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Pure Ice Cream with – Richard & Tracey Bullock

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If you’ve ever made your own ice cream and done it well, you’ll know the results are hard to beat. My personal favourite: I absolutely love whipping a bit of cream, stirring in some Argentinean Dulce Leche (caramel), sprinkling on a bit of Marlborough sea salt, then throwing it in the freezer for a few hours. The super creamy texture, the simplicity of the ingredients shining though, the knowledge that just a few fantastic things have gone into the making… well, it makes buying an average ice cream a waste of time (or, at best, a compromise). But if you’re buying hand made ice cream created by someone who has a whimsical instinct for fantastic flavour combinations, a commitment to simple, quality ingredients and access to a local herd of alpine cows….
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Richard & Tracey Bullock make their own ice cream too. They wander over to Lagoon Valley Farm in Wanaka, the town where they live, and get some beautifully fresh alpine milk and cream. They head back to their kitchen (a commercial one) and mix in a dollop of their home made mascarpone, some oranges and some dates. They churn it up and freeze it down. Beautifully done. Or, they’ll simplify things even more and whip up another batch, this time with only Belgian chocolate and cacao, an ice cream that becomes so dark even light can’t escape it’s intense flavour. Done. And when the whimsey hits, they’ll infuse that alpine cream with ginger and kaffir lime (using organic leaves from the Hawkes Bay) to create some summer magic. Done. All these fabulous ice creams get placed, by hand, into tubs of what has become a constantly award winning product. It’s Pure New Zealand Ice Cream.
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Richard and Tracey really own that name. It goes to the core of who they are as people, as a family and you can see it right through their story. Richard grew up in Wellington but, as seems to be the right of passage for a lot of young Kiwi’s, growing up in one of the most amazing cities in one of the most amazing countries in the world just wasn’t enough (okay, so actually, Wellington wasn’t as cool back then as it is now, so, yeah). So Richard moved to Sydney’s northern beaches and worked in the restaurant scene for quite a while. As a chef, restaurant owner and entrepreneur, Richard particularly loved making desserts from a wide palette of influences and flavours which complimented Tracey’s skills and experience working alongside Richard in these areas. And of the desserts they like to make the most, their favourite was going from churn to plate, where they could whip up something local and fresh (both in terms of ingredients and concepts), churn it in the commercial kitchen’s ice cream maker and deliver it just in time for dessert. We’ve all seen this on the cooking shows, and yes, I want one too… right next to the Rocket E61, KitchenAide 5qt mixer and Vitamix blender I’ve yet to attain.
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Richard was fortunate to meet Tracey while living over-the-sea, but as their family grew (they have two daughters, Lara & Tess) and the stress of Sydney life bore down, the couple decided they wanted to slow down a bit, do something they loved and fully owned, while raising their children in a pure place. Wanaka it was then and ice cream became the extension of their food world. They moved back to NZ bringing a rescued ice cream churn from the basement of a Sydney restaurant and settled down. Tracey did some local school teaching and Richard worked at Treble Cone Ski resort to begin with. In the summers, Richard and Tracey would navigate that tricky road up the hill each day and use the empty kitchen to start churning out (get it, churning… clever eh?) ice cream. Richard’s background as a chef and a true Wellingtonian innovator appeared in his concepts and flavours which was backed by Tracey’s hospitality experience and tastes, having worked with Richard in their food and catering businesses back in Sydney. Take, for example, the special ice cream they came up with for Madame Woo’s in Queenstown (an innovative, beautiful restaurant space re-imaginging Asian street food) – salted coconut and mango! Bam! The couple’s Boysenberry is also exceptional. Like good chefs, they know where to find the ingredients that pop with flavour and keep it simple from there. This would include Pure NZ Ice Cream’s vanilla bean. Lovely and rich while being creamy as.
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As you can imagine, Richard and Tracey will have nothing to do with artificial colours, flavours, synthetic stabilizers, emulsifiers, gluten or gelatin. And for those who can’t do dairy, their sorbets, like the amazing passionfruit and banana, are dairy free and fabulous. These guys are solid creatives with a makers attitude living in a region that calls out purity and passion every day. What they make by hand, putting their heart and skills into, using the great ingredients they have access to in Wanaka and further afield, makes me completely fine with buying ice cream from someone who can do it even better than I can. Every time I pass by the freezer at Raeward Fresh, I spy those tasty tubs with new flavours emerging each season and wonder if they’ll make it all the way home this time…
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Sausage Rolls from our chef Anne Halson

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Anne Halson re-creates the classic sausage roll using Greek lamb
Here are a few tips for your next picnic outing.
Ingredients
Greek lamb Sausages
Flakey pastry or savoury short crust
Asparagus (raw)
Roasted red peppers (either jarred or your own)
Onion marmalade (again substitute for your favourite chutney)
Feta cheese (I find feta the most useful as a lot of other cheeses melt out)
1 egg for glaze
Method
• Cut the pastry to the desired size and shape place ingredients on pastry and roll.

• Glaze with beaten egg.
• Bake at 180’c (375˚F) for approx. 30 minutes or until golden.


