Recipes

This festive spiced dough, is easy to make and nice and robust for making Christmas gingerbread cookies, or if you are feeling a bit more adventurous, a festive, iced gingerbread house for real ‘wow’ factor. Make it the day before you need it, chilling in the fridge to make it easy to roll out and craft whatever you fancy.

Turkey, we love it, but for many of us, it just seems too much of an effort for Xmas, and can often end up dry and disappointing. We promise this Jamie Oliver recipe won’t be too time consuming and the end result will restore your faith in Christmas Turkey forever.

Asparagus, it’s here for a good time, not a long time, so when it’s in season, we like to eat as much of it as possible. This delicious tart is very easy to make, and very easy to eat. Serve warm from the oven, or cold to take on a spring day picnic. We love all the cheesy goodness and creamy asparagus filled centre. This recipe is worth falling off any current diet regime you may be on.

Nothing warms you up on a cold winter night than a big bowl of hot and healthy veggie soup. This one from Nagi at Recipe Tin Eats heats things up a step further with touch of curry powder to add flavour. And with the flexibility to change out vegetables depending on what’s available and affordable, this hearty winter warmer is perfect for those on a budget while filling hungry bellies. Add some crusty bread to make it go even further.

We’ve decided to celebrate this delicious combination of crumbed herby sausage encasing a soft boiled egg this Easter, in place of the traditional chocolate egg. Why? Why not! Everyone needs some savoury with their sweet and this take on the traditional recipe will fill your bellies with joy (and leave enough room to partake in a chocolate easter egg hunt afterwards).

If you’re looking for a tasty and traditional way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, look no further. Dublin Coddle is a slow-cooked, melt in your mouth potato, bacon and sausage stew. The origin story of this delicious dish is that the significant other of someone enjoying a pint or three down at their local, would leave a pot simmering away on the stove (or “coddling”) so the social drinker had something hearty to eat when they eventually returned home from the pub. If you want to keep it traditional, use pork sausages, and you can get more of your ‘5-a-day’ in by adding carrots with your waxy potatoes or some chopped up cabbage an hour before cooking is complete. You’ll love mopping up the sauce with some Irish soda bread and maybe a glass of Guinness (or two).

Chinese New year is a time of celebration, togetherness, with plenty of feasting on delicious food. One of the dishes you will often see served is a whole Chicken. Chicken is a homophone for ji (吉, meaning ‘good luck’ and ‘prosperity’) and also signifies ‘a good beginning and end’ to the year. It’s usually offered first to your ancestors and the gods for blessings and protection. This whole roasted Sichuan Chicken from @omnivorescookbook is aromatic with the right amount of spice and heat and is juicy and delicious inside, with crispy skin on the outside.

There’s nothing quite like a créme brûlee and this recipe with a hazelnut twist topped with cinnamon apples from German food blogger Lena Fuchs @mein_leckeres_leben is quite the showstopper. Don’t be put off, this delicious dessert isn’t too difficult to make and the smiles around the table as your guests crack the hard toffee top with their spoon when you serve it up, will make it worth it.

As much as we love a traditional Christmas meal, down here in the warmer Southern Hemisphere, the thought of a table full of hot food isn’t always appealing. If you’re on the look-out for festive feast alternative to hot roast potatoes, look no further. This cold, minty and herby potato salad will hit the spot and it keeps for 2-3 days in the fridge – perfect for Boxing Day catch ups and easy meals with all that left-over ham. Yummy.

Glazed baked ham is a bit of a Christmas crowd-pleaser, served warm with a selection of sides for the main meal, and dived into later for late-night festive snacks, served cold with mustard in a crunchy roll or fresh bread. This glaze is easy to make, tastes out of this world and is the perfect sweet partner for a picture perfect finish.

There’s nothing like fresh asparagus, and in New Zealand, we are extremely lucky (for a very limited time) to get it straight from the garden to the table. This Jamie Oliver risotto recipe takes the best of spring fresh flavours, marrying fresh mint, asparagus and lemon, all currently in season and at their tastiest. Easy to make, delicious to eat, if you wanted to add some protein, you could always throw in some cooked bacon, or some hot smoked salmon would also taste spectacular alongside this rice dish.

Spring has sprung, the blossoms are on the trees and the days are warming up. This recipe encompasses the freshness and vibrancy of the start of the warmer months. A classic fluffy herby French bread served alongside a palette pleasing pea and mint soup. Sounds like the perfect recipe for a hosting a Spring lunch.

There’s nothing like a home-baked scone, fresh from the oven, golden brown, crunchy on the outside, soft and warm on the inside. We love serving ours with some butter when the scones are cool enough to handle, straight from the oven, so the butter is all melty and delicious. Try baking some of these spectacular savoury scones this weekend – you won’t regret it.

This recipe from British-Vietnamese chef, restaurateur and author Thuy Pham (@chef_thuy_pham) with chopped seasoned prawns nestled within sweet Romano peppers is a wholesome choice that doesn’t compromise on flavour. Whether paired with a refreshing salad, fluffy rice, or comforting noodles – enjoy the perfect balance of healthy eating and indulgence in every bite!

With apples in abundance at this time of year and the cold wintery evenings, it feels like the perfect time to make this easy and delicious pie. Our passionate home cook, Amanda created something special to celebrate Matariki, Māori New Year in New Zealand. The Matariki stars number nine, so you might need to cut a slightly larger slice that has the correct amount, just to make it official.

Taste isn’t defined by the length it takes to cook something or the amount of ingredients if this deliciously moreish soup is anything to go by. Four ingredients, some oil and herbs and you have yourself the most hearty, tasty winter soup imaginable.

This is the quintessential Autumn/Winter comfort dish. Soft pillows of handmade gnocchi, served with grilled, caramelised wedges of pumpkin in a sage butter sauce. Sounds too delicious to be true – but it’s not! And if the thought of making your own gnocchi sounds too onerous, we promise, it’s well worth the small effort for the large and tasty rewards.

This is a fantastic recipe to create with younger children as it’s ridiculously easy and lots of fun to make. The only difficulty will be stopping the mini eggs being eaten before decorating and the hour-long wait before the nets are set.

Quite the table centrepiece, this Guard of Lamb is something to behold. We know lamb racks can be quite expensive, but since Easter is a bit of a special occasion, we believe it’s well worth splashing out on them for this recipe. The delicious herbed crust has to be tasted to be believed and browning the lamb first and cooking it at a high temperature means you can finish it to your preferred level of rare to medium.

Nothing says ‘Easter’ like a hot cross bun. These are super tasty and packed full of fruit and spice. You need a bit of time to let them prove (30-90 minutes) but other than this, they take no time at all to make and bake. Serve them warm from the oven with plenty of butter (or try with cream cheese). You can also store them and toast them the next day, if you can wait that long to try them.