Fresh Reads

With the rising cost of living and the price of groceries being a hot topic lately, here are a few tips to make your grocery dollars go further . Step one, is of course, to buy the freshest produce you can. The fresher it is when you get it, the longer it will last in your fridge! A top tip for using up veges is to start a “stock pot”. This can be a large freezer bag or container that you put the ends of your veges, peelings etc into, and then place that in the freezer. Ke

The humble spud. No matter how you cook them - hot chips; wedges; mashed; roasted; gnocchi; potato salad - they are absolutely delicious! For hot chips or wedges, switch things up a bit and experiment with the seasoning - a dash of olive oil, a sprinkle of paprika, mixed herbs, and a pinch of chilli flakes and sea salt is my go-to - but play around with whatever herbs and spices you have lurking in your pantry and have a bit of fun creating different flavours. A good tip is

Crates. We use a lot of them here at Eatlocal. All the produce we source from our suppliers comes to us in crates of varying sizes, depending on what is inside. Pumpkins for example, are in very deep, high-sided ones, whilst much shallower ones are used for avocados and other fruit. The crates are cleverly designed to stack neatly on top of one another so that they don't move in transit, and the produce inside is always filled to a level where a crate placed on top won't d

When Covid-19 came along, as people began to shop and order much more online, it changed the game for many of the national courier companies with the massive and unprecedented influx in volume they suddenly had to deal with. In order to give you the service you deserve and to reflect our "support local" ethos, Eatlocal has teamed up with some fabulous family-run courier companies to deliver your fresh produce boxes. As Eatlocal continues to grow, thanks to amazing customers l

I had a very interesting visit to the "Banana Room" at Market Gardeners Christchurch HQ today. This is such an enormous space! When they say "room", what they mean is an area pretty much the size of an aircraft hangar, as most bananas destined for sale in the South Island go through this facility. The bananas come from Ecuador or the Philippines and take approximately four weeks to arrive via sea freight. Even though we are all about locally-grown produce here at Eatlocal, w

Eatlocal were excited to be approached by stuff.co.nz for a positive, good news story about how some businesses have grown during lockdown. The article was published online and in the Life section in The Press - ' Demand for fresh produce boxes booms under lockdown. ' The journalist from Stuff called me and asked why our fresh produce box business had seen a spike in orders as New Zealand faced another lockdown. “It’s fresh, it’s local, it’s much nicer than going to the supe

Free up valuable real-estate in your fridge and give it a thorough once-over by following these simple steps. Each time you open the door to your sparkling clean fridge, you’ll be glad you invested the time in it! Take everything out and put it on the bench. If you can’t face tackling the whole thing in one go, just start with the top shelf and work your way down. Anything "fresh" that’s too far gone can go in the green bin or on the compost heap. If you are composting, b

Eatlocal are delighted to bring you a selection of organically grown herbal teas from Julie Booth's "The Herbal Garden", a 2-acre permaculture sanctuary in the Selwyn District of Canterbury. Julie has been fascinated with gardening since she was a small child, and this love of nature and sustainable living has brought her to where she is today, with her gardens containing herbs for medicinal as well as culinary uses, plus fruit orchards and flower gardens. Julie trained as a

To find out more about where Eatlocal's fabulous free-range eggs start their journey to your fresh produce box, I had the pleasure of visiting Lamond Farm in Charing Cross, Canterbury. Lamond Farm is run by Andy and Felicity Lamond, who have an incredible, high-tech grading system to ensure each egg is weighed and sized with perfect consistency. Every egg goes through a process called “candling,” where a light is passed through it to reveal any impurities that might otherwise

I had some kumara to get inventive with, so, as you do, I jumped online to look for a suitable recipe Now, don't get me wrong, I love my cookbooks because the recipes have been tested heaps of times for consistency, but sometimes you just strike gold on the internet. This was one of those times. I found this super-quick and easy curried kumara soup recipe and have made it three times this week already! The original recipe is here , but I've written it out below in metric f