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This idea can work anyway you would like. You can easily substitute ingredients for other sausages and overall flavour combinations. Make them a lunch size snack or canapé. If you have a particular sausage idea in mind, come and have a chat with our creative butcher David at Raeward Fresh – he’s always keen to make something new!
Also, be sure to visit Anne’s fantastic food blog: Fresh Kitchen
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Make It Raw with Julia Brown

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Problem: I know I should be eating more fresh fruit and veg in my diet, and as many raw things as possible (like nuts and kale and such) but, a lot of the time, and especially in winter, I want something crunchy and a little sweet or tad bit salty to snack on, and I’m not inclined to go for a piece of celery.
Solution: Make It Raw Crackers, Triple Nut Banana Bars and Grawnola.
Julia Brown, the brains and petite-brawn behind Make It Raw, has come up with a line of healthy raw foods that meets my need to eat healthier, and my cravings, head on. Here’s how it happened…

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Julia grew up near Rangiora on a smallish farm. She studied psychology at Uni but has always wanted to run her own business. So, after working for a stint at NZ’s largest health-food store (Huckleberry Farms in Auckland) she returned to Canterbury where she bought a Vitamix blender and started experimenting with raw recipes. The resulting raw chocolate pies, slices and various other snacks made their way to the Ohoka Farmers Market where she got heaps of encouragement, especially to share Make It Raw’s goodness in local stores. Shops started calling and asking to stock her products and so it went.
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One reason Make It Raw is now taking off (in 29 stores around NZ so far, including Raeward Fresh) is that even while New Zealand has heaps of great natural produce and supplies, not a lot of stores were selling anything like Julia’s raw crackers, snacks or breakfast foods. The challenge of dealing with raw product shelf life or customer acceptance might have put a lot of people off however Julia persisted in creating delicious snacks that can stay fresh, and raw just long enough for you to get your hands on some.
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One of my favourites, Make It Raw’s Triple Nut Banana bars, are made of activated almonds, banana, cashews, brazil nuts, coconut, apricots, cinnamon and NZ sea salt. These snacks are packed with flavour sans the preservatives or sweeteners you’d find a typical muesli bar. Julia’s nutrient rich Hazelnut Chocolate bar is made with organic raw cacao butter, organic raw agave, organic raw cacao powder, raw hazelnuts (spray free and grown right outside Julia’s new commercial kitchen at her mum’s orchard) and organic NZ sea salt. The Rosemary & Almond crackers are made from activated almonds, organic flaxseed, spray-free rosemary and organic New Zealand sea salt. Julia dries these ingredients at just the right temperature to maintain their raw goodness while preserving the flavour, and very importantly (to me), creating the crunch of a good cracker which goes great with a slather of garden made pesto or tapenade.
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Innovative raw food like this is brilliant in so many ways. Not only does it push the flavour and nutrition envelopes, it also adds new ideas to recipes or menus which are now becoming restaurant concepts in their own right (like Little Bird in Auckland or Ecopolitan in Minneapolis MN). I’ve done a whole month of eating only raw foods (RAWgust) and found the creative angles raw offered were astounding. However, it’s the mix of eating raw and cooked that makes both all the more interesting. I think this is the real genius behind Make It Raw’s offerings. Julia (who’s own diet is about 50% raw foods) doesn’t assume her customers are going to be fully raw/vegan down the line. Mimicking her own broad based cuisine, she offers a raw foundation piece so her customers can add healthy cooked foods to their own diets, while keeping the preservatives and sweeteners out of the mix. I love that I can now grab a few Make It Raw Olive Crackers and throw on a bit of hummus and feel great about the flavour and the health benefit.
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Everything Julia makes she makes by hand. The Vitamix, food processor and dehydrator are the only machinery in her kitchen and so the odd shaped crackers, the big chunky bits of granola and the squar-ish triple nut bars all carry the signature of a craftsperson who loves her job. We really appreciate everything Julia puts into her products and we’re really glad to stock these innovative snacks.
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Off Our Tree Cherries, with Gary & Ali Jackson

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Gary and Ali Jackson grow cherries out near Cromwell. Big, giant, plum-sized cherries. Cherries that burst with dark red sweetness and send a hit of melatonin to your brain, making you want to keep eating them past sated into that happy and pleasure-filled, drowsily euphoric (that’s the melatonin), festive feeling. Their orchard, Off Our Tree, grows super sweet Sweetheart cherries and punchy white-fleshed Rainiers, alongside Sonnets, Sambas, Stellas, Skeenas and Staccatos, each in a various shade of red. And, just when you think you can’t chomp another cherry, there’s Lapins, Kordias, Celestes and New Yorks to be had. In fact, Off Our Tree has 13 varieties comprising their 2500 cherry trees which grow on 3 hectares – it’s quite simply cherry heaven.

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So, it came as a surprise to discover that this orchard is barely 15 years old and that Gary and Ali both trained as teachers, not horticulturalists. Both their sets of parents (and, on Gary’s side, grandparents) were teachers and principals of schools around the Kaipara region north of Auckland. Ali still teaches in Cromwell but around 15 years ago the Jacksons decided to move to Ripponvale. What started off as a ‘lifestyle block’ turned into a full-time business growing some of the best cherries in the world. They bought some land before things got pricey and found the Waenga loam soil, washed down over centuries from the Mount Pisa fault block range, was exceptionally rich and fertile. Seeing as the soil was “too good for grapes” (in Gary’s opinion), they decided to plant cherry trees and followed the lead of some long-term friends who were doing the same. 

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Today, most of Gary’s huge (26 to 34mm) cherries go overseas as export grade product, travelling as far as Russia, Taiwan, Korea and Western Australia. Raeward Fresh is one of the few local stores to sell boxes or punnets of Stellas and Rainiers over their short harvesting season throughout the Christmas period. When Gary first started connecting with a few local markets to share his cherries with, he got in touch with Moore Wilson’s in Wellington. He then met Nathan (who also had a good relationship with the Wellington store) who quickly said he’d take as much as Off Our Tree could supply. Part of the reward for Gary and Ali selling local is the enthusiasm their cherries are met with, with the key complaint being that customers find they devour them too quickly!

