Restaurant Chez Palmer opens it's doors for the first time

Last night fledgling restaurant Chez Palmer opened it's doors to customers for the very first time.

The private dining room provides an intimate setting to relax and enjoy a fine dining experience prepared by our excellent team of chefs.

The menu opened with hand made sunflower and paprika rolls, served with New Zealand cultured butter.

This was followed by a delicious pea soup, served with pancetta crisps, poached quail egg and truffle oil.

Main course consisted of  Cider braised pork belly on a pumpkin puree, served with potato gratin and a cider jus.  Fresh seasonal vegetables were also provided.

A french dessert capped off the evening in fine style, consisting of layers of Brittany shortbread, roasted pineapple, vanilla parfait, brunoise of green apple and pineapple, and finally a layer of pineapple sorbet.

Chez Palmer offers a large range of drinks to suit the tastes of all diners.

Another integral part of the experience offered is the ability of the restaurant to cater to diners of all ages.  A special children's menu is offered, designed to suit the ages of the young guests.

(1 review)

To the owners of Chez Palmer,

 

We are pleased that you have opened your new restaurant and that you have now joined the Home-Based Restaurant Association of New Zealand.  Please find attached our review of the opening night of Chez Palmer on October 11th, 2013. 

 

Kind regards,

 

Tanya Carter (on behalf of HBRANZ)

HBRANZ

Home-Based Restaurant Association of New Zealand

HBRANZ Review for:       Chez Palmer

                                                     Muriwai Road, Waimauku

Date:                                        11/10/13

Ambience:

                  The wide entrance and modern décor in the main area are attractive, with splashes of Matt-red highlighting the spacious interior.  A designated children’s area is welcoming and inviting.  The dining room is cosy, with an over-zealous candle or two carefully placed, an inviting fire and the surprising addition of a furry, moving cat-rug.

Service:

                   Patrons are looked after well, with supervision available for children, polite and friendly waiting staff with happy smiles, and a constant supply of a wide range of drinks.

Cuisine:

                  For those used to the finest cuisine, it is impossible to be disappointed at Chez Palmer.  The home-made bread was tastefully presented.  The well-textured pea soup was given a lift by the salty pancetta, and the quail egg was, of course, poached to absolute perfection.  The star of the mains was the delicately cooked pork belly which was beyond belief.  The cold pineapple dessert on a Brittany shortbread base was well worth the effort of the chef, as it consisted of layers of cool delight that complemented each other beautifully and left customers wanting more.

The children’s menu was appealing and exciting for the little ones, with much thought obviously having been given to each part of the menu.  Complimentary colouring sheets, treats and Lego were given in named gift bags – a sure way to invite customers to come back to Chez Palmer frequently.

All dishes were presented to the highest standards and were a visual work of art.  Many customers were observed taking photos of them throughout the night.

Customer Comments:

“That was amazing!  The chefs were absolutely unbelievable and definitely fudge-worthy.  I really liked the dancing waiters – even one of the customers was seen dancing as well.  Our experience at Chez Palmer made this the best anniversary celebration we have ever had.”

“I liked the toys and the food.”

“The service was exceptional, the waiters were friendly and the food was sublime.”

“I liked all the food and the stuff that they let us do.  The waiter helped me with my Lego.”

Overall Rating:

                  Five stars without hesitation. ✰✰✰✰✰

Winter soup

It has been a while, but I am still cooking, and still running around after kids. I have been trying a cash budget for the last several weeks, and I think it is very definitely saving us money as I tend to try to make do a bit more rather than just going out and buying more food when there is really plenty in the house. 


We have also been trying to have a vegetarian meals at least once a week. 
Tonight we had a winter vegetable and barley soup from the latest Dish magazine. I didn't have spinach, but there was some very green curly kale in the vege garden, so that worked really well.  On a tangent, curly kale tossed with a little oil and salt and pepper and then baked makes really good chips.


So, the soup....topped with basil pesto and shaved parmesan and served with toasted homemade grainy bread....

Apologies for the bad photo quality - it was taken on the ipad.  I would have posted this from the ipad too, but alas, it appears that I am technologically challenged as I couldn't work out how to attach the image on the ipad.


As for the verdict?  Braden and Kyla both had seconds so it appears that it was a success.  Will have it again I am sure.

Sourdough Success!

I am so pleased!

