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

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 (...