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Walking around the orchard, I got a down to earth look at why Off Our Tree grows such amazing fruit. As teachers, the Jacksons are great learners and have brought intellectual rigour and curiosity to their commitment to understand all they can about each cherry variety they grow and sell. Gary and Ali work their tails off insuring that each of their 2500 trees (which Gary dug each and every hole for) is perfectly pruned each year using the central leader method. They have to deal with frosts, rain, wind and birds in a constant dance of weather and wildlife management. Large nets that keep the birds off the trees and rain damage to a minimum have to be put up and taken down every year. Ali still teaches during school terms but is on deck at the orchard when the trees start to fruit, which happens during her ‘holidays’. When the picking starts, Gary knows each tree’s fruiting cycle and sends his pickers to fill orders via the comprehensive spreadsheet in his head.

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The Jackson’s have also worked hard to promote new cherries like the white-fleshed Rainier (a Washington State variety), educating the general Kiwi public about this beautiful golden yellow and pink hued cherry, so different from the archetypal deep red fruit that customers initially thought it was a dud. They care to ensure that their land is farmed in a sustainable way, including the keeping of bees which pollinate the orchard while making a delicious honey from the nectar of the wild viper’s bugloss, which grows around the orchard. And they’re enthusiastic about ideas for new fruit to fill the other three hectares in their care – perhaps with the loganberries, karaka blackberries and greengages they’re experimenting with. Whatever it is these folks end up growing, I’m sure it’ll be some of New Zealand’s finest.

Nutritional Advice from Kim Malcolm

The Nutrition of a Cherry

Cherries are most commonly known for containing melatonin, the sleep hormone that is also naturally created in the body to regulate the circadian rhythms.  As the body typically only creates melatonin in darkness not everyone is able to produce it, so eating cherries or taking natural cherry concentrated juice can boost your melatonin levels.  

Cherries are high in the antioxidant that is associated with reducing inflammation in the body, so that makes them helpful for working against gout or arthritis.  This also works to lower the risk of certain diseases like cancer and heart disease.

Additionally, cherries contain small levels of zinc, which is needed to support the immune system and moderate levels of potassium that support the heart.

The last bit of helpful information is that whether you are eating sweet or tart cherries they are 75% water and full of soluble fiber.  So, all in all, this sweet treat is to be recognized as not just something that is extremely delicious to eat but also beneficial to your health! 

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Inch Valley Preserves with Maria Barta & Jim Hinkley

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Imagine living on a wee, well-established orchard budding with black currants, red currants, gooseberries, plums, quinces, crab apples and damson plums. Now, add a lovely historic home equipped with a commercial kitchen in which to create jams, jellies, mustards and even verjuice to your heart’s content. Put yourself in a perfect growing climate where the summers are hot and the winters are cold but dry, on land blessed with rich river loam soil, all situated just a few kilometres from the Otago coastline and your dream is complete. Such is the life of Inch Valley Preserves owners Maria Barta and her husband Jim Hinkley.
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Like many Otago pioneers, Maria and Jim bring a substantial background of diverse education and experience to their food craft. Maria, for instance, studied design, tourism, marketing and various food sciences on her way to becoming an English teacher. She taught in and around Dunedin for some time before the commute made her rethink her life and creative possibilities. She and Jim decided to convert part of their home into a commercial kitchen and Inch Valley Preserves was born. Jim got to bring his love of cooking as well as a career of graphic design and marketing to the business. They love the collaborative community of Inch Valley where sharing pastured eggs, fresh fruits and vegetables, and artisanal skills is the normal way of life. From the start they realised that they were manufacturers first and foremost. However, now they also enjoy selling at the Oamaru and Palmerston Farmers markets.
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Maria’s parents were from Vienna and fostered a diverse food culture with a mix of Hungarian, Austrian and Jewish cuisines. They emigrated and settled in the South Island, and Maria was fortunate to be raised where goulash and Wiener Schnitzel appeared frequently at meal times, and even the occasional Apfel Strudel. Her lunch box had salami and wurst and potato salad while her schoolmates had vegemite sammies. This diversity made its way deep into Maria’s psyche, as she now has over 30 jams, preserves, mustards, honeys, spreads and verjuice on her product list. And what’s really interesting is that each of her condiments has a unique twist, harkening back to that diverse culture of her origins. Inch Valley’s Quince and Rose Quiddany jelly, Pickled Shallots with Saffron or the Green Fig and Armagnac Preserve all share glimpses of other lands and times, reborn for New Zealanders today on the borders of Central Otago.
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At Raeward Fresh we stock Maria’s Pickled Lemon Slices which she hand cuts perfectly thin, so that each piece is ready to lay on top of your very own herbed couscous or freshly grilled salmon. We also have Inch Valley’s Kiwi classic, Lemon Honey, as well as their South Pacific twist on the theme — the Lime and Passionfruit Honey (made with fresh pastured eggs from their Inch Valley neighbours). Rounding out the offerings at Raeward Fresh, we carry their Beetroot, Horseradish and Clyde Walnut relish. Each jar is a brilliant combination of local ingredients (except for the lemons, shallots and figs which come all the way from Blenheim:-) and which Maria and Jim concoct on a daily basis.
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Maria and Jim might be living the dream, but running your own business, even in a lovely valley settlement that’s been around since the 1860s gold rush, is still hard work. There’s heaps of food prep to be done (mostly by Jim) and hundreds of labels to be placed on jars that the couple have carefully selected to match the gift-like nature of their products. There is not a lot of machinery in their kitchen either, which means most of what comes out of Inch Valley Preserves has been made by hand.
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Maria carefully selects the places where Inch Valley Preserves are sold (predominately in the South Island), as she likes the intimate interactions with customers and purveyors, whether it’s at local farmers markets or over the phone with Angela. Accounting, which Maria finds tedious, is outsourced, but they work very hard on the things they love. I think it shows, whether it’s in the tasteful design of their packaging or Maria’s insistence on consistently making products of the highest quality with the best ingredients largely grown in her very own beautiful garden.

