This week’s small pleasures #453

Thistles and Kiwis

I’m not sure where this week has gone…what seemed like piles of laundry got done, but I have not finished my book for Thursday’s book club, we ate out, and I cooked. At least there are many signs of spring around. The little white daffodils in pots in the garden have been blooming for ages and doing so well – a real small pleasure to see. We are expecting a couple of wintery days ahead, so hope it doesn’t put too much of a hold on the new season as it approaches.

In the basket

It was back to a Wonky Box delivery this week, and there was another pumpkin (but isn’t it beautiful with those perfect stripes?), a small cauliflower that I cooked on Friday, with leftovers on Saturday, a bunch of purple miniature carrots, onions, yam (oca), kumara and – not shown – a lettuce and little bag of purple Brussels sprouts.

On Wednesday I picked up a bunch of cavolo nero (half of which went into Wednesday’s pea soup, the other half into Sunday’s dinner), a couple of oranges and passion fruit, eggs, a packet of the lovely crackers from The Baked Dane, and some turkey mince. We went food shopping on Sunday, and picked up chickpeas, chicken mince, satsumas, kiwi fruit, two more passion fruit, a bunch or purple sprouting broccoli and a few other bits and pieces such as cheese.

Going out

As I mentioned last week, Wellington on a Plate is on right now, and part of this month long celebration of food is Burger Wellington, with a competition to find the most inventive and delicious burger. These can be classic beef, lamb, chicken, vegetarian, vegan or even sweet. For lunch on Wednesday I sampled the one at Glou Glou, the California Dreamin’, a vegetarian offering with a roasted beetroot, black turtle bean and chickpea patty served with tobacco onions, pickled Roma tomato, microgreens, iceberg lettuce and Green Goddess dressing in a Food Envy suprême croissant. The beer pairing was Mouth Party Hazy IPA from Double Vision Brewing Company. This tasted great, though the patty itself was a little crumbly. All in all though, a great creation.

For Saturday lunch, we headed to Jano Bistro, we last visited for my birthday. Their burger was inspired by French onion soup, and was probably the best burger I have ever had. This was a Conscious Valley BBQ brisket and rib beef patty with smoked onion jam, cheese blend slice, cos lettuce, pickled onions, Conscious Valley beef tallow mayonnaise and foraged and fermented cep mushroom ketchup in a housemade crispy shallot milk brioche bun, with rösti fries and onion gravy glaze, and I also opted for the black truffle shaved over the chips/fries. The flavours were unbelievable, everything perfectly cooked and beautifully presented. The beer pairing, Thirst Crush (Peach IPA) from Double Vision Brewing was an excellent match. We both voted 10/10.

And then….I had my fourth burger of the season for lunch today with colleagues from work. This was Briskedelic Love at Bethel Woods, a smashed brisket patty with slow-cooked Wagyu short rib, bone marrow, American cheddar, Texas hot link mayo and bread and butter pickles in a Poneke Bakery milk bun, with tater tots. I may well have had my fill of burgers for a while…but the festival goes on until the end of the month.

Staying in

We watched the final of Australian Masterchef, found the new series of Swedish crime drama Beck on BBC iPlayer (thanks to a VPN), and continue to watch episodes of Australian comedy, Utopia. I continue to love the weekly posts from Oslo with introvert and dog, and have been listening to various podcasts. I do miss BBC Sounds and being able to listen to series I love, so really must organise a VPN for my devices.

Simple things

  • Enjoying a lot of good food.
  • Finding a bit of time to read in between everything else.
  • Loving sunny winter days.
  • Dreaming of warmer days ahead.
  • Wearing my new sweater.
  • Seeing this rainbow on Tuesday afternoon.

What were your small pleasures this week? Here are some other blog posts from a few fellow bloggers looking at the good things in life. Also entered in the weekend coffee share hosted by Natalie.

Thistles and Kiwis is a Wellington, New Zealand based blog written by Barbara, who likes cats, summer, good food and pretends to garden.

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Published by Thistles and Kiwis

Loves summer, sunshine and cats. Beginner gardener, likes eating, cooking and reading about food

36 Comments

  2. I am not surprised you are ‘burgered out’ after the variety you have consumed – it just goes to show though that there are myriad ways of making them! We’re enjoying sunshine today with some warmer weather to help us look forward to the end of winter 🙂

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  5. Burger month. What a brilliant idea. I am already sold on “California Dreamin’, a vegetarian offering with a roasted beetroot, black turtle bean and chickpea patty served with tobacco onions, pickled Roma tomato, microgreens, iceberg lettuce and Green Goddess dressing in a Food Envy suprême croissant. ” and I’m not even a vegetarian.

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  8. That’s a lot of burgers! They all sound delicious but expensive.
    As an aside I grew the most beautiful head of cauliflower this year- your wonky box made me think of it. And now i have several lovely squash growing larger as we speak.

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    1. Cauliflower is good! The burgers are not that expensive if you take into account the cost of ingredients, the fact that these are one off specials not normally made by the restaurants, that some places opened at times they were usually closed (labour etc). Yes more than McD’s but oh so much better! And the prices are in NZ $.

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  10. Wellington does good burgers! Though you would have to deconstruct that veggie burger to be able to eat it. And how lovely are those white narcissi and the red camellia. I wish my camellia was red instead of white.

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  11. Pingback: litter? – Touring My Backyard

  13. Your beautiful photos of good food make me hungry 🙂 The daffodils and carmellia look lovely. Thank you for the mention and for your weekend coffee share.

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  14. All the food looks amazing! I made hamburgers for dinner after seeing your photo of that delicious hamburger on Facebook (or was it Instagram)?

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  16. I love a good burger and will often choose one when we eat out. Your Saturday lunch one sounds so good. What did you think of the Masterchef result? I was convinced Callum would win, I’ve been a fan ever since he was on the second series, so I was a bit disappointed for him. But he is so gracious and has a very successful career so I’m sure he’ll continue to go bigger and better.

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    1. I thought it was a close thing but I think Laura was a favourite with the judges. I agree that he was so gracious and agree he will continue to greater things. Funny thing – saw finger limes in a shop today – obviously imported and people wanting to try them after watching Masterchef 🙂

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