Blog

Vietnam part I - Hanoi

May 20, 2015 By Laura Leave a Comment

Is it possible to be homesick for a place that is not your home? If so, I am majorly Vietnam-sick.

Asia had never really been somewhere Josh & I were that keen on visiting, but when a friend of mine told us she was getting married in Bali we decided to make the most of the trip and go someplace else too. After a bit of research we decided that Vietnam was the place for us...and we couldn't have been more right. Vietnam stole our hearts from the minute we stepped out of the airport in Hanoi.

I'm going to drag this out over a few weeks and only cover 1 city per post because it just would not do justice to our trip or to the incredible country of Vietnam to rush through. So if you're looking for a recipe or farm post, I'm sorry - please come back later in the week!...

Vanilla Almond No-Bake Muesli Bars

May 17, 2015 By Laura 8 Comments

Have you ever read the ingredients list on a muesli bar box? I just did. And I did NOT like what I saw. The list of ingredients is so long and there are are even things that I've never heard of! As for them being a "healthy" snack...well. There is just about more sugar in each bar than anything else.

And don't get me started about how much you pay for those little bars!

These bars have 7 ingredients total. And I bet you know what they all are!...

Homemade Bagels

May 10, 2015 By Laura 117 Comments

Homemade bagels made simple! Step by step instructions to show you exactly how easy it is to make bagels at home as well as ideas for toppings including homemade everything seasoning! Have those delicious deli fresh bagels made in your own kitchen whenever you feel like them!

HOMEMADE 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!...

April Round-Up

May 5, 2015 By Laura 4 Comments

April was CRAZY!! It was certainly a month of extreme highs and lows.

It didn't start well as my Grandpa passed away after a short illness - it came as a bit of a shock and was tough as we are a very close family. I have been lucky enough to spend a lot of time with my grandparents since I was a baby - Grandpa was there for all my big moments - here we are at my graduation a few years ago with my 2 wonderful grandmothers. It was a sad time but it was nice to have all our family together and to celebrate the incredible man he was.

And on a completely different note, the last 3 weeks of the month were nothing short of amazing.

Josh & I took off on a 3 week trip of South-East Asia which blew my mind! 10 days in Vietnam, 5 days in Singapore and 6 days in Bali for my friends wedding. It was SO great! I won't go into detail now, it's going to take me a while to sort out my photos and gather my thoughts so that I can do justice in telling you all about the places we went and things we saw. Oh, and did I mention the food we ate - some of it didn't look edible but it was all the best food I've ever eaten!

Not much happened on the farm while we were away - lucky for us Josh's parents took care of the chooks and the garden so nothing changed much...we are just waiting patiently for our new hens to start laying!

So I'll leave you with a sneak peak of some of the photos I took while we were away....

Bottled Feijoas

May 3, 2015 By Laura 35 Comments

A step by step tutorial to teach you how to bottle feijoas - the best way to preserve them so that you can enjoy them all year round!

Update September 2020: I now exclusively use the water bath method for canning/bottling everything as an extra layer of food safety. I will be updating instructions over the next few months to share how I do that. I have never had any problems bottling them this way but now prefer the water bath method in terms of ease and having a higher success rate with jars sealing. Laura

It's 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! If you don't know what a feijoa is, I don't even know how to explain them. They are a little fruit in a tough skin that have a kind of grainy flesh with a jelly like inner. And the flavour is not like anything else. And going on that description, they sound terrible...but they're not!

There are a ton of things you can do with feijoas (also known as pineapple guavas in other parts of the world apparently). 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)

April 26, 2015 By Laura 28 Comments

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....

How to freeze zucchini

April 22, 2015 By Laura 20 Comments

Step by step instructions on how to freeze zucchini - a way to deal with at least a small portion of the kilos from the garden!

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 are just lucky we have pigs for when we get the inevitable "left it to grow for 30 minutes too long and now I have a marrow" situation!

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 Magic Shell (Chocolate Whizz)

April 19, 2015 By Laura 9 Comments

Homemade magic shell or chocolate whizz! 2 ingredients and 2 minutes and you have an awesome crackly chocolate shell for your ice-cream!