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Maria and Jim have been in Inch Valley for 27 years. They love tending the garden that is their one acre property and they love the ongoing education of crafting artisanal foods. They appreciate being part of a supportive community and have been glad to share the goodness that surrounds them.
PS: “Inch” is a Scottish term meaning an island in a river or a meadow flooded by a river — and, yes, it does!
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Alpine Gold fruit juices and cider

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In a world of sickly sweet fruit drinks made with too many additives, or, from concentrated old fruit, it’s a real pleasure to twist open a bottle from Alpine Gold and taste the real thing – fresh fruit picked and pressed like you made it yourself. It’s so good, you’d think every juice manufacturer would be taking local and abundant fruit and pressing them straight into fresh juice. For many companies, the need to bulk out their product or make it last forever on the grocery store shelf, means they have to use extra ingredients that dilute the whole experience. For boutique producers like Alpine Gold however, keeping it simple, fresh and local is an artisanal and natural approach.
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The company started when Bruce McGregor, an apple farmer in Ettrick (near Dumbarton, which is near Roxburgh, which is near Alexandra… which is near Queenstown) noticed how many of his apples were being wasted when they didn’t match the beauty grades required for the supermarket. He decided to start pressing his own juice but needed a good supply of water for the process. Bruce got in contact Tony Butson who had the natural spring water he required and they formed a company together. Tony later bought the company and moved it up to Cromwell – surrounded by fruit orchards – where Wayne Noble now runs the day to day juice creation. Tony also introduced Alpine Gold to Angela and Nathan at Raeward Fresh.
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Wayne works with local farmers in the Cromwell region to get fruit straight from their harvest into his juices. Loads of tasty apricots, nectarines, raspberries, boysenberries and feijoas all make their way into the special blends Alpine is known for. Along with a great range of fruit juices, Wayne has also created a lovely cider made in the more traditional English style – which really stands out amongst the sweeter commercial ciders presently flooding back into popularity. Amongst his other innovations, he’s also come up with a unique bottling process which Alpine’s web site describes as follows:
The bottling process utilises a plate heat exchanger that pasteurises the juice prior to filling. The juice is filtered and then heated to 90° Celsius before bottling. The bottles are then filled with the hot juice, which in turn sterilises the bottle and cap. It is the heating of the juice and “hot-bottling” that allows us to produce quality juices with no preservatives and a shelf life of 18 months.
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Another thing worth mentioning about Alpine’s local plant is that all of the pomace left over from their fruits go to a local worm farm (Wormworx) where they are recycled back into the region’s agriculture. There’s a redemptive cycle going on at Alpine and it’s encouraging to see. Wayne likes to talk about his products as “nature made it” and instead of calling the drinks ‘fruit juices’, Alpine thinks of them more as juiced fruits. This distinction is a nice nod to the straightforward approach resulting in a distinct experience for each purchaser. Each bottle kinda hits you with how pure and, well, fruity the juices are. To describe this better, I’m going to take a sip of each one and try and tell you what my palate tells me:
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Benger Apple
A cloudy juice with lovely suspended bits of apple floating like stars in the bottle. The taste – a sweet smooth flavour of summer apples sans the crunch, like when you visited your grandma’s and sat under her tree sucking the juices off an apple that just fell next to you. The sweetness hits you but has a crisp note to finish. A top quality apple juice, outstanding and pure.
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Benger Apple & Feijoa
The creamy look of this blend has an opaque promise of the pulpy feijoa about to surprise you. Feijoa’s can be a strong, almost sour flavour but this blend is just right. The apple balancing the unique feijoa tang. A kiwi twist on apple juice, with that surprising and unusual nature.
Benger Nectarine
A lovely cloudy golden yellow color like the inside flesh the nectarine itself. More like a nectar in mouth feel, it’s just fruit and mineral water. Silky but not sickly sweet. The back of your throat get’s that nectarine punch as it goes down.
Benger Apricot
A beautiful light orange color, rich but smooth. A puree & mineral water, a perfect mix of texture. More flavour dimensions than the other juices (so far) with notes of the stonefruit coming through strongly but mixed with a light hint of grape, bright.
The pick of the bunch, a real find among juices.
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Benger Apple & Raspberry
A magical pinky red potion with an initial slight sour bite as a fresh raspberry is likely to give you, quickly followed with sweet bursts of the fruit. More like a juice than a nectar and really refreshing. The most revitalizing of the bunch.
Benger Apple & Boysenberry
A dark red claret, a blend of boysenberries and fresh apples, a fuller taste (than the raspberry) which is gentle and well rounded. Plump fruit, ripe and sumptuous, the kind of drink you want to linger over to ponder those rich notes of cherry and oak and autumn.
Wild Cider
Clear and slightly golden in colour, a crispy, almost cider vinegar hit followed by the subtle alcohol (5.5% or 1.2 standard drinks). The apple packs a punch, wild as it says. You know you’re drinking this one, not like the sweeter versions that may go well with a meat pie, this one will wake you up and put you back to work sheering sheep or building houses or some manly endeavor..
So those are my experiences. I suggest you pop into the Raeward Fresh and take a sip for yourself.
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Weka Olive Oil with Peter and Laraine Rothenberg