I made a loaf of sourdough on Friday, and it worked really well. It took ages to rise (which apparently is quite normal) and it spread too much in the oven, but it did taste great - a nice sour flavour but not too sour as to be unpleasant.

So, I tried again yesterday, and this time baked it in a preheated cast iron pot with the lid on for the first half hour, and then the lid off to let it crisp up for the last 20 minutes or so.

I think Daryl is finding it quite funny how pleased I am with this, but I am just amazed that I can manage to make it work, with no commercial yeast at all!

We are having this for dinner tonight in the form of steak sandwiches with caramelised onions and tomato chilli jam (Sonia's recipe that Kyla is currently making).

Yum!

I have now taken part of my starter and added some rye flour to it to see how that works - so far it is looking good. It is 30% rye for anyone remotely interested (probably no one).

Soggy Doggy, Cute Cat

Soggy Doggy

Cute Cat

Sourdough

It has been a while since I wrote anything about food…. and given that this blog is supposed to be about life and food, and that we do still eat, it is about time for me to write about food again.

My latest project involving food is the growing of a sourdough starter.

I have thought about, and read about this many times, and finally decided to take the plunge and actually try it.

So, last Friday was Day 1 of the Sourdough Saga.

I chose to use the River Cottage Recipe, which I had recently seen on a River Cottage episode on TV. It seemed fairly straightforward on TV, so I thought it would be worth a try.

The only ingredients in the starter are flour and water… a mixture of wholemeal and white to start with.

Day 1 (Friday) was fairly boring… mix the flours and water together in a container, cover loosely and leave on the bench. Nothing to see really.

Day 2 (Saturday), looks fairly similar, a few bubbles… discard half the mix, add more flour and water, leave.

Day 3 (Sunday)… what is that terrible smell? It smells like vomit! Discard half, add more flour and water again, hope it will stop smelling so bad.

Day 4 (Monday)… hmmm, maybe something has gone wrong - vomitous smell still there. Discard, feed, Google "sourdough starter smells like vomit" and discover that around day 3-4 this is a fairly common occurrence, just keep going seems to be the advice offered on numerous websites.

Day 5 (Tuesday)…tentative sniff…maybe not so bad. Discard, feed.

Day 6 (Wednesday)… sniff… very different smell, not like vomit this time - more like an alcohol smell perhaps? Discard, feed, observe….. few hours later - we are on the right track I feel. The starter has lots of bu

bbles, and has doubled in size in the container. Phew.

So, now I continue the discard and feed routine until we get to Day 7, when I can try using the starter and see if it has matured enough. If not, then continue the discard and feed routine till Day 10 and try again.

Watch this space.

Happy new year

Another Christmas has been and gone, and we are into the second month of the year already!

Today Braden and Lauren have gone back to school, and tomorrow Kyla returns for a half day before starting fully next Tuesday.

Then, the usual busyness of the year really kicks in with the restart of all the after school and evening activities. I am not looking forward to that as I have really enjoyed the relaxed evenings of the holidays.

Just a small comment from Braden to share with you…

As a family we spend time with Paul, T and Nate, and we know several families with preschoolers.

The amount of work involved in children of this age has apparently not escaped his attention. We had been looking at a photo album of Kyla, Braden and Lauren as young children/babies and his astute observation was

"Wow, Mummy, you must have been very busy!"

Wellington

Well, life is certainly not predictable, and this last week has certainly shown that to be true.

This time last week I was frantically working away to get a job finished. I was then going to spend the weekend cleaning up the house while Daryl and Kyla were in Wellington for the National Secondary School athletics Championships, to have it all ready for Paul and T to move in while Daryl and I took a few days off to relax in Queenstown.

Friday afternoon it all turned to custard.

I was on my way to Kyla's school to watch her emcee and receive an award at the prizegiving. My cellphone rang, and being the good girl that I am, I pulled over to answer it. It was Daryl, telling me that some V.I.Ds (Very Important Deadlines) had been suddenly changed, and not only was our trip to Queenstown off, but he needed to pull out of going to Wellington with Kyla in order to stand any chance of actually meeting the deadlines.

So, in addition to watching Kyla emcee (very well I might add), I was also texting Daryl, Mum, T and Sandra to cancel arrangements and make new ones. Daryl found me a flight on Air NZ (as Jetstar refused to change the name on the ticket he already had) and the madness began.