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, homemade 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! ...

The battle of the white butterfly

April 15, 2015 By Laura 4 Comments

There's a war going on in my garden currently. It's me against these monsters.

All summer there were none. And now, right when my garden is at it's peak there are approximately 7 million of the suckers.

They just flutter around looking pretty and then BOOM. They eat all my plants....

Off on an adventure!

April 9, 2015 By Laura Leave a Comment

Guess what??

We're going on holiday!! A proper one too!

In approximately 7.4584 hours we will be getting on a big plane bound for Hanoi, Vietnam! Woohoo!

We will spend 10 days working our way south through Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh City, then have 4 nights in Singapore before heading to Bali for the wedding of one of my very best friends! Eeeek!!

I have no idea what internet access we will have, so I've set up a few posts for while we are away to make sure you don't feel like I've abandoned you, and when I can I will post about our adventures. I will be updating Instagram and Facebook as we are travelling so make sure you find me there!

Otherwise, I'll see you in 3 weeks! xx

March Round-Up

April 7, 2015 By Laura Leave a Comment

Even though March is technically the first month of autumn it is usually still pretty amazing weather and this year was no exception. We've had a real Indian summer with super warm days and lots of outdoor adventures.

We had a teeny window of opportunity to pick blackberries on the farm - we haven't had much rain all summer so there weren't too many but I got enough to go with our ice-cream! And just as well I remember how scratched up I got last year so piled on the layers. It was hot. But worth it!...

Hot Cross Muffins

April 5, 2015 By Laura 10 Comments

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 Cutest Coop in the West

April 3, 2015 By Laura 4 Comments

Josh is one of those guys that can pretty much do anything. He changes the oil in my car, he cuts down trees, he kills spiders and cooks the best burger. He is also a ridiculously good builder.

A couple of years ago when we got our first chickens he built a coop out of old off-cuts. He had never built anything before in his life and made this.

About a year later we needed another coop to keep some of the chooks separate and he completely blew me away with the world's most adorable coop!

And a few months ago he decided to upgrade the original coop and build something straight out of the wild west....

Slow Cooker Chicken Stock

March 22, 2015 By Laura 24 Comments

How to make homemade chicken stock in the slow cooker and freeze it! It's the perfect way to make the most of leftover chicken bones and vegetables that need to be used up.

If there is something I love, it's making something awesome out of nothing much. It's so fun! So chicken stock was a no-brainer. Since we started raising our own chickens to eat, we've been eating a whole lotta roast chicken. But you're left with the whole body and I'm starting to get all sorts of caught up in making sure it all goes to good use. A lot of work goes into raising those little chicks and I don't want it to go to waste! I've been freezing the carcasses and I made stock using 2 birds at once as my slow cooker is plenty big enough.

I was a bit skeptical about making my own chicken stock - it seemed like a lot of work when it's so convenient just buying the little powder cubes and using them when I need them. But making chicken stock is actually easier than getting into one of those fiddly foil wrapped cubes. I'm serious....

More reasons I love living in the country

March 10, 2015 By Laura 1 Comment

Reason number 2 of seventeen thousand.

This is the rush hour traffic I deal with in town.

It's slow and loud and smelly and honky. And stressful.

Let's compare....

Pizza Dough {2 ingredients!}

March 8, 2015 By Laura 5 Comments

I used to buy pizza bases. They were fine. Absolutely nothing wrong with them. Until I made one. Suddenly, the bought bases tasted like cardboard!

I usually make pizza bases using yeast so that they are more bready but sometimes time (my hunger) doesn't permit waiting around for the dough to rise. So this week I thought I would try something new. In my hunt for a yeast free pizza base this kept popping up...2 ingredient pizza dough using only...wait for it...self-raising flour & greek yoghurt! It sounded too good to be true but I figured it was worth a shot.

It was worth it. It was totally worth it. Worth the whole 5 minutes of effort it took to throw it together. The base was thin & crispy and held up really well even with the ridiculous amount of toppings I put on it!