As the cooler weather begins to take hold, all the soup-lovers out there can rejoice. So many vegetables, so many soup recipes, but this Carrot & Ginger soup is a real winner. A good soup starts with good stock, so if you've never made your own stock before, now's the perfect time to give it a go. Start by saving all your vege offcuts - broccoli stalks, cauliflower leaves, celery and carrot ends, onion ends etc. - and put them in a bag in the freezer. Keep adding to it whe

This was to be a post about making yummy courgette fritters. I was even going to get all "celebrity chef" and photograph the steps! Unfortunately, the oven caught fire whilst I was pre-heating it - some parchment paper and the fan fought - so that was the end of that! After a lengthy clean-up process (who  knew  how much mess fire extinguisher powder makes?), dinner was a takeaway pizza. Sadly, that's not as photogenic as homemade fritters, so here's a pic of the dead oven

With red kumara on special this week, I thought I'd share this recipe I kept from The Press a couple of years ago. I have a ring-binder filled with all sorts of cuttings which I love poring over. This salad can be easily adapted to vegetarian or vegan by substituting the honey for maple syrup and omitting the bacon. Salad (Serves 6) 4 red kumara, peeled or skin on - up to you 2 peeled red onions, cut into wedges Half a cup olive oil Sea salt 2 oranges 4-6 rashers of bacon,

Need to change up your broccoli offerings? Here's a fantastic recipe for a Tahini Lemon dressing that would pair well as a side dish with almost anything! Make double the amount of dressing and drizzle it over roasted kumara too! Sesame Broccoli with Tahini Lemon Dressing Prep time 15-20 mins Cooking time 10-15 mins Serves 6 1 large or 2 small heads broccoli (approx 800g) 1 Tbsp olive oil 1 tsp light soy sauce (or tamari if gluten free) 1 tsp sesame oil 1 Tbsp sesame seeds,

Here is a great salad to make the most of beetroot. A really simple dish with a big wow factor. The colours, the textures, and the flavour - just fabulous. I've made this several times and it never fails to please. Preparation time 15-20 minutes Cooking time 45-60 minutes (mostly hands-off) Serves 6 as a side Ingredients 750g beetroot Half tsp salt 1 Tbs balsamic vinegar 3 Tbsp olive oil or hazelnut oil 1 tsp wholegrain mustard 1 tsp honey Handful of mint leaves, roughly

Eatlocal are thrilled to bring you two new products from Loburn Grove, a boutique orchard and artisan food producer based in North Canterbury, run by Mark & Kasia, who bought the orchard after the Canterbury earthquakes. Loburn Grove crafts amazing handcrafted products in small batches, using only the finest ingredients to ensure exceptional quality. Their wealth of experience brings a dedication to quality and a passion for excellence. We stock their Hazelnut Oil and Hazeln

Mandy Steele of Mandys Horseradish Introducing Mandys Horseradish Sauce and Mandys Horseradish & Apricot Mustard. Grown and nurtured in paddocks on the Canterbury plains and then hand-picked, hand-peeled and small-batch bottled to order in glass jars right here in Christchurch by Mandy Steel herself. The eagle-eyed amongst you will be wondering why there is no apostrophe in "Mandys". The reason is that Mandys Horseradish was started with two Mandys, but is now owned and oper

This is the story of how Hawkwood Smoked Cheese was born. Tommy loved his barbecues and had five cookers in his outdoor kitchen – A Weber, of course, two hot smokers - gas and electric - a charcoal rotisserie, and a Canadian 5-burner Char-Broil for when you needed to crank something out in a hurry. One day, when he replaced his gas smoking oven which had given up the ghost, he was just about to scrap it and suddenly had a brainwave to turn it into a cold smoker for cheese! I

Here at Eatlocal, we like to know where our produce originates from. For example, our brown onions come from the sunny fields of Swannanoa near Rangiora, right in the heart of North Canterbury. Onions like a lot of heat and water when they are growing, and they need it hot and dry once they mature so they can dry down and keep for the many months ahead. Being a slow crop, onions are sown in late winter and harvested in the following autumn. Once matured, they are lifted out o