Just for the record (in case you didn't already know), Kyla was 1st in Spanish, Graphics, Digital Technology (computer stuff), and 3rd in Social Studies, and received a Dean's Citizenship award. It also happens that on her report it records her as being 4th= in English. She has worked hard and achieved exceptionally well this year!

So, after watching the prizegiving, I raced home to empty Daryl's suitcase and pack mine. Daryl arrived home, and we raced out to the airport with my flight leaving at 5:30, and Kyla's at 5:50. I have to say I was feeling a little shell shocked when I left, and not at all sure that I would enjoy myself.

It turns out that it was a really good weekend.

Kyla was not competing on Saturday, as the 3000m track race she was entered in had been changed to Sunday at 11am, 3 hours after her 3000m road race. This change meant that her coach opted to scratch her from the track race - her preference was always for the road race anyway, and it was not reasonable to compete in two 3km events 3 hours apart.

We spent Saturday watching other team members compete, and it was a good day. We took a break at one point and wandered down the road to check out a french patisserie that we had passed in the van on the way to the Athletics.

It turns out that they did a fantastic raspberry and chocolate tart, and chocolate filled eclair. The coffee was excellent too. We shared them both, and it was the best thing we ate all weekend!

Kyla's race was the 3km year 9 girls road race, and was held at 8am on Sunday at the Westpac Stadium/Cake tin. It was a little odd - they didn't actually run on a road at all, rather the circuit did a loop of a very long carpark, before going into the top tier of the stadium, and around there before emerging back into the carpark.

Kyla started serious training for this about 6 weeks ago, and her time then was around 15mins for the 3km. She completed the run in a very impressive 12:26 which was a personal best for her, and put her in 30th out of 40 girls. I am amazed that any child that has my genes can achieve that - clearly Daryl's genes are dominant. A fine effort and her coach was very pleased, as were we. I tried attaching a video of her finishing, but sorry - no luck!

We returned to Auckland on Sunday afternoon, and now prepare for Christmas. Daryl is working crazy hours to get things done. Our tickets to Queenstown have been transferred to mid January - whether we get to go then or have to rebook again remains to be seen.

Gingerbread house

Well, it sure has been a while since I wrote anything on the blog!

Today we had our second annual gingerbread house making evening at Paul and T's house. This year the theme (chosen by Paul and T) was "Hillbilly house".

To begin with, we were a little unsure what to do for this, but T's Dad told us that as long as we remembered to put a shotgun by the front door then it would be perfectly acceptable as a hillbilly house.

We decided to model ours on a house we saw a few weeks back at the Howick historical village.

For the mud bricks, we made russian fudge and ginger fudge… yes, I know, neither of those are gingerbread. The ceiling diaphragm (to help stabilise the walls), chimney and roof were all made of gingerbread, along with the doors and

windows.

So far we have not actually eaten any of it… but I am sure it will not last long.

The only criticism that there seemed to be of our house is that it isn't quite ramshackle enough. We would like to point out that the windows are not level, and the gaps between the bricks (and the bricks themselves) are not even!

A fun time had by all, and no doubt Paul will have a good blog showing all the houses up soon.

Day 7 with the caged animal

Today we enter a new stage of Chica's recovery. She has pretty much ignored the wound with it's dressing since the operation, but over the last day or so I noticed that the dressing was beginning to come off. Now this is fine, until she starts licking at the wound. So, we went for a walk this morning to the vet - her first time off the property since the op last Wednesday.
That was an exercise in frustration for both of us I am sure. For Chica the frustration was that she is desperate to run, and I won't let her, and for me the frustration is that her on leash training is pretty much being undone as she is so frustrated at only being allowed to walk. Normally I would wear her out with some ball chasing before we go for a training walk. But I digress.
We saw the vet's nurse, who removed the dressing that was by now only hanging on by a corner. The wound is ok, but a little weepy, which may be because the dressing was flapping around, or it may be that Chica was licking at it. The solution?

I don't think she is very impressed with me for this.... the look she gave me was accusatory to say the least.

A caged animal

Chica is officially 5 months old tomorrow, and with this milestone comes the choice of whether to spay her or not. Quite frankly, one puppy is enough work, and there is no way I would consider looking after several, and then having to find homes for them! So, it was off to the vet yesterday. Chica and I walked along the road, and she was so keen to get in there that I had to laugh. She had no idea what was going to happen - but then how could she given that she has only ever had fun there.
She is now missing the essential bits for reproduction, and thus we are safe from ever having to care for a litter of puppies - phew!
We have our instructions on how to care for her, which include quiet rest for at least 36 hours, and on leash walks only for 12-14 days until her stitches come out. For anyone who has met Chica, you will understand how difficult this is going to be. She is currently a caged animal in the family room, and is doing a fair bit of whining about being confined. Thankfully the noise of the TV seems to calm her down enough for me to get out of the room without her going crazy.

