bark and brioche

Easter weekend has been all about spending some time in the kitchen at our house! I made a delicious pumpkin soup in the slow cooker. As you can see in the photo, I went a bit overboard with the “dash” of cream. The recipe was so easy - I just threw everything into the slow cooker, and six hours later, blended it up - ready to eat! You can find the recipe here: http://www.healthyfood.co.nz/recipes/2007/august/slow-cooker-spicy-carrot-and-pumpkin-soup

Ryan made some amazing hot-cross buns from our Simon & Alison Holst bread book. You make the dough in the bread maker, then shape the buns and leave them to prove, then add the crosses (as you can see, Ryan made massive crosses!), then bake. Easy! And delicious, of course.

The Auckland Lantern Festival 2012 - food, glorious food, plus some beautiful lanterns, of course! We headed over to the city at about 7pm, spent a couple of hours browsing the craft stalls, food stalls and taking in some entertainment, before walking around the lantern displays.

We ate tapas-style Asian food - pork buns, chicken dumplings, satay chicken, octopus balls. I heard one woman remark, looking at the crush of people around the food stalls, ‘It’s like a feeding frenzy.’ A delicious feeding frenzy, I would say!

The lanterns were equal parts beautiful and cute - flowers, butterflies, pandas, turtles!

Beautiful white bread straight from the breadmaker, served with strawberry conserve. Bread recipe courtesy of Simon & Alison Holst’s The NZ Bread Book, and conserve made by Ryan’s dad. Perfect Saturday afternoon treat!

On the weekend, a friend and I did the Auckland Coast to Coast walkway, which took us all the way from the Viaduct to Manukau Harbour in Onehunga. All up it’s 16km and follows a winding path through the city, Auckland Domain, Newmarket, up and over Mt Eden, over to Cornwall Park and up One Tree Hill, then down to Onehunga. The walk is a council thing, and it’s signposted all the way (minus signs at some key intersections, ironically!). 

I loved checking out all the beautiful houses, wandering through residential streets I would otherwise have no reason to visit. And I haven’t spent much time at either the Domain or Cornwall Park, so it was nice to see them properly. We had lunch at the lovely Cornwall Park restaurant - I had beetroot, haloumi and cashew salad. Yum!

All in all, it’s a lovely walk, and we had beautiful weather for it! Can’t think of a better way to spend a Sunday!

Yesterday we were treated to some delicious fresh veggies and fruit from my in-laws’ garden. Rhubarb, eggplant, lettuce, potatoes, strawberries, mint, capsicum. For dinner, I made a chicken salad with potatoes, capsicum, mint, lettuce, kumara and a balsamic vinaigrette. Dessert, as requested by Ryan, was rhubarb crumble with greek yoghurt. Yum! Nothing better than veggies straight from the garden.