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

How to celebrate our twenty-third wedding anniversary on December the 17th? I couldn't ever forget as it is etched on my wedding ring! With Jamie being away for the occasion we decided to celebrate earlier. Featuring in The Great NZ Cookbook was Craggy Range, a famous local winery restaurant in the foothills of Te Mata Peak.There are two recipes shared by the chef Leyton Ashley. The first being "Scampi tail with essence of Bora Bora". Leyton describes how this dish was inspired from the time he and his fiancee spent on Tahiti. Well, it was a signal that this was meant to be our dinner destination as we had our honeymoon in Moorea, Tahiti.  I had to google "scampi" to find out that it is a food that includes a number of certain crustaceans, including shrimp. Broken up tomato jelly is dropped over the lime infused scampi which is wrapped in sorrel leaves. The dish is completed by the drizzle of coconut bubbles. From the featured photo, it does sort of look like on...

Otane is a quaint rural settlement just up the road from where we live in Pukehou. Sir Des Britten was born there back in 1939. In the seventies, Sir Des became a New Zealand icon presenting two television cooking shows as well as running a restaurant in Wellington and being a radio presenter. His knighthood was received later in life for the work he did as an Anglican minister and heading the Wellington City Mission for over twenty years. Quite rightly Sir Des features in The Great NZ Cookbook contributing "Fail Safe Asian Salmon with Smashed Potatoes and Slow-Roasted Tomatoes". With the disaster from last week, I was quite keen on the "fail-safe" guarantee and I wanted something special as the extended whanau were coming for dinner. Seven fillets of salmon at the ready daughter informed me why I was not removing the bones ... as seen on master chef. Ahh... missed that programme and I really couldn't get the little blitters out with my fingers. Of course, whe...

I should have learnt from my locked in a toilet restaurant experience, that even though I may not understand the instructions does not mean I should ignore them. I was in my twenties and some youthful arrogance might have been in play, but I distinctly remember that I did not what to follow the "don't lock the toilet door" sign and possibly be interrupted by another person when attending to nature's business. So lock I did. This ended badly with myself not able to get out of the toilet cubicle and the restaurant owner having to come and rescue me - in which he popped his head over the wall exclaiming something about don't I read instructions! So fast forward 20 odd years or so, when I read the cheesecake instructions that stated after baking the biscuit base to "set aside to cool"   - not understanding why I continued on pouring on the filling. I  complained to daughter that I hate when there are instructions I don't understand the rationale for. O...

Numerous friends over the years had referred to it... but it was only this weekend where I had the opportunity to experience it myself... the Vigor Brown Street Wild Foods Festival. It is a backyard private party potluck dinner on a public scale. The host's challenge to guests, if you were game, was the requirement to bring a dish that was arguably wild... and one that you would be prepared to eat. Gladly taking up on the mission, I of course went and referenced the Great NZ Cookbook for inspiration. There was one stand out "Wild Food Salad" contributed by Peter Peeti - known for his "Kai time on the road" television series. The Wild Food Salad looked delicious, however, a key ingredient was piko piko, a fern shoot. With there being over 300 hundred varieties of fern shoots in NZ bush and some of them being carcinogenic, you really need to know the correct type to pick. Not having a ready safe source on hand, I had to abandon this dish but totally resolved to co...

It was a labour focused theme all round with the new Labour government of NZ being announced, labour day commemorations for the eight-hour working day and labour in the house and garden. With a four day weekend, there was ample opportunity to fit in some cooking. With the recent home kill, there was a rolled leg of lamb waiting to be cooked. For the weekend roast, I was guided by one of the feature chef's in the NZ Great Cookbook, Martin Bosley from Oriental Bay, Wellington. Mr Bosley provides the recipe for a slow roast spiced leg of lamb with pan gravy, accompanied with roast vegetables and cauliflower cheese. This was a good hearty dish to feed the workers. I went further south to St Clair, Dunedin, to Michael Coughlin at Pier 24 for the dessert - Apricot Creme Brulee and accompanying Pistachio Biscotti. I vividly remember the first time I heard about Biscotti. It was back in the day when Brian Edwards use to have a regular cooking slot in his "Top of the Morning" Rad...

Nici Wickes obviously travelled to Asia, although not explicitly stating the fact. Rather than getting out the photo's she would rather share her travels with her friends by replicating meals that she had experienced on her journey. For the Great New Zealand Cookbook, Nici shares a "Fragrant ginger and chicken Balinese curry" and a "Sago Gula Melaka". I single handily attacked the pantry in search for the sago. I knew it was in there somewhere, spotting it some time ago and wondering why we had it at all. After reshuffling shelves, towering tins to enable some space for shifting items I found it. I had the purchased the coconut milk at the supermarket but had totally neglected to get the palm sugar. This was a disappointment as I also needed it for the curry. Palm sugar is made from the sap of various palm trees which is boiled and set into hard cakes. It tends to be caramel flavoured. You can substitute it with soft light brown sugar but as my google search in...

