Category: Food

Posted on

Slow cookers

I was given a slow cooker last year as a present but hadn’t got around to using it. I decided last weekend that it was about time it got trialled. I’m not into recipes that take a lot of ingredients so found this one for beer beef stew on the internet. The house smelt amazing all afternoon…..mmm. Hubby doesn’t like any meat stewed, reckons it’s a waste of meat but he kindly donated one of his beers. I used about 650g of stewing steak for about $6 and adjusted the recipe slightly. Tasted yum, then went into the freezer for dinners later on.

Beer Beef Stew

1 tsp salt
2 cups beer
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup butter
1 onion sliced
1/8 tsp pepper
2 lb Stewing Steak cut in 1 inch cubes

Coat beef cubes with the 1/2 cup flour then brown in melted butter and drain off excess fat. In crock pot combine browned meat with onion, salt, pepper and beer. Cover and cook on low 5 to 7 hours until meat is tender. Turn control to high. Dissolve remaining 1/4 cup flour in small amount of water and stir into meat mixture then cook on high 30 to 40 minutes. Serve with rice.

A good info site for making sure you are using your slow cooker safely in terms of food hygiene Cooking safely with slow cookers and crock pots

Posted on

Foreign Frozen Veges

Having just read this article Pot luck on frozen veges – Consumer information – NZ Herald News I have to admit I don’t think I’ve ever looked at where my frozen veges come from. I suppose I naively thought that exporting frozen veges from thousands of miles away made no sense! Just checked my freezer – McCain Corn is grown and produced in NZ as are my Pam’s peas. My Watties chopped frozen spinach is a different story. Packaged for Watties NZ, distributed by Auric Pacifc Marketing in Singapore, Lucky Frozen in Kuala Lumpur, product of USA. Not quite sure how that works? Grown in USA, shipped to Kuala Lumpur and frozen, transported to Singapore (or just distributed by a Singapore owned company), sent to NZ? It was sort of a one off purchase, I bought it because I felt like Spanakopita My Greek Kitchen – Spanakopita. Feeling a bit guilty now over so many carbon miles for one meal!!

Posted on

Aunt Betty’s Rice Pudding – I made a difference!

I had a craving the other day for tinned rice pudding. On my British OE I used to eat a lot of it as it was really cheap and you can eat it right out of a tin without cooking it. I picked up a tin of Aunt Betty’s rice pudding at the supermarket to find it is made in Thailand from Thai rice and New Zealand milk. Aunt Betty’s is owned by The Old Fashioned Food Group who have product labels such as Hansells, VitaFresh, Real Yogurt etc. On their website it states it has three manufacturing sites – Penrose, New Lynn and Masterton. I don’t see Thailand on that list? So I emailed them to find out why they are implying that their products are made in New Zealand as opposed to overseas.

 

Today I promptly got a reply from The Old Fashioned Food Group saying that those three NZ sites were the sites they owned and their website would be adjusted in view of receiving my email. Sure enough their website now states “A majority of our products are manufactured at our 3 sites across NZ ……. and the remainder sourced from third parties throughout the world”.

 

OK it’s not exactly front page news but it’s my first triumph as an informed consumer!       

Posted on

Free range bacon

Well we’ve become a free range bacon household the last two weeks, buying Freedom Farms bacon. I’ve still volunteered to stay off bacon though as hubby has to buy a smaller pack for the same price as non free range bacon. Won’t do either of us any harm though. I hope we will be able to continue to buy free range at our Pak n Save as  living in a fairly low income area there is the possibility that it won’t sell that well and won’t be stocked after a while. There is no way we can afford the free range pork chops and roasts that we’ve seen and we earn a reasonable salary – our solution is just not to eat these products if we can’t afford free range. I’ve also found another company online that sells free range pork products http://www.thebaconstation.co.nz/ but hubby says he’s not buying food off Trade Me! I have to admit in terms of packaging and gel packs keeping it cool etc while being posted I would rather buy my bacon from the supermarket.

 

Posted on

Shop bought vs homemade

Just got home from work and have had a snack of pikelets and lemon curd, mmmmmm. Sunday evening I noticed that the lemons had been there for a while so they needed to be used up. Found a recipe in my recipe scrap book for lemon curd and decided to give it a go. So there I am 8:45pm in the evening making lemon curd for the first time! Have to admit though it beats shop bought hands down and was a lot cheaper, especially seeing as the lemons were free. It also goes in a recycled jar.  

 

Lemon Curd

 

Half a cup of sugar

50g butter

Finely grated rind and juice of 2 lemons

2 eggs, lightly whisked

 

Place sugar, butter, lemon rind and juice in a small saucepan over medium heat and stir, until butter is melted and sugar dissolved, Add the eggs and stir continuously over a low heat, until the mixture thickens. Pour into a sterilized jar – makes about 1 cup.

 

There are lots of lemon curd recipes but I kept this one in my recipe file because it only makes one jar full which is just right for us.

