Roast vege salad for a shared meal
Every Tuesday evening I go to Maori language class. We start at 5pm and finish around 9.45. Everyone brings a contribution for a shared evening meal. There are vegetarians and meat-eaters and some of us are gluten free or lactose intolerant. A few peops won't eat meat/chicken unless it is free-farmed and organic so bringing a plate for a shared meal these days is not so straight forward! During the warmer months a huge garden salad, with a scrummy vinaigrette dressing made with my own apple cider vinegar is always appreciated by most of the whanau but now the weather's turning I'm going to start making a roast vege salad. It's fuss free and you'll find you pretty much always have a good enough selection of veges on hand to whip this up and it's simply yummy. 
Wash and cut the vegetables into large bite-size pieces, spread onto a shallow baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and turn veges to spread the oil, sprinkle with good salt and freshly ground pepper. For an extra bit of flavour nestle some sprigs of fresh thyme amongst the veges. Cook in a moderate preheated oven for about half an hour. Remove from the oven and drizzle some balsamic vinegar over the veges. 
Today I used 1 red bell pepper, 2 small purple kumara, 1 med carrot, 3 small purple onion, 1 large beetroot, 1 large potato and 1 piece of pumpkin. I also love to use eggplant, mushrooms, courgettes, yellow peppers, garlic cloves still in the skin and sweet cherry tomatoes. Ready to take to my class tonight. So simple and delish. Enjoy!
Fresh fruit juice.
Got a problem with too many apples? There's a few different things you can do to store them. You can preserve stewed apples in jars or you can freeze them. Try making your own apple cider vinegar or freeze freshly made apple juice. That's what I'm doing today. I'm making apple and feijoa juice and freezing it. Yup you guessed it. I've also got a problem (joke) with too many feijoas. Feijoas do make a really good chutney. I also freeze the pulp in little snaplock bags for winter puddings and winter smoothies. They sweeten up amazingly from freezing. I'm lucky enough to have a powerful juicer that will take a whole apple. All I have to do is give them a wash and put them through the juicer, no peeling and no coring. I've added a good cup of feijoa pulp to each load and this makes a really nice juice, fresh and not too sweet. I add a teaspoon of Vitamin C powder to each bottle too. It's a natural antioxidant and preservative and gives an extra vitamin C boost for winter when you most need it. I'll be bringing these bottles out during the winter months. I had a whole stash of Goji bottles which I've used as they are pharmaceutical grade and non leaching. You can use glass bottles as well but avoid using plastic as it will leach toxins into the juice. For more info read the full post.
Poppy Seed Bread
I made a poppy seed bread at Christmas to honour our Polish ancestory on my dad's side. It will now become a permanent addition to my special occasion bread making sessions. It's a sweet bread that tastes just as good fresh as it does a few days old. On day two or three (if there is any left) dress liberally with slices of cold butter. It's seriously yum. Almonds, poppy seeds, mixed peel, cinnamon and raisins make up the filling. Today Easter Sunday I made it for the second time and it was even better than my first attempt. For the recipe read the full post.
BLACKBERRY PIE
Like most kiwi's foraging is in my genes. I can proudly claim Polish and English descent on my dad's side and Taranaki Maori and Welsh on my mum's side. My dad's greatgrandparents came over to New Zealand as refugees to escape the annexation of their country by Germany. Polish schools were closed and to use the Polish language was forbidden. This was in 1876. They were stoic folk, my people. They sailed to New Zealand on a scheme that was abandoned by the NZ Company mid-ocean and on arrival were sent by the colonial Government to Inglewood, Taranaki, as labourers. Somehow they managed to survive. At the time it was said they were treated worse than the Maori. My Polish ancestors gathered the native tree fungus hokeke and sold it to Chew Chong, an enterprising and honourable Chinese business man. He traveled up and down country on the train and purchased sacks of the fungus from the Polish immigrants. These he exported to China. For the recipe read the full post.
Deliciously Citrusy Almond and Polenta Cake.
I've been wanting to use polenta for years now. I finally have and it's certainly earned a spot in my cake-baking repertoire. These days I reserve baking for special occasions however, sometimes I would like to have a cake in the tin that I can indulge in now and then with a cuppa, and preferably it be wheat-free. This cake fits the bill exactly. The "flour" content is half polenta/half almond meal which brings down the cost of ingredients. I have another orange cake recipe where I use all macadamia meal. It's very, very delicious. I have my own macadamias, but it does takes forever to get enough nuts for a cake out of the shells. If I have someone around who is hungry enough for that cake they will often shell the nuts. Remember the story about the little red hen? For the recipe read the full post.
