food ripe from my garden

Scarlet runners in sweet scented olive oil

In this simple dish the the fresh beans are bathed in olive oil that has been sweetened with melted red onions and garlic. Slice a red onion thinly and cook slowly in olive oil until soft and translucent, with a couple of squashed garlic cloves. Meanwhile pick and prepare your beans. Top and tail them…

Slow-cooked scarlet runners in tomato sauce

Melt in the mouth tender beans cooked in a rich tomato sauce. This is a traditional dish in mediterranean countries, and Ottelenghi has a more complicated version but I believe when your food is this fresh, simple is best. Slice a red onion and melt slowly in lots of olive oil with a couple of…

Scarlet Runners

Native to mountainous Central America where they are pollinated by hummingbirds, these are a cooler weather bean that have adapted well to our precarious early summer in the South Island. These are the BEST bean to grow. They are what got me back into gardening thirty years ago when, as a working mother of little…

Artichoke plants to give away

I have plenty of these babies growing right now, so if you are local and want some please let me know. You can either message me through the blog or pm me.

Lemony zucchini and tuna spaghetti

I picked the first zucchini yesterday! Casting around for ideas for something new to make, I remembered a dish I ate in 13 years ago in Stromboli, when we went to a seafood trattoria called Ai Gechi one night. We had the two girls in tow (then 15 and 18) so our 50-euros-a-day spending money…

Artichokes with vinaigrette

As with all vegetables and fish that are super fresh, the simplest and easiest way to cook an artichoke is the best. Chop off the stalk so each one stands without wobbling. Boil in plenty of salted water for up to an hour (when cooked you can easily pull off an outer leaf – use…

Carcioffuli a la Francesca (stuffed artichokes)

In the style of Francesca, Gerard’s mother. My partner Gerard’s mother was born in New Zealand, but both of her parents had been recent immigrants from the island of Stromboli, north of Sicily, in the Aeolian Sea. She went on to have five children and became a completely devoted mother who always had a pot…

Artichokes Hearts – how to prepare and preserve

If you have a few artichoke plants, chances are that by late November/early December you will have a glut. If you pick them while they are still small you can prepare them and preserve them in cider vinegar, and they taste just like the ones you buy in the deli. An artichoke throws up one…

Globe Artichokes

The first wee globe artichokes began poking their little heads above the leaves in mid-September. By the start of October, we were eating them, and its pretty much the only veg we ate for three months. We did chomp our way through the last of the winter veg as everything got tougher and older and…

Pickled red cabbage

My dad used to make this. I loved it so much I would stand at the frig door and eat it straight out of the jar. Recently I got a hankering for it, and handily had one last red cabbage to use up before the great flowering. I don’t have my dad’s recipe and he…