Gisborne... east coast town, famous for its chardonnay, oranges and the home of USSCO Bar and Bistro, as featured in "The Great NZ Cookbook". Thomas Boyce was born and bred in Gizzy (as Gisborne is affectionately referred to) and provides recipes for two dishes. Sesame beef dumplings were inspired by a family trip to Japan and includes the addition of seaweed gathered from the local beaches. The stuffed chicken roll and roasted kumara and pan-fried haloumi looked delicious in the photo. Unfortunately, neither dishes featured on the menu the night we visited on our Gisborne holiday nor was Mr Boyce present in the kitchen. The menu presented was seasonal and our waitress informed us that they had recently limited the selection. A quick review from the daughters rated this as highly expensive and with nothing that looked appealing to them. So rather than suffer through we made the collective decision for a quick exit for the girls whilst Jamie and I carried on w...

"Holy guacamole" was the catchphrase of the family driving to a friends 50th Mexican theme birthday party. The guacamole in the boot had been tipped on its side during the turning process of a rather hard corner. I had to scrabble at the back to reset it and daughter driving had the challenge of ensuring every corner was taken so that the guacamole was upright. Right beside it was the more balanced crispy chicken tacos. Of course, the recipes for both of these came from"The Great NZ Cookbook". Jose Carlos de la Macorra - Mexican Specialities from Ellerslie, Auckland, shares a great philosophy of life...  "Food is just the side dish, the main course is sharing the celebration of something "Geater", this gives meaning and soul to all of our food. And why not take someone to the park, hold hands, walk around the cathedral, kiss kiss and along the way enjoy a couple of sopes and tacos".  Well, I didn't indulge in the sopes because I couldn...

Last week's theme continues , where I referenced love ones going overseas to destinations that were making headlines for all the wrong reasons, such as bombs and missiles. Little did I realise that mother nature was also at work and creating havoc with Hurricane Maria right in the path of the island of Dominica - just where my brother in-law was. Hurricane Maria ripped through Dominica as a category four storm damaging hundreds of homes, and the island was afterwards, as one news reporter described, "deathly silent". The island lost all contact with the outside world. In the age of instant communication, one gets use to people being there, despite the distance. So the next 48 hours of no news was rather anxiety provoking for the family. You are powerless to do anything... if only you could. This is of course has been an emotion felt by many, for family of  soldiers, for intrepid travellers of yesteryear where a couple of years on board a ship exploring separated from fam...

 Why is it when loved ones depart overseas there seems to be a glut of political-themed or environmental disasters?!  Another terrorist attack in London, missiles flying over Japan. As Bilbo Baggins said to Frodo, "it's a dangerous business, going out your door". Husband Jamie had left for Japan,  just before Auckland airport run out of aviation fuel.  So it seemed appropriate this week to go with the Japanese recipes from "The Great NZ Cookbook" which Sachie Nomura from Parnell, Auckland had contributed. Sushi and Teriyaki Chicken were favourites for the kids, always a good start. Like most of us, I was time poor, it was a Sunday evening, and we had spent a fair bit of the day enjoying being out and about. However there were a number of other pressing issues to deal with before I started preparing dinner, and unfortunately, the curse of the chicken occurred. There seems to be a phenomenon at our household that is way over the statistical probability of chance (...

As the chef, Laurent Loudeac states " who doesn't love macaroni cheese? It's simple and fast to make, delicious, cheap and a great filler for kids and teenagers". Perfect! With 3 of the family already fed with a midday lunch main from Grandad K, the missing teenager had been Imke, being courtside support at a Silver Ferns netball team play off against the English Rose national team. Great opportunity to see the best of the game up close and Imke ended up being the videographer for the English team. With all of us back at home base later in the afternoon there was little time to devout to culinary masterpieces. So Mr. Loudeac's Macaroni cheese contribution to "The Great NZ Cookbook" seemed to fit the time constrained evening meal. Laurent puts a "Frenchmans twist" to the dish by adding Ki korangi blue cheese, spinach, and ham. However, Pam's Colby cheese had to do and there was no ham handy. I did have baby spinach though with this green a...

Napier hosts one of the star chefs from "The Great New Zealand Cookbook". You can find David Griffiths behind the kitchen bar in full swing at Mister D. There was a double occasion to celebrate, Jamie's birthday and Father's Day on the 3rd September and Mister D was well suited to dine at. The restaurant was humming and luckily we had booked in advance. Before the place completed filled up I took my chance to meet THE Mr Griffiths. He was very accommodating to spend a couple of minutes with me, meeting the family and posing for a photo. He was apologetic for his croaky voice, attributing to band practice - I could see a couple of guitars on the wall as a testament to his music affiliation. I explained I had made one of his recipes out of "The great NZ Cookbook"  - the moonshine biff. This is a wonderful marshmallow treat which can found on the restaurant menu. Mr Griffiths explained that this recipe had actually come from his father ( not noted in the cookb...

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 ...