Ice ice baby: Ambrosia Ice Cream

All right stop.  Collaborate and listen.  Ice is back with a brand new invention ~ Vanilla Ice

Amazing sun-drenched holiday in Piha last week.  Like.

All of a sudden being in my last week in Auckland before I head back down to the chilly south sans husband.  Dis-like.

My, my, how fast time flies when you're having fun.  

Just to prove how fast we are scurrying over the hill these days, my very dear friend Tuxy came back to NZ for the first time in four years since moving to the UK.  Four. Whole. Years.  But it feels like she'd only popped away for a couple of months and as we yakked away in the sunshine it felt like we were 12 year olds again gossiping about boys, wearing scrunchies, making mixed tapes, teeny-bopping to the Spice Girls and vowing to marry Leo.

Yes, we were children of the nineties.

{ambrosia ice cream: a brand new invention}

Being a child of the 90's also meant we grew up on kiddies birthday parties with delightful party nibbles such as fairy bread, cheerios with T sauce, and of course that creamy dreamy fav: ambrosia.

If you didn't grow up in New Zealand, you might not know what ambrosia is.  The concept is deceptively simple: take yoghurt, mix with whipped cream, add marshmallows, berries or other fruit and crumble in some meringue. Very much like a slightly healthier version of Eton Mess.  It's light and creamy and on a hot summer's day it's what definitely what you want, what you really really want.

And just how did I get from ambrosia to ambrosia ice cream?  Well, now this is a story all about how ambrosia got flipped-turned upside down, and I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, I'll tell you how ambrosia became Ambrosia Ice Cream.

A study in lanterns and dumplings

The lantern festival marks the 15th and final day of the Chinese New Year holiday and every year the Asia New Zealand Foundation puts on the Auckland Lantern Festival: a lavish three day long extravaganza with glorious techni-coloured lantern displays filling Albert Park and street stalls of delicious asian food lining the length of Princes Street.

You really get the sense you're in some exotic bustling marketplace in South East Asia rather than the immaculately colonial Albert Park next to Auckland University.

Me and my girls from high school went last night on a beautiful if somewhat muggy Auckland evening and ate our weight in dumplings, noodles, donuts, and steamed buns.

{$4 for 6 pork dumplings. I kid you not. Make sure you get plenty of soy sauce and sweet chilli on these bad boys}

Guilt-free Orange & Almond Mini Cakes for Chinese New Year

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful ~ Mae West

Ahhh January.

Named after Janus, the god of the doorway in Roman mythology, January is the one (and probably only) month in the year when everyone is most likely to stick to their freshly made New Year resolutions.

Yes January, also affectionately known as Post-Christmas-Binge-Detox month.  And since this year Chinese New Year also falls in the month of January, it seems like a good month to try and be good.  After all the CNY feasting of course.

For Chinese New Year, I really wanted to make something orangey.  Oranges in Chinese culture symbolise a prayer for good fortune and are considered harbingers of good luck.  They are often used as offerings at temples and also as gifts when you visit people over the New Year period.

So Orange and Almond Mini Cakes were just the ticket as Detox Month/Chinese New Year baking.  Gluten-free, lactose-free, flourless, butter-less, and oil-less: these little cakes may be guilt free but are most definitely not delicious free.

Chinese New Year Feast at One Dream, Mt Wellington

Kung Hei Fat Choi!  Happy Year of the Dragon lovely people!

Chinese New Year is THE most important event in Chinese calender.  It marks the start of the lunar year and starts with a family feast on Chinese New Year's Eve, followed by another massive feast on Chinese New Year's Day and ends with a feast for the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the lunar calender.

For our New Year dinner we went to our family's fav little Chinese restaurant in Mt Wellington.  It's a gem of a place.  Family-run and tucked away next to Harvey Norman on Mt Wellington Highway, One Dream specialises in home style Chinese cooking that's authentic, delicious, and incredibly reasonable.

They are usually closed on a Monday but the lovely owners open just for us for Chinese New Year Day.  Legends.

Bake off winning: Apricot & Walnut Caramel Tarts

The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet.  ~ Andy Warhol

According to pop psychology most people are either Type A or Type B personalities.

Type A's being highly organised, time-conscious, stressed out, and competitive and Type B's being laid back, relaxed, casual and not having a single organisational bone in their bodies.  So it was rather hilarious, and not completely surprising, to discover over new years that the entire group of boys were, you guessed it, Type B, with their partners/wives/girlfriends all being exclusively and emphatically Type A.   Leave the boys to decide on what to do next and we are still sitting at the beach hours later.  Get the girls together and we're all planning out the next couple of days in minute detail: spreadsheets, packing lists and all.  It seems opposites do attract.

I think it would be hard to argue I am anything but Type A: I like everything neat and organised, things to be planned well in advance, getting to places way early. C in his more cheekier moments has dubbed it Type A.R.  But for a Type A, I don't think I'm that competitive.  I don't even like competitions and while being last is never fun, being first seems to me like an awful lot of pressure.

And I most definitely don't like being in bake off's.  If people actually like my baking that's enough of a win for me.  I leave it to the truly talented to enter in baking competitions and then go about collect the winning recipes to try.  Here is one of those winning recipes from a bake off C had at his work a wee while ago: Apricot and Walnut Caramel Tarts.

Edamame, fennel & orange salad and a huge Happy New Year!

Happy New Year beautiful people!  May 2012 bring you all success, happiness and deliciousness.

We've just come back from our action packed South Island adventure.  It was rugged.  It was amazing.  It was hardcore.  We camped, tramped and road tripped our way through the deep south, visiting some of the most beautiful places on the planet. Cannot wait to post some of the gazillion photos I took on our trip. I can barely lift my right arm 'cause I took so many.  Don't know if you heard me counting.  I took over a thousand. (I actually did!!)

{sneak peek from our south island road trip}

I also have loads of new recipes I've tried out from our Christmas festivities which I'm dying to share with you so am mucho excited bout being back to blogging.  Bring on twenty twelve baby!

Since it's a fresh new year, let's start off with a fresh salad recipe: Edamame, Fennel & Orange Salad.

Merry Christmas & fairy lights ♥

What is Christmas?  It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future.  It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.  ~Agnes M. Pahro

White chocolate eggnog fudge

Last Christmas, my White Chocolate Eggnog Truffles went down a treat so this year I thought I'd stick with the winning flavour combo but in fudge form: White Chocolate Eggnog Fudge. 


Following the raging success that was the Salted Caramel Fudge, I felt like a fudge ninja.  I was on a fudge making roll.