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The word serendipity was first coined by Horace Walpole in 1754 describing people who were “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”. This well describes the tale of Peter and Laraine Rothenberg’s journey and the creation of WEKA Olive oil. From the corporate halls of Manhattan to the fertile hills near Motueka, the Rothernbergs have wisely happened upon green, gold, silver and bronze – the colors of the many awards they’ve received.
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Peter and Laraine had been practicing law in NYC for decades when they decided to start planning their retirement. Their son had helped identify the Nelson area as a beautiful place to buy a small home where the Rothenbergs could ‘get away from it all’. As foreigners, buying anything bigger than a small place triggers acquisition laws which Peter and Laraine did not want to get tangled up in. However, having looked around the Moutere Hills they fell in love with a 350 acre block previously used for sheep farming. Acquisition laws now triggered, they had to come up with a beneficial (to NZ) business plan. They decided on timber and bought the place. Sheep still graze part of the block and the NZ timber industry has a few more pine trees to mill now. So far, so good. But on a trip to Waiheke, Peter and Laraine saw some olive groves which they thought would make a lovely border in the place between their home and budding forest.
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This is where the sagacious character of the two takes them another step towards serendipity. In choosing which trees to plant, the pair did their research (once a lawyer…), hired a consultant and decided to plant a bit of a grove (1400 trees) instead of a border. They went with Leccino and Frantoio trees for their fruitiness as well as the rarer Greek Koroneiki for it’s high yield of bold peppery olives. The land they’d purchased happened to be rich in Moutere Clay (perfect for olives) and at an elevation which lifts them above the frosts, meaning their olives can stay on the tree longer and develop their fullest possible flavours.
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Working with local growers, the regions co-op olive press, consultants and a few of their own employees, the Rothenbergs started WEKA Olive Oils. In querying the two on how they created such an amazing product in such a short time (as legal types!), they told me that living in Manhattan had developed a foodie palette which knew quality when they saw it. And they saw it in the New Zealand landscape, the prolific growth of its agriculture and the innovative people working by their side. It’s been lots of work and due diligence to get things this far, and the Rothenbergs have added a bit of their own adopted Kiwi ingenuity to keep things going, like the ‘bird scarer’ they’ve installed to ensure the ripening olives remain on their trees. The last few years have been full of discovery, accidents and sagacity which has resulted in an award winning olive oil.
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I sampled some WEKA Olive Oil this morning with a little home made ciabatta. The verdant green immediately impresses as fresh and rich. The first notes of flavour taste like the hilly fields in which the trees are grown, followed by a mellow olive green which worked beautifully with the fresh bread by itself and then even better as a compliment to the hummus I added. This is definitely a dipping oil, and too precious for cooking with. It’s a little pricey, but not more than a good bottle of wine – and it would last much longer once open. There are a few applications for this level of certified extra virgin oil, (see recipe below) but I suggest starting out with it as a dipping oil, then using it for dressings and perhaps specialty baking after that. It’s so good, you’ll want to pair it’s use with your other best ingredients and foods. It seems that what started as a simple retirement plan has now wonderfully evolved into one of New Zealand’s premier olive oils. It’s so good, they even sell it back in Manhattan!
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Don Rodrigo Sourdough Lavash Bread – Cracker Oil bread with rosemary and WEKA Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Serves – approx. 7 pieces
Preparation Time: Resting 6 hours
Shaping 20minutes
Baking 15minutes
Mixing 10 minutes
Ingredients:
 For the dough
250g rye meal or wholemeal rye flour
250g wholemeal wheat flour
12g of salt
12ml of WEKA Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3g freshly ground pepper
150g of Don Rodrigo sourdough starter (or similar)
225ml of cold water
*extra sea salt to sprinkle
For the topping
WEKA Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Fresh rosemary
Preparation:
• Mix all the ingredients for the dough in a mixing bowl (you might need an extra bit of water, but not too much, this should be a firm dough, but easy to roll). Mixing the dough should take only 5 minutes – you just need to bring the ingredients together, there is no need for kneading. Cover the dough with plastic and let it rest at room temperature for 6 hours.
• After 6 hours the dough should be fermenting, because of the low content of gluten it will not grow. The dough will be ready to roll when it tastes sour.
• Cut into pieces of 120gr, roll the dough (1mm thick), place the pieces of dough on the trays, sprinkle sea salt and bake for 15 minutes at 170 degrees Celsius. The dough is baked when it is not soft in the middle and it has a light golden colour. Transfer immediately to a cooling rack and spread a mix of the olive oil and fresh rosemary (ideally mashed in a mortar).
• Serve with cheeses, paté, or put it in the kids’ lunch boxes, they will go crazy!
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Pinoli Pine Nuts with Zoë Thompson & Lee Paterson