LUSCIOUS LEMON CURD
The lemon trees are loaded and the chooks are laying fit to bust. It never rains but it pours around here. (literally as well at metaphorically) So what to do with the abundance? It is tricky when you live on your own and far from your kids, to know what to do with all the produce. I've already preserved lemons, made marmalade and mixed peel. Eggs are more difficult to preserve but lemon curd is one way. I thought I could use some lemon curd or lemon honey, as it is also called, in an adaptation of my apple and almond cake I'll substitute curd for the apples, add a layer of sour cream and maybe use poppy seeds instead of the almonds. I've got a recipe tucked away somewhere that sloshes a bit of gin on top of a lemon cake! That sounds yummy too. I'll let you know how it turns out! Again, I'm always a sucker for a citron tart with a dollop of thick, tart yoghurt. So many possibilities. I think I'll be needing to make a few batches! It is usual to store lemon curd in jars but still it must be kept in the fridge and will last for only a few months. I am going to experiment and freeze my lemon curd in snaplock bags. For the recipe read the full post.
OLD-FASHIONED GRAPEFRUIT MARMALADE.
I love my home-made marmalade. There is nothing quite like it. Lashings of butter and chunky marmalade on freshly made bread and a hot cuppa, or for breakfast; a new laid egg, soft-boiled with toast and marmalade and a cup of best coffee. Last night after I'd cooked up this batch I couldn't resist having it for my dinner, on toast with chunks of good organic cheddar. Move over brown rice, well for last night anyway! I love my marmalade chunky with grapefruit. I'm not into minced up marmalade and I can't abide orange or lime marmalade. It's missing the strong and bitter taste that I crave in a marmalade. Here's how to make best grapefruit marmalade.
Make your own apple cider vinegar Part two
I figured it was time I got around to straining off my apple cider vinegar. See Make your own cider vinegar Part one. Well over a year has passed since I had put it down and it was a grey and rainy Sunday, just perfect for mucking around in the kitchen. Read the full post.
RAW ONION versus NIGHT COUGH
This winter as always, I was determined not to succumb to the bot. Sadly it sneaked in the back door when I wasn't looking. I dosed myself up with all my usual remedies, Vit C, echinacea, cayenne pepper, lemon and honey drinks, kumarahou and kawakawa tonics, and consequently I wasn't actually ever sick enough to warrant any time in bed or any days off work. What got me in the end was "The Cough" It came on every evening at 8pm and continued until 2am. It didn't matter whether I was in bed or out of bed, inside or outside, in the bath or by the fire. It was a horribly persistent and at times quite violent cough, which after 10 days was still going strong. By now I was really exhausted. A friend suggested using an onion in my room at night. I did and was quite blown away by the result. She has been doing this for her family for years and it has always worked for night coughs apart from when her boy had whooping cough. For more details read the full post.
GREEN SMOOTHIE
I'm not sure why I have resisted green smoothies for so long. One reason perhaps is because I don't have a proper blender, let alone one of those high powered jobs that people who make green smoothies always recommend. I've always found my stick blender sufficient for making my favourite yoghurt smoothie. Another thing I resist is buying greens. I want them freshly picked from the garden and still buzzing with vitality. Last week, I gave the green smoothie a go with my old faithful stick blender and it worked well enough. Every winter I am recommended by my wonderful osteopath to consume fresh, young raw greens. My gut goes into stagnation around this time of year and needs chlorophyll-rich living food. Well I came home from an osteopathic session last week and wandered around the garden picking a bit of this and a bit of that, stick blended it up with a little water and added some fresh fruit and a little honey. I am hooked now, and my gut has responded beautifully. Gone is the uncomfortable bloating and thankfully the gas. Kale is recommended as a major player in green smoothies, but I wanted to use only what was growing in the garden. This was to incorporate some of the edible weeds that I wax lyrical about on my blog. For my first smoothie, I picked a few leaves each of cos lettuce, silverbeet, kale, NZ spinach, parsley, dandelion, nasturtium, clover, puha and sorrel. The list is endless, you could add chickweed, coriander (cilantro), rocket, land cress, mizuna, any of the rocket mixes etc etc, pretty much whatever you have on hand. As always make sure you have a thorough knowledge of any weeds you use to ensure they are safe for consumption. For the here's how read the full post.
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