 

Source: Foodtown magazine

 

Posted on

Free range pork

We walked into Pak n Save today and there was free range pork chops from Freedom Farms – shows the power of the consumer. I didn’t check to see if they had their bacon as well as we weren’t buying bacon today. They had Freedom Farm leaflets there as well with the product which was interesting – I’ve never seen any company have leaflets in a supermarket before? (Freedom Farm link can be found over on the right in the links). One thing that struck me reading the pamphlet that was also noticeable in the news coverage the last few weeks is the lack of focus on products that have a pork component e.g. sausages. How many kiwis would give up their staple sausage? Over the last few months since I wrote about the shocking conditions that many NZ pigs were kept in (Feb 2008) hubby and I have come to a compromise as he would not give up all pork. Roast pork, pork chops etc, sausages are not on the shopping list. Hubby will still have bacon but I won’t, thereby reducing the amount we have to buy. Ham we have reduced the same way as well. We will probably change to free range for ham and bacon now that it is a bit easier to get but will just continue to try not eat other pork products as much as possible.

Posted on

River Cottage

We’ve just finished watching the final of River Cottage Autumn Series. I was balancing the accounts for the week, freezing stewed feijoas and packaging puff pastry apple ‘turnovers’ ready for lunch over the next few days while watching TV. We don’t have a garden at the moment as our land is still a building site so it’s nice to live vicariously through enthusiastic Hugh. River Cottage, promoting small holdings, was in huge contrast to the Sunday programme on Channel 1 earlier in the evening regarding the farming practises of pigs in sow crates in NZ Mike King tackles pig welfare after seeing “despairing” pigs | NATIONAL.

 

I love watching Hugh cook his recipes even if I’ll never have access to many of his ingredients. His recipes can be accessed from http://www.rivercottage.net/SeasonalRecipes/.

Posted on

Easter Sunday Blueberries

We decided to forgo easter eggs this year and instead took a trip to the Akatarawa Blueberry farm to pick our own organic blueberries. It’s getting towards the end of the season but they are still good quality for cooking and freezing. The farm closes at the end of April I think. We delivered some around to mum as her easter egg for something a little different. My freezer is now groaning with stewed apple, stewed blueberries and frozen blueberries. Can’t wait to make blueberry and apple turnovers for dessert. Also thought I might try the berry and apple strudel recipe in this month’s Healthy Food magazine which was the winning baking recipe.

Berry & Apple Strudel  

3 Braeburn or Granny Smith Apples

¼ cup dried apricots, chopped

1 tablespoon custard powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon mixed spice

½ cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)

6 sheets filo pastry

1 tablespoon trim milk

Icing sugar

 

Preheat oven to 180oC

Grate apples

Add chopped apricots, custard powder, cinnamon, mixed spice. Stir. Add blueberries, Stir again.

Lay filo in a baking dish. Spread filling down one side. Carefully roll the strudel.

Lightly brush the top of pastry with milk.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. If pastry browns too quickly, lower the heat a little. Remove from oven and dust with icing sugar.

 

   

Posted on

Easter Saturday shopping

I worked it out today – I’m not the only one using a shopping list, I’ve just been hanging around with the wrong crowd! When we went grocery shopping this morning we were surrounded by un-familiar looking shoppers who I presume were the Friday lot who couldn’t shop yesterday (or maybe the Sunday lot shopping a day early?). Lots of them have shopping lists!!!! I counted at least 10 lists in my short 3 min survey. Unfortunately every group of shoppers acts in a different way and the Friday/Sunday shoppers were too annoying for me despite their lists. They wandered along slowly, left their carts in the middle of the aisles…………. We have shopping down to a fine art now so I’m glad Easter only comes once a year and next Saturday all will be returned to normal. 

 

Braeburn apples were on special today at $1.57 per kg so our shopping changed from a couple of apples to a couple of kgs of apples. My Sunday baking hour tomorrow will include stewing all that apple for freezing. I’ve set one hour maximum a week for baking as I don’t want to turn the clock back and end up being a wife stuck in the kitchen baking. One hour also allows me to make all the mess at once so it’s only one lot of cleaning, saving on products. I’ll have to look up a few new apple recipes – our favourite at the moment is apple crumble and apple turnovers. If you haven’t tried the Trade Me community recipe site give it a go TradeMe – New Zealand Online Auctions and Classifieds. Just found an interesting carrot cake I may try.

 

“Here it is again.I really recommend this.So easy.Ends up like a GATEAU. In WIZZ,chop 3 medium peeled carrots until finely chopped. ADD:2 cups sugar,1 cup oil,2 teaspoons cinnamon,4 eggs.Wizz again till blended.Then add:2 cups plain flour,2 teaspoons baking powder,1 teaspoon baking soda,1 teaspoon salt.(can add any xtra spices to taste eg nutmeg or mixed spice)Wizz all together till blended.Pour into 26cm large cake tin (lined)& bake @ 150 degrees c for approx 1 hour.When cold ,Ice with Cream Cheese Icing-100grms Cream Cheese,50 grms butter,1 teaspoon Vanilla,2 cups Icing Sugar,Lemon or orange juice & rind. Soften butter & cr cheese.then add other ings -mix till smooth and ice cake.IMPRESS YOUR GUESTS.”