Week 65 Challenge - Sausages

What to do with the humble sausage? That was the challenge last week.
I thought I would go a little bit retro on this one, and so had a look through an old Alison Holst book. I found a recipe that reminded me of something we did in Intermediate School Cooking, and though it would be worth a go - A sausage and apple plait.

I had bought some nice looking pork sausages, and combined the meat out of these with diced apple, sauteed onion, cooked diced potato, egg and herbs. This was laid along 2 joined flaky pastry sheets, and the pastry plaited over the top of the sausage mixture. A quick brush with some beaten egg, and it was into the oven to bake.

As the plait had potato in it, we only needed some green veges to go with it. It was very tasty, and Daryl gave it a 4.5/5, and the kids were more than happy to eat it.
It was a great way to stretch 500g of sausages, and I will definitely use this recipe again.

Puppy preschool

Hooray! I had a call from the vet today, and they must have got enough people for the puppy preschool classes as they will be starting next week!!!

For 1 hour from 6:30pm, we will go to the vet along the road, and Chica will get to socialise with other puppies, and we will get to learn some basic training etc.

I am really looking forward to this - a great chance to get her off the property in a safe environment, and get her used to other dogs.

Roll on next Wednesday!

On another note, Daryl tells me that after the 30th of June, he will not be so busy at work - will we actually get to eat dinner with him again?

Sunshine helps...

After wishing this morning that we had never even got a puppy, I am feeling a little more positive this afternoon.

The sunshine definitely helps, and I hope (probably in vain) that we get a lot more of it.

Chica and I have just spent some time out on the deck with tiny squares of luncheon sausage- with the aim of teaching her to sit. The lesson began with Chica rushing madly around me as she smells the luncheon sausage, and me thinking what a silly idea this was. Once she had calmed down a bit, I saw glimmers of her beginning to grasp the idea of "I do something and then I get the treat".

We will work on this more, and hopefully have some success!

More rain..

Turns out it is quite hard to keep a little puppy occupied when it continues to rain.

When we take her for a walk onto the lawn so she can do her business, she often gets to the end of the deck and sits down. At this point she looks at us with her head to one side as if to say "you have got to be kidding me… have you seen the size of the puddles down there!"

She has spent most of the morning in her cage inside, surely there will be a break in the rain soon so we can have a quick wander around? It would be much easier if I was allowed to take her for a walk along the road - hopefully the next 5 weeks are not continuously wet!!

Rant over.

Chica

Well, there have been a lot of posts on here lately about food, but there is (apparently) more to life than just food!

On Saturday, we acquired a new family member in the form of a 7 1/2 week old puppy who we have named Chica. Chica is the spanish word for girl, and sounds remarkably like the word cheeky… which is an apt description for her!

She is a border collie springer spaniel cross, and so is full of energy. Her first night home, we were expecting her to cry a lot, and were lulled into a false sense of security when this did not happen. Sunday night was a different story altogether. She howled and whimpered and carried on till after midnight, and then finally went to sleep, only to start up again at 5am!!! So, come Monday morning, we were all feeling a little tired. Last night, she was perfect, sleeping through without a problem.

She is so cute, that we will forgive her for the bad nights… as long as there are more good nights than bad!

We have just had confirmed by the vet today that she has to stay away from dogs that we do not know, and places where unvaccinated dogs may be/have been until she is fully vaccinated (13 weeks). This is a little disappointing, as we were looking forward to taking her to soccer practices with us, but she will just have to wait, as the risk is that she could catch Parvo Virus if we take her out before she has had all her vaccinations. She can come with us, but will have to stay in the car, or we would have to hold her the whole time. I can picture that getting a little tedious. Oh well, it is only another 5 1/2 weeks.

And what does Missie think of her? Not much.

She has met her, briefly. She looked at Chica for a few seconds, arched her back, hissed, and took off. This has become known as a "Missy fit". We have seen a few of these now.

