Monday, March 05, 2007

Fine Farm Dining: Frittata Night and Thai Delights


In my ten days at The Blueberry Farm and Bakehouse in Upper Hutt (just above Wellington, and the site of many a Lord of the Rings scenes), don't think we just cooked with blueberries! My dinner debut on the farm featured a Swiss Chard Frittata, lentils cooked up in apple juice pressed from our wee orchard, and oatmeal-manuka honey cookies with museli.

I pulled lavender from the garden to soak in our drinking pitcher, which took a bit of the tap-water edge off.

Dinner number two was "Thai themed" by popular demand. Rice boiled with peanuts was the side to a garden-based veggie mix and home-made peanut sauce, and dessert featured the decidedly unlocal and delicious pineapple charred in butter-tossed coconut flakes. To compensate for the ahem, "carbon footprint" of the pineapple, I also threw in some backyard blueberries tossed in lemon-and-lavender sugar.