No-Bake Muesli Bars – and I’ve moved!

I have officially become a big kid blogger and have bought my own domain…woohoo!

This means that everything has moved over to thekiwicountrygirl.com – including today’s post for Vanilla Almond No Bake Muesli Bars!

I think I have managed to set it up so that you should still get updates but just in case, head on over to the new website and sign up to get all new posts delivered to your email. I’m not sure if the posts on the new site will come up on the wordpress.com reader (if someone could let me know if they are or not that would be hugely helpful!) and I’d hate for us not to be able to keep in touch! =)

I’m slowly trying to work out the technical side of the new site and will hopefully be able to set it up to make it more user friendly…and prettier!

Any advice/feedback will be happily received!

Cookies & Cream Brownie Bites

I have a bit of a strange obsession with things that are smaller than they should be. Things are just cuter when they’re teeny, right?

Teacup pigs. I want one.
Miniature cup & saucer. I have one.
Baby animals of any description. Don’t even get me started. Just don’t.

I couldn’t even get a regular sized cellphone. I have a Samsung Galaxy S3…mini.

And as for small pieces of dessert? Well that just means I can eat more and trick myself into thinking I’m not eating that many. Are you with me?

These brownie bites are little pieces of perfection. Chewy, fudgy brownie covered in an Oreo cream cheese frosting. I’m going back for seconds. And thirds.

Who am I kidding, they’re so small you can go back for fourths!

Homemade Bagels

BAGELS!!!! I’m kind of excited, can you tell?

I’m not sure everyone feels quite as strongly about bagels as I do, so if you don’t – bear with me. If you do, you are in for a TREAT!

I’m not even kidding guys – these are a-maz-ing!

Chewy but soft, strong enough to hold a bunch of toppings and versatile enough to sit right on the sweet/savoury fence. I’ve been to New York City and had a deli bagel and lemme tell ya – these bad boys are the real deal. We had them for Mother’s Day lunch, then we had them for dinner and I promise you, if we had any left we would have had them for breakfast the next morning.

Bottled Feijoas

If you have never eaten a feijoa before, I feel sorry for you. For 2 reasons.

Reason 1: They are delicious!! Why have you never eaten one?? Go and eat one now.

Reason 2: If you don’t actually know what they are and can’t get them, hence the reason you have never eaten one, there is no way I can explain to you how good they taste. And I’m sorry about that. I’d like to tell you they are kind of like this, or a little bit like that but they’re just not. They are feijoas and they taste like feijoas and they are delicious and there is nothing else to it.

In case you hadn’t realised from my feijoa-ey rant, it is feijoa season in NZ at the moment and they are everywhere. You can buy them from the supermarket but I don’t know anyone who has ever done that because if you don’t have a tree, you probably know someone who does and those little suckers can produce!

There are a ton of things you can do with feijoas (also known as pineapple guavas). Scoop them out of the skins and eat them raw, stew them, make jam, bake cakes, make desserts, chutneys…the list goes on.

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!

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.

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 Easiest Homemade Vanilla Ice-cream

I realise I’ve been on a bit of an ice-cream kick lately with my strawberry ice-cream and now this but I’m holding on to summer for as long as I can. {Yes, I’m that girl in the office who wears sandals even though her toes are about to break off just because she’s stubborn.}

I’m a big fan of making ice-cream at home but I’ve never found a vanilla ice-cream that I love. They’re all custard based/use 5 egg yolks/require cooking or are just plain complicated and taste weird. I mean they’re good, but they just don’t have that soft, creamy consistency of the store bought ice-cream that I love so much.