Tagged: recipes

Happy Waitangi Day! 2

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Happy Waitangi Day!

Although we may be back in Ireland, today we are celebrating Waitangi Day, a national holiday in New Zealand, with that ubiquitous Kiwi desert – the pavlova. After bemoaning the lack of pavlovas in Irish supermarkets, the Boyfriend went off to work this morning laden with boxes of meringue nests, tubs of cream, my hand whisk and one of the my pink bowls to assemble a selection of impromptu pavs for his workmates. Bron has an entertaining defence of the NZ claim to the pavlova here, along with many delectable pictures of her own fabulous Waitangi Day creation.

Simple Tomato Sauce 0

Cook / Lovely Lunches / Storecupboard Specials

Simple Tomato Sauce

This is the most useful recipe to have in your repertoire. I use it – sometimes with the addition of broccoli, chorizo, bacon or chilli – with gnocchi, pasta, cannelloni and polenta, as a topping for pizza and even when baking pancakes. If you can track down some decent Italian plum tomatoes, it’s all the better for that; if you can’t, just keep tasting and adjusting the flavour with sugar if it’s too bitter, red wine or balsamic vinegar if it’s too sweet, tomato purée if it needs more body, water if it’s too thick. If you have fresh basil, add it at the end to lift the flavour of sauce. I often use thyme – fresh if I have it but sometimes dried – if I want the sauce to have a herby tinge.

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Do / Eating Out / Living in New Zealand

A weekend hideaway

Governors Bay Hotel After a stressful week, all you want to do at the weekend is get out of the city (without driving too far), stay in a comfortable place (without paying too much) and eat some good food. In search of just such a place, the Boyfriend and I stayed at the historic Governors Bay Hotel last weekend. Although it is only about a forty minute drive from Christchurch, once you emerge from the Lyttelton tunnel, which cuts through the Port Hills directly south of the city, you feel like you’re arriving in another, more relaxed world.

Cookbooks by the bed 6

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Cookbooks by the bed

I’ve been taking full advantage of the Christchurch City Library and their ever-fabulous selection of cookbooks, a pile of which are currently sitting by the bed. I’ve always been an avid reader of cookbooks – in Ireland the Boyfriend accused me of spending more time reading them than cooking from them! – but now it sometimes gets a little out of hand.

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Blogging by Mail 2: The arrival of the parcel…

Blogging by Mail 2 - the bootyYesterday morning was miserable. It was wet and stormy, I hadn’t slept well and I woke up with a nasty sore throat. I was lying in bed, feeling sorry for myself (I had to cook dinner for nine last night) when the Boyfriend said “there’s a parcel here for you!” A parcel in the post is never something to be sniffed at, especially when I had a suspicion that it was sent from America by my Mail Blogging partner, Deborah. Before I knew it, I was out of bed and tearing open the wrapping to receive a veritable avalanche of goodies! And that was only the start. When I checked the proper post (as opposed to the parcel post) later I found a card telling me that there was another parcel to be collected at the post office. This morning, the third – and final – parcel was delivered, along with a lecture from the postman as the bottle of porter (yes, porter! Alaskan Smoked Porter, actually) it contained fell out as he took it out of his sack. He was not impressed – apparently the New Zealand post office take a dim view of bottles of alcohol falling out of parcels. Thankfully it survived, although I don’t think I’ll be opening it for a while. Mr Postman said it had survived a lot and it should be put on display!

Pumpkin heaven: Spiced Pumpkin Soup 6

Cook / Living in New Zealand

Pumpkin heaven: Spiced Pumpkin Soup

My only experience of pumpkins while in Ireland was at Halloween during my first year in Dublin. One of my then housemates bought a pumpkin and carved it into a grinning Jack O’Lantern to sit in the window. I had only ever made Jack O’Lanterns from turnips before and was amazed at how easy it is to hollow out a pumpkin rather than spending ages digging your difficult way through the tough flesh of a turnip! With touching (and undeserved!) faith in my cooking abilities, he set the pumpkin flesh aside and informed me that it was my job to turn it into something edible. I failed the challenge, I must admit. Every time I opened the fridge the watery yellow flesh rebuked me and it wasn’t too long before it made the trip to the dustbin. Since then I’ve seen pumpkins appearing in Irish supermarkets in time for Halloween each autumn but I’ve never even been remotely tempted.

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Parcels in the post

My bars of Amnesty chocolate I’ve always loved getting parcels in the post (hence my involvement with Blogging by Mail 2!) and this year in New Zealand has only accentuated that fact. When you’re far away, it’s always nice to know that your friends and family at home are thinking of you, something which is even more appreciated when there’s chocolate involved! My mother is great for sending on bars of Butler’s Irish Chocolate and chocolate Santys at Christmas time – I even got a (very squashed) box of Black Magic for my birthday and a slab of Bournville (especially useful for bach hot chocolates).

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Slow Food on Film

Slow Food Ireland I was just taking a look round the Cork Film Festival website when I came across their Slow Food on Film event. Slow Food Cork are behind this amalgamation of food and film which is in its third year. It always sounds amazing but, as I’m normally based in Dublin (when I’m not in New Zealand!), I haven’t yet managed to attend.