the sun goes down and collecting, harvesting and killing anything and everything that can be smoked. We've actually had lots of dinner parties and food occasions lately but when you've got 3 kids, there's no time to stop, take the camera out and document the fun.  You've missed out on rooster enchiladas.  No, that's not a misprint.  A friend had some roosters she didn't want so Pete gave them the chop and I whipped up some handmade corn tortillas and a rich red chile sauce and ta da...rooster enchiladas.  Those went to a housewarming party.  For the All Blacks France game we made oxtail stew served on homemade papardelle with a chocolate caramel tart for dessert and pork crackling as a midnight snack.  (I had to prove Pete wrong for his comment that "there are some things vegetarians can't cook and pork crackling is one of them".)  Here are some feasts we did manage to get on camera....

caramelized citrus pork belly

Family lunch with Peter's Turbot and Michael's amazing sourdough bread (which didn't get photographed but was picture perfect and left me a bit bloated 2 loaves later).

The Main Event, speared by Pete whilst on a scallop dive.

New Season Scallops with Sauteed Silverbeet washed down with the King of Beers.

Helping stoke the fire in the new smokehouse.

The finished goods: snapper, snapper heads and mussels.

Stay tuned for plenty more.....the season has just begun!

Secret Ingredient: Beer

Today I am linking up with Danielle at http://www.elleinadspir.com/ for her Tuesday recipe link.  And today's secret ingredient is........Beer! (I feel like I am on iron chef). 

My Gramps used to make his own special barbeque sauce with a secret ingredient of beer.  With nothing to go by but taste memory I experimented to come up with my own version of Gramps' sauce.  I found some pork ribs for Pete to trial it on and I slathered mine thickly on some pan fried tofu.  The consensus was......absolutely delicious as shown here:

Ingredients and Method:

steinlager, king of beers

mix it all up

cook it up

1 small onion grated

1 clove of garlic crushed

1/2 bottle of beer (the other half went down a treat for lunch on Friday)

1 small tin of tomato paste

a few splashes of Worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup white vinegar

1 tablespoon mustard

1/2 cup brown sugar

large dash of soy sauce

big pinch of salt

chili powder and black pepper to taste

Mix up all ingredients and cook down for about 30 minutes over simmering heat.

Pretty easy, eh?



Spring Fever

Amidst preschool politics, sick children and windy cold weather I have somehow managed to come down with a serious case of spring fever.  Seed mix in hand I planted out a variety of seeds today: watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumber, cavolo nero, basil, borlotti beans, the list goes on. 

fingers crossed, I've never been that great at growing from seed



awww, Rexy



I can't wait to get planting.  I spruced up the veg bed the other day (ripped out all the weeds actually).  Pete has brought home a bunch of timber that was due to be thrown out from his work so my new front yard vegetable beds are making progress already.  We have started our summer list as inspired by Estelle at Under A Pink Moon.  It seems hard to avoid it being a list of jobs rather than a list of fun things to do or accomplish this summer.  Nonetheless we are working on our list and it is revving me up for an awesome summer.  Yesterday I moved another quite large piece of furniture into a "much better location" after seeing an idea in a furniture catalog.  The day before that I experimented with something I had never made before: hokey pokey (honeycomb for the non-kiwis).  When I showed it to Pete he responded with "oh, it didn't work".

melt together sugar and golden syrup, then boil for 2 minutes

add baking soda and voila!

I thought it did work and was quite proud showing him the result.  My idea was to use it to make homemade violet crumble bars with dark chocolate.  It is still in my plan but I think I'll try making a bigger batch of the hokey pokey to work with.  I'll call this one the first attempt.  Anyway, lots happening here due to this fever of mine and if anyone has any summer list suggestions I'd be love to hear from you!