New Zealand Garden Diary: What to Cook When You Have a Lot of Kale

March 24, 2021

My submission for Lyttelton's Harbour Kitchen cookbook uses something I have in the garden all year around (and store cupboard ingredients). Don't you love kale?⁠⁠

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Quick Kale and Cashew Stir Fry

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Ingredients (per person)

Small handful of kale

One serving of noodles

Small handful of salted cashews

Dash of soy sauce

Dash of sweet soy sauce (kecap manis) or sweet chilli sauce

Dash of sesame oil and enough sunflower oil to coat pan

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Method

If you want the recipe to be vegetarian, wash the kale. Then drain, pat dry and remove the big central ribs before cutting it finely.

Boil noodles until done, drain and set-aside.

Get the oils hot in a pan and stir fry kale until it all turns dark green, throw in cashew nuts and warm through for one minute.

Add cooked noodles and soy sauces/sweet chili sauce, stir through and serve.

New Zealand Garden Diary: Feeding the Right Kind of Birds

July 10, 2020

There are a lot of birds in our garden, but very few species come to the bird table, unlike in the UK. I mostly see sparrows (non-native), silvereyes (native), chaffinches (non-native), greenfinches (non-native) and starlings (non-native). The starlings are real bullies, scaring every other bird away and demolishing fat balls in a matter of hours. So it was a relief when the Sausage Shed stall woman (who sells the fat balls) gave me a method of putting the starlings off.