Not A Cooks Blog... living the great New Zealand cookbook

It was the lemon meringue pie bake off and all started because of a borer infested lemon tree that my hair dresser, Janey, had. As I sat in the chair during my monthly maintenance session, we discussed the fate of this tree. Although condemned to death by chain saw in the near future it was currently laden with fruit. The delimma... what to do with so many lemons? As I read out the various options courtesy of google, the one stand out dish was lemon meringue pie. Knowing there was a recipe in "The great NZ cookbook" we challenged each other for a bake off. The contest was on! Simon Wright from "The French Cafe" in Eden Terrace, Auckland provides what he describes as his own "twist on a classic lemon meringue pie", "simpler than making a tart and gives you an explosion of flavours". I was to find out that there was nothing "wright" about the end result, in fact, I can hand on heart declare every one of the six parts of this recipe had ...

 Dame Alison Holst would have to be one of New Zealand's greats. Born in 1938, she became a best - selling food writer and television chef, teaching generations of Kiwi's how to cook what she referred to as "everyday food". This iconic star, of course, had to be in "The Great New Zealand Cookbook". Alison contributed two recipes, and they were as kiwi as lamb docking on the farm and cattle and sheep in ya back paddock.  Pavlova and pikelets. Not really having an excuse to bake a pavlova, I went for the pikelets. Typically Dame Alison included handy hints along the way, such as dipping the tablespoon in hot water before measuring out the golden syrup. I particularly appreciated the art of pouring the batter off the tip of the spoon to land the mixture in the frying pan. My intention was to keep some for the lunch boxes, but after an afternoon of docking, these were used to refuel the worker bees. To support the filling of the tins I turned to Jo Seagar, and ...

A Sunday visit to the Hastings Farmer's Market lead me to this week's recipe from "The Great NZ cookbook". Daughter Imke, with her fellow students, were selling their "Colour Hawke's Bay" colouring books at the market as part of their young enterprise project. Farmers markets are great, and there is always that feel good factor of supporting local producers. With coffee in hand, Caroline (eldest daughter) and I perused the stalls. I avoided the temptation of buying a huge checker chopping board slab and turned to the grow your own "Wright Sprouts". Just tasting a sample made you feel healthy. I purchased the growing jar, and a selection of seeds to try. After downing a not so healthy Berliner Doughnut, passing the organic chocolate stand, we continued to the vegetable selection where I spotted bunches of puha. I knew that there was a recipe for this in THE book and having not ever cooked it before, I was excited to trying something new. Ann...

A joint birthday and house warming celebration for a close friend were great reasons to visit Whanganui. Referred to as the River City, it has a population of just over 43, 000 and was home to Peter Gordon, one of the chefs captured in "The New Zealand Cookbook". And it would seem that it was a lucky capture from Murray Thorn and his team that collated this book. Peter G was in town from his London based home where they quickly snapped up a photo and penned a couple of what could be surmised as comfort family recipes. Alas, there was not a Peter Gordon restaurant in Whanganui, which meant only one thing... I would have to recreate the dishes myself. This was a lot cheaper option than visiting his London based restaurant  "The Providores" and I must say the road trip was a delight. I purchased badly needed shoes at a roaring 60% of the original price in Central Hawke's Bay. Stopping by in Norsewood we were inundated with treats. This included shop owners that inv...