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Growing pine nuts is an exercise in patience. The European stone pine (pinus pinea) takes around 10 to 12 years to produce it’s first edible nuts, but then doesn’t really come into maturity until it’s 40 years old. The cone itself (which houses the seeds – that we call the ‘nuts’) takes three years to go from a bud (yes, pine trees flower) to the mature cone. Oh, and then there’s the extraction process. Even with heat applied to the cone (which ain’t easy to get off the tree), it takes about 3 months for the tightly clinched woody misers to slowly open up and give you access to the shell, which then needs to be cracked and extracted for the actual ‘nut’ to appear. On top of all that, there’s the hand sorting, cleaning, packaging and sending required for me, the happy customer, to be able to snag a few bags of these precious nuts at my local Raeward Fresh. And to think, all I wanted was to make a lazy Sunday afternoon pesto with rocket from my garden to share with some friends over a glass of Central Otago pinot (or two). Phew!
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For these reasons, we’re all pretty grateful for Zoë Thompson, her partner Lee Paterson, and their business partners Andy and Barbara Wiltshire at Pinoli Pine Nuts who had the foresight to plant 14,000 stone pines 18 years ago. Pinoli have the largest pine nut orchards in New Zealand with about 430,000 trees currently growing and plans to plant at least another 50,000 in the next two years. These guys have been in it for the very long haul and have the right stuff when it comes to growing this rare kind of food. Zoë has worked in gardening for ages and Lee and Andy have worked in forestry, forest management and silviculture all their lives – jobs they kept after planting their pines and waiting for the cones to show up. Along with Andy, Zoë and Lee searched the Marlborough region for just the right Mediterranean-like environment for the stone pine to flourish. They initially chose the Wairau Valley for its fertile soils and high sun shine hours but later plantings have been out towards the east coast of Marlborough where its drier and the land is slightly cheaper. European Stone pine does best in well drained soil. Zoë tells me “they don’t like wet feet and humid weather, preferring instead cold winters and hot dry summers.”
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The bulk of today’s worldwide production of pine nuts (which isn’t a lot) comes from Asian varieties noted for their shorter rounded kernels. These smaller nuts also taste bland by comparison. The team at Pinoli, Italian for pine nut, have instead raised a forest of European stone pines noted for their longer kernels and distinctive taste. It’s like fresh pine combined with buttery, nutty notes. Zoë is committed to this fresh flavour coming through in every package, so she hand sorts these little jewels and ships them promptly. When Zoë and Lee first started harvesting their pine cones they had to No. 8 wire all kinds of systems. No one in NZ had ever done pine nuts at this level. For example, picking the cones was originally done by hand using long, 5m poles with hooks on the end! They have since researched, travelled and invented their way into a harvesting system that now includes proper tree shakers (which again, only work on trees that are at least 15 years old so as not to damage them… more of that pine nut growers patience required) and better processing equipment.
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After all this waiting and diligence, Zoë still packages by hand and heads over in person to the Marlborough Farmers Market to share the pine nut love with their region. She likes the interaction with customers, sharing taste comparisons with other pine nuts, swapping recipes and telling their story. And it seems their story has gotten around too. Initially chefs heard about Pinoli, before a couple of successful Fete events put them firmly on the specialty food map. They still only sell in a few stores around NZ and are now considering exporting as the effects of an evil weevil plaguing Italian and Spanish forests takes it toll on international yields. Pinoli is grateful for the strict bio standards we have in NZ which is helping to keep their forests bug free. Pinoli doesn’t need to use pesticides or fertilizers on their trees and the pine nuts have no added chemicals or preservatives.
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Pine nuts have traditionally been used in making pestos, their creamy flavour rounding out the herbal bitterness. But as you’ll see on Pinoli’s site, there are heaps of ways to make use of these versatile nuts. The nutritional profile of European stone pine kernels is particularly beneficial, weighing in at almost 34% protein with healthy quantities of vitamins (especially Thiamine B1, Vitamin E & K) and minerals (especially iron, manganese and zinc). All of this is good news, but it does come at a price. As our little blog highlights, this rare breed of tree (for NZ) with long harvesting cycles and the labour extensive extraction processes takes both time and money. This is why pine nuts, especially those from the stone pine, are expensive. But like all good things, having a little less of delicious, nutritious high quality food is always better – and, we think, ultimately more affordable across a holistic approach to wellbeing – than having lots of bland, empty-calorie, low quality food. Pinoli’s NZ grown pine nuts are well and truly in the high quality, exceptional food category!
Zoë’s tips on how to toast or roast your Pinoli pine nuts
Pine nuts maybe eaten raw but are usually toasted or roasted to bring out the flavour. The only times we prefer to use them raw are when they will become toasted, fried or roasted during the cooking of the recipe.
To roast: place raw pine nuts on a flat baking tray in a 180C preheated oven for about 10 minutes, shaking the tray halfway through the cooking time. Nuts are ready when they are lightly golden. They will continue to brown a little more even after you remove them from the oven. Keep an eye on them as all ovens are different and pine nuts can burn easily because of their high oil content.
To toast: place pine nuts in a dry (no oil) frying pan on top of a medium heat, move continuously by shaking the pan every 20 seconds or so. Pine nuts will toast quickly, remove from heat when golden and place on a cool plate to stop the pine nuts cooking any further.
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ROAR Foods with Gabriel Power

