Shared Kitchen - Real food from scratch

Rigatoni with Roasted Pumpkin & Feta

There are layers of flavour in this dish. Keep the butternut on the dry side, but use enough pasta water and olive oil to keep everything moist.

Winter Salad

Eating a salad like this, full of glistening perky greens, makes you feel as fit as a fiddle. True!

Winter Salad with Walnuts & Persimmons

This takes a bowl of fresh green leaves and herbs a step further. Persimmons add a juicy sweetness which counters the bitterness of walnuts, herbs and greens, making a nicely balanced salad. Try this salad alongside roast chicken or pork dishes.

Niçoise Beans

There is a lot you can do with this dish. It’s packed with flavour and works well with good bread and spreads, so think picnic, lunch or easy light meal.

What’s the buzz with quince?

Faking it. Yep, that’s right. If your quince doesn’t emit a head-turning perfume, just fake it.

Peanut mania

Peanut Butter with extras. Whoop! Whoop!

A charity feast for 300

Last Friday’s amazing effort – the Ladies Lunch, a fundraiser for Totara Hospice South Auckland– was a huge success, raising more than $20,000.00 (they’re still counting). It was a pleasure to be involved. I met Will! Will Martin! He’s so lovely. He may look like he’s about 18 but he’s got a huge international career […]

Vegetable & Barley Soup

This good-for-you soup is easy enough to prepare and just chugs away cooking itself to savoury tenderness.

It has more flavour after it stands for a few hours (overnight is even better) before serving. Reheat gently to avoid breaking up the vegetables.

Pork Pizzaiola

Veal or chicken snitzels (or schnitzels) can also be used in this dish, but my preference is pork. Support New Zealand pig farmers and buy New Zealand pork (or buy the product of your country if possible).

Quick Orzo Salad

You can whip this up in the blink of an eye, leaving more time to fiddle around with a main dish whether that’s a succulent piece of lamb, a traybake of stuffed vegetables for an all-veggie meal, or something of the like.

Brioche Salad Rolls

Make a little bit of red meat go a long way by slicing it thinly and serving it in gorgeous baby brioche buns. Arrange torn lettuce leaves, rocket (arugula) and radicchio leaves, or whatever you have, on a platter. Strew with fresh mint leaves, parsley sprigs and roughly chopped coriander (cilantro). Add halved cherry tomatoes […]

Olive Pitter

This tool is worth having. It easily removes stones (pits) from cherries and olives, and with little wastage. When removing the stones from cherries watch out for splatters. When pitting olives, put the olive pointy end facing up in the tool so that the stone is pushed out of the bottom of the olive (the […]