Just good food from fresh ingredients

One thing I love is food shopping. Seeing piles of fruit and vegetables piled high, rows of fresh bread, stacks of cheese, and interesting jars of honey or olives, just makes me want to fill my basket full of produce. These days I make a list to stop impulse buying, which is so easy to do when there are so many things lying out in temptation. It is so easy to make simple dishes with fresh ingredients – a pasta dish with seasonal vegetables, a grain based salad topped with feta, a roast chicken. You don’t need to be a brilliant cook, just appreciate the ingredients you have to hand.

But it is still always easy to give in and buy three bags of greens (including the cavolo nero below) from Commonsense Organics, and pick out only 2 chillies I know I will use from the pile of brightly coloured fruit in Moore Wilson.

Then there are the jars of things….the mustards, the jams…the bottles of oils and vinegars…when the list is most important so you only replenish your stock of mustard and anchovies. I have to watch my intake of dairy, and find goat and sheep cheeses easier to digest, and so use that as my excuse to pick up some goat blue cheese.

But it is easy to give into temptation and pick up some honey like this one from Earthend, created by bees in Petone, a suburb of Wellington.

And as for markets…..I would come home with bags of stuff if I could….and then spend a day making chutney and jam.

Just remember what Julia Child said: “You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces – just good food from fresh ingredients.”  I couldn’t agree more.

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