Missie is spending most of her time on the top bunk in Braden's room at present. I think she figures that this is as far away as she can get (horizontally and vertically) from this silly little animal that we have dared to let onto the property! I hope she comes around soon, as I rather miss my lap warmer when I am in the office working, and my furry friend that keeps me company when I go outside to hang washing, or stand in the kitchen cooking. Come on Missie, smarten up and show the silly puppy who is in charge!

Week 58 Challenge - Pork and Apple

This is a little out of order, as this challenge was a few weeks ago now, but I thought I would post about it anyway.

It was my week to post the ingredients, and I decided that the classic combination of pork and apple would give people plenty of options. For me, this was a great reason to cook the piece of pork belly that I had in the freezer.

The pork belly was simmered for a couple of hours in stock and apple juice with vegetables, and chilled overnight. The next day it was roasted quickly in a hot oven for about 30 minutes. As it was roasting there was an enormous POP! Some of the fat under the skin had exploded, sending bits of nicely rendered pork fat all over the oven door. We decided to remove it from the oven at this point and try to get the skin to crackle a bit by pitting it into a hot frying pan. Apparently this was not a very clever move, as some more of the fat exploded, meaning that we now had to clean the side panel of the fridge, and spots on the floor!

We served this pork with a cauliflower

puree, apple compote, cabbage, apple and fennel slaw, and a jus made from the poaching liquid.

It was all very tasty, and although we looked at the small servings of pork and thought it would not be enough, it was in fact so rich that there was plenty.

Lauren's 9th birthday

Lauren has now turned 9 - her final single digit birthday. I think we must be getting old if our youngest is 9 already!

Lauren chose to go to West Wave for a swim with her friends, followed by dinner at La Porchetta. She and her friends had a lot of fun, although they were a little disappointed to find the Hydroslide was closed.

Well, I have told a few of you about Lauren's pizza birthday cake, and so here is the promised photo (complete with pizza box), along with one of Lauren and her friends at La Porchetta.

Kyla is now officially a teenager!

Well, we are now the proud parents of our very own teenager.

For her birthday this year, Kyla chose to have Sammie and Mikaela come over, and the three of them spent the afternoon/evening cooking a fantastic meal consisting of 3 courses from the Masterchef NZ and Australia cookbooks.

I know that Kyla is planning to blog about the meal, so I will not spoil that by giving details here. I will remind

her to blog about it soon. Suffice to say, the meal was fantastic, and we are hugely impressed that 3 girls can cook Masterchef food with very little or no assistance! Bookings open soon. :)

Once again we had a family gathering to

celebrate Mother's day/Kyla's birthday/Jayna's birthday. As usual it consisted of lots of fun and good food with a liberal dosing of noise. I made a birthday cake for Kyla and Jayna to share, shaped as a lap pool, due to their shared love of swimming.

Daryl and Kyla made dessert, which was the Croquembouche from the Australian Masterchef cookbook. It was a fantastic effort, and tasted amazing. They are so clever! Due to difficulties in sourcing a Croquembouche cone, a traffic cone (legally purchased) was used. It works really well, so if you ever need to borrow it, just ask!

Easter Camping

Another Easter Camping has come and gone, and it was another fun time for us.

The weather was pretty good - apart from Monday night which was pretty wild really.

The kids had a fantastic time at the beach, sliding down the hill, and making egg protectors which were then tested by throwing them down the hill

. It is amazing what a raw egg can survive!

So here are a few pictures showing the kids at the beach.

T looking particularly tall - or is it Daryl looking particularly short?

Missie

Well, Missie may be grown up now (she had her first birthday a couple of months back) but she is still cute.

As is typical for cats, she has a variety of sleeping positions, and one day I caught her looking particularly cute sprawled on Kyla's bed.

A couple of weeks ago one of the kids came running through the house (not unusual despite the no running in the house rule) shouting (also not unusual despite the inside voices only rule) "Missie's got a mouse!" (very unusual!).

I bravely (or not) followed them down the hallway to see said mouse, only to have one of the kids inform me that it was now in my office, between a chest of drawers and the wall. Missie was trying backing up their statement by pacing around the drawers looking intently for the mouse.

I moved the drawers, and she was able to herd it back into the entry, where she proceeded to continue to play with it before Daryl rescued the mouse and dispatched it into the creek. We figured that was more humane than letting Missie bat at it, which would have been a slow and painful death. So it appears that Missie is not just ornamental after all?