...

February Round-Up

March 5, 2015 By Laura Leave a Comment

February is one of my favourite months. It's by far the best weather wise and everyone is still in that really relaxed, "it's summer!" mood. It's usually a pretty sociable month too which is always fun.

I got to hang out with 2 of my favourite people, Josh & my friend Amy at another friend's wedding, and we crossed off the "1 year til our wedding day" mark on the calendar...YAY! The countdown is on...kind of!...

The trees are on fire!

March 3, 2015 By Laura Leave a Comment

Just kidding.

But this was the sun coming up this morning. It's going to be a good day.

Wait, red sky in the morning...maybe not.

At least it was pretty.

Sweet & Sour Sauce

March 1, 2015 By Laura 4 Comments

We don't get takeaways that often, being an hour from town, but on the odd occasion that I pick it up on my way home from work on a Friday night when I really can't be bothered cooking, it's usually Chinese, and it's always sweet & sour pork. Seeing as we have a freezer full of pork, I figured it made sense to try and make the sauce that we love so much.

You can buy it in a jar which makes for a seriously easy and quick meal but as you know I am trying so hard to stop relying on jars and the nasties in them! Although the jars do come in super handy for bottling stuff.

This homemade sauce is a huge improvement on the sauce in the jars. And it is just as quick to make, considering the fact that I usually spend a good 10 minutes trying to get the lid off the jar. That's why I keep Josh around.

...

DIY Coffee Body Scrub

February 22, 2015 By Laura 6 Comments

A homemade body scrub that comes together in minutes - it smells amazing and makes a great DIY present!

But even though this DIY coffee body scrub is not something I would keep in the pantry, it's definitely something I would buy. Plus all the ingredients come from my pantry, so I figure it counts as part of the homemade challenge.

I first made this at Christmas for our mums. It smelt and looked SO good that I had to make a jar for myself. I also made little labels for the jars to add to the cute factor. I can't help it!

I found the recipe here and just adjusted it slightly. I used coconut oil instead of olive oil and added a little vanilla extract because it smells good!...

The best I'm going to get

February 20, 2015 By Laura 1 Comment

I've wanted a horse for as long as I remember. I think it is every country girl's dream. And for as long as I remember I was told the same thing. Variations of no. In fairness to my parents they were always happy to drive me down the road to ride with a friend, but it just wasn't the same. But it was ok, I knew that as soon as I moved out of home, I would get one.

Well let me tell you, 20 years later I am asking the same question, just to someone else but for some reason the answer is still the same! I'm certain my Dad has been secretly schooling Josh. He may even have a book. It would be called 1000 ways to say "no Laura, you can't have a horse."

I think this is the best I'm going to get. Anybody have a spare wine barrel and saddle I can borrow?

We built a swing

February 17, 2015 By Laura Leave a Comment

I've done it - the Kiwi Country Girl is officially in action...are you all still there?? I hope so!

This is my sister Rachel.

We had a cute sister day on Saturday. We made waffles and iced coffees and sat out on the deck in the sun.

Then we both looked at the big old oak tree in the paddock. At approximately the exact moment she was thinking "a swing would look really good in that tree" I said it.

We're kind of in tune. It's a sister thing....

Homemade Hummus

February 15, 2015 By Laura 10 Comments

Before the recipe post...guess what? I've changed my name!

Not my actual name of course, just the blog name. Like it? I think it's more...well, me!

I'll be changing the URL (website address) in the next couple of days too - it will become www.kiwicountrygirl.wordpress.com - I will be posting on Tuesday about building a swing so if it doesn't come up please come and find me!

Recipe post time!

Today I made homemade hummus.

I want to dip carrots in it. I want to put it on crackers. I want it on toast. And I definitely ate some straight off the spoon.

It's that good....

Reasons I love living in the country

February 11, 2015 By Laura Leave a Comment

Reason # 1 (of about 6 million)

This is the view from my bedroom window...

Yep, I'm pretty happy waking up to this every morning!