Homemade Tomato Sauce (Ketchup)

We are now into the 3rd week of our 3 week adventure and today is the day we came for…my beautiful friend Julia’s wedding day! We’ve been to Vietnam, Singapore and are now in Bali and have had the best time, eaten a lot of incredible food that I will do my best to recreate for you, and spent time with amazing people.

In 4 days we will be back to reality and straight into cold weather so I’m making the most of beach dresses, sandals and summery cocktails while I still can. And to keep you going until I can post photos and tell you all about our adventure, here is this week’s homemade recipe.

This sauce is lucky it’s so delicious. I won’t go into too much detail but the 1 hour it took me to make this sauce involved using a vacuum cleaner to rescue 2 tomatoes from behind my chest freezer and accidentally deleting ALL the photos I took of the process for this sauce. Sigh. But at least I now know that my vacuum cleaner is dual purpose. Win.

What to do with 1 million kilos of zucchini

If you have ever grown zucchini and been able to keep up with it, I’d like to hear about it. If you have 20 kids, it doesn’t count.

We had 2 zucchini plants this year. And we grew approximately 60,000 zucchinis. Now I’m not great at maths, but I’m pretty sure if I ate all that zucchini I would turn into a zucchini.

So after eating fried zucchini, barbequed zucchini, boiled zucchini, zucchini with eggs, zucchini loaf I was ready to do something else with it and what is my go to when it comes to preserving extra food? Freeze it of course! I sliced some up to freeze so that we could have them all winter – as they are so full of water though I’m not sure how they will go – I’ll let you know!

Homemade Chocolate Whizz (Magic Shell)

This may be the most excited I’ve been about something I’ve made in the kitchen. And I’ve made a fair few things in the kitchen. But this…this is amazing! Homemade Choc Whizz! Or for anyone not in New Zealand, Magic Shell or Ice Magic. The incredible chocolate sauce that goes hard when you put it on ice-cream. Also known as the stuff childhood dreams are made of. Well, mine anyway! Nerd alert – it’s the coconut oil that creates the hard shell. Due to the fact that it is solid at room temperature (unless it’s the middle of summer) it basically reverts back to that state once it’s in contact with the cold ice-cream. This is a kitchen science experiment gone right, and only using 2 ingredients!

The battle of the white butterfly

There’s a war going on in my garden currently. It’s me against these monsters.

All summer there were none. And now, right when my garden is at it’s peak there are approximately 7 million of the suckers.

They just flutter around looking pretty and then BOOM. They eat all my plants.

Homemade Burger Patties (Josh’s secret recipe)

I do a lot of the cooking in our house but when it comes to homemade burgers I am given my marching orders.

I’ve made burger patties before, and they’re ok I guess, but when Josh gets in the kitchen and makes a burger, I’m telling you, it’s like no other burger you will ever eat.

This is a big call, but I’m making it. Josh makes the BEST burger patties around. And I’ve eaten a lot of burgers.

And guess what – he let me take photos and tell you about it! Today is the best day ever.

I’d never even watched him make the patties before. And I’ll admit, even as I was watching I was thinking…hmmm, that is not how I would do it. I take it back. I take it all back. If I ever have to make a burger patty again (and I hope Josh always makes them for me) this is exactly how I will do them. And how you should too.

Off on an adventure!

Guess what??

We’re going on holiday!! A proper one too!

In approximately 7.4584 hours we will be getting on a big plane bound for Hanoi, Vietnam! Woohoo!

We will spend 10 days working our way south through Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh City, then have 4 nights in Singapore before heading to Bali for the wedding of one of my very best friends! Eeeek!!

I have no idea what internet access we will have, so I’ve set up a few posts for while we are away to make sure you don’t feel like I’ve abandoned you, and when I can I will post about our adventures. I will be updating Instagram and Facebook as we are travelling so make sure you find me there!

Otherwise, I’ll see you in 3 weeks! xx

March Round-Up

Even though March is technically the first month of autumn it is usually still pretty amazing weather and this year was no exception. We’ve had a real Indian summer with super warm days and lots of outdoor adventures.

We had a teeny window of opportunity to pick blackberries on the farm – we haven’t had much rain all summer so there weren’t too many but I got enough to go with our ice-cream! And just as well I remember how scratched up I got last year so piled on the layers. It was hot. But worth it!

Hot Cross Muffins

Happy Easter!

You know how sometimes you just have one of those amazing thoughts that jumps into your head and you think – HOW did this not occur to me before now?

These were one of those things.

Hot Cross Muffins! Or Buffins if you like. Whatever floats your boat.

I love hot cross buns. They are my favourite thing about Easter. I like them even more than Easter Eggs. But they are pretty time consuming to make.

So I was eating a hot cross bun…wait, it was actually just a hot bun because someone, errrr, was too lazy to make the crosses…anyway, it made me wonder if I could somehow make something similar to a hot cross bun without the hours they take. So I thought, why not try to capture that spicy, fruity flavour in a muffin form. So much easier to throw together on a whim. And enjoy any time. Not even just at Easter (you rebel!)

The Cutest Coop in the West

Josh is one of those guys that can pretty much do anything. He changes the oil in my car, he cuts down trees, he kills spiders and cooks the best burger. He is also a ridiculously good builder.

A couple of years ago when we got our first chickens he built a coop out of old off-cuts. He had never built anything before in his life and made this.

About a year later we needed another coop to keep some of the chooks separate and he completely blew me away with the world’s most adorable coop!

And a few months ago he decided to upgrade the original coop and build something straight out of the wild west.