We harvested the crown pumpkins today and put them in a sheltered, sunny spot where they will ‘cure’ for three weeks. This process hardens the skin for winter storage and sweetens the flesh. I’m not sure how the ones with weka pecks will keep so will eat them first. The words pumpkin and squash aren’t…
Author: Melanie Walker
A Turkish night in
Who is missing their favourite takeaways? This is what my sister’s boyfriend was making in Wellington when we had pre-dinner video drinks the other night and it got me hankering. What street food or takeaways are you missing the most? Tell us in the comments below, I’d love to hear! Felafel Soak 1 cup chickpeas…
Ribollita
A rib-sticking, pot-licking bowl of winter goodness. The hero of this Tuscan peasant soup is cavalo nero, or black kale, and this weekend I picked the first leaves from my teenage plants. A big pot of this bubbling on the coal range for a couple of days only gets better. A few years ago we…
Beetroot soup
A soup as elegant as it is simple and refreshing. Serves 4 INGREDIENTS 800 g beetroot 1 litre water 1 lemon Salt 1 Tbsp finely chopped chives or spring onion Sour cream Grated horseradish if you have any Fresh dill METHOD Peel and dice the beetroot, then boil in the water for about an hour…
A Japanese tasting table
A tasty selection of snacks to put together when you’re missing your favourite street food during lock down. Okonomyaki pancakes: an Osaka style pancake street food, usually made out of cabbage and bigger than this. This is a finger food twist using kumara and asian greens. Tempura dipping sauce Okonomyaki dipping sauce: a weird mix of tomato…
Root veg and beef bone stew
Warm and satisfying for shorter days and chill evenings. See the recipe for Root veg and beef bone stew here
Beetroot Risotto
On Monday at the supermarket Arborio rice was the only type of rice left on the shelves. Don’t let the panic buying beat you! Here is something to make with it. Lusciously silky and sweetly earthy – and what about all that colour that just keeps on giving?! Find the recipe here
Lockdown Chilli Beans
Lockdown 2020 here we are. As we adjust to this strange and challenging time the common denominators for most people seem to be: more time; less money. What is a better way to spend both than on cheap and warming late summer food to zing the tastebuds, say farewell to the summer and welcome in…
Time to thin the parsnips
My mother used to have a deep fryer in which she made home made fish and chips and sometimes deep fried eggs and chips – maybe that was a Yorkshire thing because I’ve never seen that since, and after our grandmother had a heart attack the deep fryer went the same way as the fried…
Tomatoes
When the Italian immigrants arrived in Wellington at the turn of the century they tasted the New Zealand hothouse tomatoes and called them ‘water bombs’. To this day the supermarkets fill their produce aisles with these same tasteless tomatoes, grown all year round in hothouses with never even a price variation for the seasons, while…
food ripe from my garden 