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Gabriel Power. What a name. It conjures up images of MI 6 exploits in Istanbul or at least, a guy who really knows his super foods. Gabriel even looks like he could be up to some kind of international do-gooding – which would not have been the case if you knew him growing up. Instead, Gabriel was that kid eating crumbly rice crackers and drinking soy milk for lunch at school. He was that kid who’s mum called ahead for birthday parties prescribing the limited foods Gabriel could eat. Embarrassing. Gabriel was also that kid who’s health conscious parents were constantly self diagnosing potential allergies and food related pitfalls for the poor young lad. And if not for some cosmic twist of food fate, Gabriel would have been that kid who grew up to work in some dark corner of a science lab or evaporating the hours playing video games in his mums basement, eating kale chips of course.
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The twist for Gabriel however, was that as he grew up, he channeled his ‘organic’ food upbringing into a serious interest into how food actually works. He studied psychology and biology in school and gained his BSc in science. After an OE in Europe, Gabriel returned to NZ working with organic shops in Auckland and then in Melbourne where the serious work in raw foods was developing. During this time, Gabriel did some serious research into the many health claims and possibilities of raw food in particular, and in particular, how to get these organic concepts into some great tasting products.
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Returning to Auckland, Gabriel decided to put all his experiences and research to work in the form of a company he’s called ROAR Foods. The core idea is to make things that have outstanding flavour, extremely high health value and by happenstance, are raw. Not raw to be trendy, but because when Gabreil puts his super-food powers to work, he comes up with say, a scroggin, that has activated almonds, goji berries and raw cacao nibs. Or a line of snack nuts that have been properly soaked, dried and packaged to provide a great tasting Brazil nut or peacan. Or a creamed coconut butter that has all the benefits of coconut oils with the combined dietary fibre, proteins and minerals.
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So far, you may think this is becoming par for the course, that a lot of people are packaging raw nuts or cacao nibs or making coconut oils… At ROAR though these products have been taken a few steps further. For instance, at ROAR, the raw nuts are soaked so as to strip the anti-nutrients they inherently have to avoid being eaten and ‘activate’ the sprouting properties of the nuts which is where all the really good healthy stuff lives. After Gabriel activates the almonds or Brazil nuts, he then dries them back out in such a way that they gain that all important crunch and flavour of a roasted nut, however without having lost their nutrients being cooked.
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This kind of attention to the science and epicurean details of ingredients is applied across the board at ROAR. Gabriel has watched this field develop for a while now and has gone deep in both the application of smart principles in raw food development and also in a better kind of communication regarding the benefits. Talking with Gabriel about health claims for instance, you can see that he’s not only stripped the bitter tannins in the nuts, but also all the inaccuracies behind the certain health claims. Instead, Gabriel will break down the facts in say coconut sugar, and describe how their’s not really a lot of data to substantiate the low GI count. But as a scientist, he also knows the inulin in coconut sugar (which slows the sugars uptake in our metabolism) when properly tested, would indeed show a low GI and he clarifies this to his customers.
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Reading through ROAR’s web site, you can find heaps of this rich level of detail. Even better, it’s not the nerdy approach Gabriel’s youth might have led him to. Instead, it’s got all kinds of accessible information on great tasting products and processes. Gabriel’s attention to food detail is matched with his commitment to great flavour and value. I highly recommend having a good peruse through these web pages to get a better understanding of what makes ROAR foods so great, and definitely worth the money. At Raeward Fresh stores around the country, we’re stoked to have Gabriel’s ROAR Foods on our shelves so that you, and maybe your kids, can have a seriously delicous food, including killer kale chips, that won’t get them beat up at school.
Recipe: Raw Christmas Cake
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Gabriel has been kind enough to break out his chef skills this Christmas combining all these great nutritional tips with a seasonal and delicious culinary expression. Check it out!

Ingredients (serves 10):

Wet ingredients:

*You can flambé the alcohol to burn it off or use 30ml vanilla extract (which contains a little alcohol) for a non-alcohol version.

Binding Ingredients:

Dry ingredients:

Garnish:


Vegan Raw Christmas Cake Method:
This recipe is actually quite flexible. As long as you adhere to the simple principles of combining dry ingredients (ground nuts and seeds) and wet ingredients (dried fruit and liquids) along with the binding ingredients (ground linseed, water and coconut oil) you can mix and match the types of dried fruits and nuts as you wish.

Put all of the wet ingredients in a bowl together to soak.

Blend the dry ingredients in a food processor until they have reached a meal consistency. Ensure you do leave some nice big chunks for added textures so don’t over blend.

Put the the dry ingredients and wet ingredients into a food processor. Combine the binding ingredients in a separate bowl first and then add to the dry and wet ingredients in the food processor. Combine everything by pulsing again ensuring leave a little texture in the mixture.

Your cake mixture should be moist and combined at this point. You may need to add a little extra water at this point but the less moisture you can get away with the less you will have to dehydrate out of it later so only do this if it isn’t combining in the food processor or look dry.

Put into the dehydrator for a minimum of 4 hours up to 24 hours (depending on the moisture content you added and how moist you want your cake). If you don’t have a dehydrator, just put your oven onto its lowest setting (usually 50°C) and wedge the door slightly open with a steel dish cloth or something. If all else fails you can just skip the dehydrating step and put into the fridge – your cake will be quite moist though.

Once the cake has finished dehydrating you will notice that some of the oil will have risen to the top. Poke some holes in the cake to let it soak back in and then smooth the hole over with a spoon.
Sprinkle over the garnishes.

Refrigerate the cake for at least half an hour before serving.
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Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you all have a happy and healthy New Year : )

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Foundation Foods Stocks & Glazes

