I think it fair to say that food, alcohol and various states of inertia are the excesses which typically define the festive season.  And what’s more, to resist this trinity of evils it requires ineffable levels of self-control not conceivably mustered at this time of year.  So once the weeks of gluttony and sloth-like behaviour [...]

I have spoken before about my love of celeriac, but alas, it is a long distance love, due to the expense. Luckily, this little recipe only requires a small amount of this delicious vegetable.

I live with four people, a number which expands and contracts from one day to the next as girlfriends and boyfriends come and go, as friends and family fill spare beds, and as weary travellers find a place to rest their weary heads. Our spare room is more often than not occupied, if not by [...]

Not being the biggest fan of winter, I often struggle with the thought of the cold winter months ahead. But the one part of winter I do love is sitting down to a piping hot bowl of soup that warms you up from the inside out!

One of my favourite things to do on a Saturday morning is to get up and head down to my local bakery and grab a nice fresh loaf of bread, come home fill the little moka with coffee, sit down and enjoy a thick slice of fresh bread topped with butter and homemade jam

Portobello, Oyster, Shiitake, White, Crimini, Button, Dried, Fresh, Maitake, Enoki, girolles, trompettes de mort, Chanterelle, golden needle.. All these beautiful words sound like something out of a fairytale. They spill out of your mouth with such ease and sound so lovely to the ear. I almost feel guilty about eating such beautiful sounding food!

In the middle of last year I was fortunate enough to be able to take three months off work to go and explore the world.  My journey took me to the banks of the Yangtze River, to the fast-living streets of Hong Kong, to a sleepy town in the Arctic Circle where the Aurora Borealis [...]

Croutons are a quick and easy addition to any good soup. Yet they provide such a lift of texture and buttery goodness that they become a mandatory addition to any good soup.

This time last year saw me with the mother of all colds. I was miserable, snotty and high on paracetamol. Enter my heroic boyfriend with a pot of steaming broth – he scored some brownie points that day, that’s for sure.

During the working week Paul is a very skilled (and handy to know) technician in our Dunedin office.  Each week he commutes from the Deep South, where he spends his weekends cooking his way through culinary mags and tending to his vast vegetable garden.  When asked to share a recipe with the Our Kitchen team, [...]

Soup is synonymous with winter. It is the culinary embodiment of dark, wintry nights spent indoors curled up with a good book in front of the fire. It is the ultimate comfort food, especially when served with warm crusty bread spread generously with salted butter.

My ex-flatmate and friend Cat used to make brown onion soup on a cold winter night. It was so lovely to come home to caramelising onions and sweet balsamic; such a comforting smell which made the house feel warm and homely.
By looking just at the ingredients, it may look like a recipe from the famine, but the taste is refined and dignified.