Free Range Goodness

After a very disappointing Chicken Caesar Salad the other day from Richmond Road Cafe (don't get me started), we decided to try and cook our own. How hard could it be to get it right? Actually, not that hard at all.

I've recently acquired a Jamie Oliver cookbook for my iPhone, which was of excellent value for only $NZ6.49. Not only does it contain recipes, but also photos, shopping lists, step by step guides and videos of an difficult techniques that may be involved. This is the first recipe I've tried out from here, but the results were awesome.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/20-minute-meals/


After looking through the ingredients, Olivia and I stopped by Nosh on Dominion Road. I think I am becoming obsessed with this store, all the food is so yummy there... I'm going broke from spending all my hard won earnings there. Nosh have a great range of organic, free-range meats in their meat section. We picked up some Freedom Farm's Streaky Bacon and some Free Range Chicken (brand name forgotten). I was initially thinking, that this just looked more expensive, but was probably the same as Supermarket generic chicken. I was wrong. I was very wrong. Free-range chicken tastes much more alive and earthy, in a good way. It seemed to pick up the flavours of the herbs we used as well as other ingredients. I would put a photo of this up, but the ones we took, are poorly lit and don't look tasty. It's a shame really, because it was very good.

Regardless, in future I think we are going to go Free Range all the time where possible and affordable!

A Beginning

My girlfriend, Olivia, and I have always joked about making a food blog to exhibit the food we make. It's not as if we are the best, or most creative cooks in the world. The food we make tends to be more on the honest side, and less on the fancy, but we always have the tough requirement that it has to be full of flavour. Sometimes it can be the wrong flavours, but at least it has something there. Something we can't stand is bland, dry or tasteless. We are more Jamie Oliver than Gordon Ramsay or Peter Gordon... the Gordons. We like eating out, probably spending too much on quality over quantity. We spend too much on ingredients, and then have to skimp on other things during the week.

Olivia is a fan of rich, creamy flavours and anything with seafood in it... I mean anything (even Sea Cucumbers!), and generally all good food. I'm a big fan of clean and simple flavours, anything spicy and anything with chocolate in it. We live in Auckland, New Zealand, and are really spoilt for food to choose from (though Olivia complains there isn't enough Korean around).

Our plan. To cook as often as possible, and put whatever we have succeeded or failed with up here. If we go somewhere great in Auckland, or anywhere really, put that up here too. If we find an awesome new foodstuff, again... publish it here. My memory is bad at the best of times, so this should help at least remind us of what have liked.

So for starters... a product recommendation. Every paper in Auckland is singing its praises as well, but we may as well jump on the bandwagon. Piako Yoghurt. My god it's good. It's possibly the creamiest yoghurt I have ever tasted. We popped into Nosh the other day on Dominion road and picked up the Passionfruit and the Coffee Walnut (my new favorite) flavours. Both are amazing, and have a lush creamy texture and taste. The Coffee Walnut has large chunks of the nuts in there and a generous amount of coffee syrup. This is a blessing as other flavoured yoghurts can go a little light on the syrup side. Regardless, I would recommend this to anyone, and is well worth the ~$5 price per tub. Check it out online at - http://www.piakoyoghurt.co.nz/