I have a soft spot for products made locally. When you combine that soft spot with cooking and beautiful packaging – things get can get a bit crazy! Over the past year, I’ve been lucky enough to meet Jo from Bees Blessing. And I can guarantee she is as delightful as all their products!

Tonight I made an absolutely delicious marinade for our chicken made with their latest treasure: Lemon & Thyme.  I’ve never tasted anything so tender and full of flavour – it was absolutely fantastic. The chicken tenderloins were only marinaded for 30 minutes before being grilled. Here is what I made this evening (give or take).

1/4 cup Bees Blessing
3 Tbs soy sauce
2 tsp fresh ginger
2 Tbs fresh garlic
1 tsp chili flakes
1 tsp dried coriander

The chicken was served along side a large green salad made out of:

baby spinach
basil
sundried tomato feta
sundried tomatoes
pine nuts
sunflower seeds

Look for Bees Blessing in a cafe or store near you and make sure to pick it up on your next shop!  I guarantee you won’t regret it!

Summer is a great time to experiment making new salads. You really can’t go wrong – some baby spinach, fresh tomato, avocado, pine nuts and topping of the day! Here is one of the salads I made over the holiday break, mentioned in my Staycation post, which I promised I would post! I hope you enjoy! x

Serves 4 – 6

Preheat oven to 200C

Simply cook a piece of venison roast with some pumpkin and herbs of your choice – for approximately 20 minutes (depending on size of meat and pumpkin pieces).  A great tip when cooking with meat like venison is to rinse off completely before cooking as it helps get rid of the gamey / metallic flavour a lot of people taste. My personal favourite company in New Zealand is Silver Fern Farms – the quality is fantastic!

In a medium sized salad bowl mix together: baby spinach, baby rocket, a handful of pine nuts and sunflower seeds, and fresh basil leaves. Hand mix all the elements together and set aside.

Once the venison and pumpkin are ready and slightly cooled, add to salad bowl and top with crumbled blue cheese. I personally don’t add any dressing as find the venison and blue cheese full of flavour! The salad goes great with homemade crostini or pita chips!

Enjoy! x

I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday break so far! As all my family is in the US and my partner who’s family is in beautiful Wanaka originally thought that he would have to be working through – we are having a “staycation” in Auckland this year!

With so many people leaving the Auckland region for the holidays we thought it would be a great time to explore our “new” home. Unfortunately the weather gods have had other plans. Providing us with some pretty bad weather.

So we’ve made the most of it with doing what we love!

I FINALLY got some new gym shoes (been wanting some for about a year – yay!) and have really given them a go with going to the gym for the last five days straight – wowie (helps justify that summer wine of course)! I did the girly thing of cleaning out my closet, tidied up my desk (that was seriously needed) and have given our apartment a nice big clean. We’ve also made some delicious meals (pictured top right – recipe to come) and did my first baking in four months! Since going super healthy I’ve stopped baking – which breaks my heart – but sacrifices have to be made…  We also managed to get on over to White’s & Co  (pictured bottom left) for a delicious soft serve yogurt treat thank’s to The Collective!

Fingers crossed, the weather is supposed to improve and tomorrow we’re venturing out for our first tiki tour! I’m sure to keep you posted and hope you’re all having a lovely break full of family, friends, and great food! x