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The difference between an average meal and one that’s really special is all about the layers of flavour and seasonings that have gone into its preparation. For instance, a great soup is built upon an outstanding stock. And great stocks require someone to put hours of work into developing them using the best fresh vegetables and quality meat bones, taking care to use just the right amount of heat over a long period of time to extract all the goodness of the ingredients while removing fat and gunk. Creating just a couple of litres of top shelf beef stock can take 10 hours of effort from a cook who really knows what they’re doing. And this, I believe, is why too many of our day to day meals remain average. Who has the time (even if you have the skills) to build these kinds of layers into a Thursday night leak and potato soup or to make a killer sauce to drizzle over those local lamb chops on a Saturday night BBQ?
Fortunately, Shane Blake at Foundation Foods has all the time, skills and gear to transform my average everyday meals into fantastic fare.
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Shane grew up in Christchurch and started working as a butcher at the age of 15. After learning heaps on the job about all the various kinds and cuts of meats, he went on to Christchurch Polytech and studied to be a chef. As a chef, Shane had to build soup stocks as well as the more difficult to create consommés. Being a natural born researcher he wanted to know why the restaurants often did not have perfectly clear broths and sought out traditional techniques to make the pure, rich, cloudless consommé required for their dishes. This meant studying meat proteins, methods for removing impurities and the right tools and temperatures to get a perfect result. As time went on, Shane got bored with repetitive restaurant work and wanted to focus on creating the best stock and glazes he could for other professionals.
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Like a lot of the producers we’ve profiled in this blog, Shane took a punt on what looked like an opportunity and started a business producing product of the highest quality for people who appreciated the end result but did not have the time, means or skills to create it for themselves. Shane figured there were enough kitchens around the country who would want this kind of foundation for their dishes. Thus was born Foundation Foods in 1995. Shane tells me that he destroyed a lot of cooking gear in his quest to get just the right techniques and thermal interactions to produce stock in large quantity, innovating methods along the way so that he could reliably scale what he knew how to do in smaller volumes at a commercial restaurant kitchen. He was part of the pioneering group of New Zealand chefs who helped develop the cook and chill methods which allowed Foundation Foods to produce an amazing product that could be kept in the fridge until needed (between 45 days and 6 months, depending on the stock or glaze).
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After making his first production batches and sharing it with chefs around the country, he got orders that ran his fledgling company off its feet. They went from making 700 litres a week in 1996 to 10,000 litres per day today. Perhaps more amazingly, Foundation Foods have kept the same level of quality in their stocks and glazes throughout their expansion. This comes back to Shane’s ability to research and find the best cookery gear and processes available to maintain what he knows chefs need. The trial and error inherent in such a process is intense, from finding the best ingredients to keeping up with demand (including a commitment to NO PRESERVATIVES), to finding the perfect packaging for storage and simplicity of use in a commercial kitchen setting.
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The success of Shane’s business means that many of the really great meals you’ve eaten in restaurants all over NZ probably have their foundational layers of flavour built using Foundation Foods stocks and glazes. I know this is true in the kitchen where I work where we’ve been using Foundation Foods stocks for ever. I can attest to the rich depth their beef stock adds to our beef cheek stout stew (see recipe below) or our slow cooked traditional french onion soup. I’ll pull out a five liter container for these dishes knowing the whole batch is going to deliver a fabulous and consistent flavour, aware that it would have otherwise taken me two days to create just the stock alone.
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So here’s some good news: Foundation Foods are now selling their stocks and glazes at Raeward Fresh. Happy days ahead for my home kitchen and yours! This is a boon for anyone serious about quality cooking at home. I’ve tried powders and stocks from the mainstream brands, and they’re better than nothing but not by much. If you warm up a bit of your average supermarket stock next to one from Foundation Foods and do a taste test, you’ll experience a huge contrast in flavour, texture and if you’re a super taster, you’ll probably notice a distinct lack of preservatives from Shane’s brand. To get a feel for this, try the recipe below or even a simple chicken noodle soup using Foundation’s excellent and relatively inexpensive chicken stock. Getting this level of flavour, quality and, all without the preservatives typical in most stocks, will probably make you a believer like we are at Raeward Fresh.
Recipe: Beef Cheek & Dark Stout Stew
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Down the road from the Raeward Fresh store in Queenstown, Kinloch Lodge makes a hearty beef cheek & stout beer stew. Hikers coming off the Routeburn or Greenstone tracks want a nourishing stew (which is why they add a local dark stout!) that has depth and a rich flavour to counter the cool weather outside. Foundation Foods beef stock is the perfect ingredient to both mellow and enrich the natural gelatinous nature of beef cheeks throughout this slow cooking process. Similar to a Boeuf Bourguignon, this meal is about browning the inexpensive but super tasty beef cheeks and then cooking them long and slow with some alcohol, in this case, a dark or chocolate stout beer. Bring on winter!
Ingredients:
1 kg of beef cheeks (cut into 3cm cubes, leave the fat on)
100g unbleached white flour
sea salt and ground pepper
canola oil (enough to fry the meat in)
2 large carrots (chopped)
2 large onions (chopped)
2 leeks (chopped)
a splash of red wine (optional)
1 tsp dried tarragon
1 tsp dried sage
4 bay leaves
1 litre Foundation Foods beef stock
500mls dark stout beer (I like No 8 Wired The Big Smoke, although a chocolate stout works wonders too)
200g tomato paste
50g brown sugar
Method:
• Coat the beef cheek cubes in a mix of the flour salt and pepper, dust off the excess.
• In a large heavy bottomed pot, add enough canola oil to cover the bottom at a height of a few millimeters. Over medium high heat, brown the beef cheeks in small batches (so they don’t stew) and set aside.
• In the same pot, fry the carrots, onions and leeks all at the same time until they soften, and start to brown just a tad. Add a splash of red wine to deglaze the bottom and cook a couple minutes more to burn off the alcohol.
• Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil.
• At this point, you can either add the beef cheek cubes and bring to a simmer for a few hours, or (my preference), place the beef cheeks in a large casserole dish and pour the liquid / vegetable mix over them and cover with foil. Some like to add a couple of sprigs of rosemary.
• Bake at 170˚ for 3 hours, checking the fluid level once in the middle of the cooking. If you are simmering, keep the lid on and stir occasionally, watching your liquid levels. If you run low in either case, add some more beef stock.
To Serve: At the restaurant in Kinloch, we like serving this with a dollop of horseradish cream (horseradish mixed with heavy whipped cream or sour cream) alongside a parsnip mash.