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Welcome to the first newsletter of Farmhouse Kitchen

We were delighted to welcome 45 friends and family into our new kitchen  for our grand opening on May 26th.

It was a very festive occasion, and the whole family helped pull it together.

Chris was the star of the show, and received a big thank you from Pauline for all his hard work, which as well as a million organisational jobs, included tiling, painting and paving outside in preparation for the big day.

We had a visit from the press, and were featured in the local newspaper, brochures were printed and flyers sent out – we were down to business!

No sooner were the doors opened, we started in on our classes. We were delighted to have a fully booked Children’s Holiday Programme. Every day we had a kitchen full of 12 youngsters, keen to try out our new recipes. The feedback from parents is that the children had a wonderful time, and are now very motivated in their kitchens at home!

New Programme

We have added some exciting classes to our new programme.

  • For those looking to taste the finest Mediterranean food our French Cooking or Tapas Classes are an excellent opportunity to create some authentic, flavoursome dishes.
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  • For baking enthusiasts the Bread Making and Pastry Workshops will be an exciting opportunity to explore the magic of bread baking or unravel the mystery of pie crust.
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  • During our Vegetarian Class people will discover there is more to vegetarian food than soya sausages or fried eggs, and instead learn how to create nutritious and delicious dishes with fresh vegetables and herbs, pulses, beans, nuts and grains.
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  • The wise and nurturing food choices and preparation traditions of our ancestors are the basis for the Nutrient Dense Workshop. (Read more about nutrient dense food in this newsletter)
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  • Our popular Children’s Holiday Classes will return in the October school holidays, followed by After School Classes in November and two Christmas Holiday Baking Classes are scheduled in the week leading up to Christmas.

Team building cooking: fun, challenging and delicious

Master Chef Challenge

Farmhouse Kitchen is an ideal venue for group and corporate functions, and earlier this month Cox Partners visited Farmhouse Kitchen for a Team Building Challenge, which proved to be a very successful and entertaining evening.

“Social, Educational and Satisfying

Farmhouse Kitchen hosted Cox Partners inaugural Masterchef Challenge which proved to be our most entertaining, revealing and delicious team occasion ever!

Sales and support squads pitted talents across a series of tasks which challenged the cooking, creative and co-operative skills of the teams.   These included identifying ingredients; a time test; dish preparation; puff pastry test and a dessert challenge.

The competitive tension was intense, broken often by humorous exchanges across the huge purpose-built kitchen. The facilities are fabulous, the tuition terrific, and the meal magnificent. Our hosts Pauline and Chris provided the freshest ingredients, mainly organic, and as much as possible from their own farm and garden.

This was a well-planned, expertly executed and beautifully presented evening, one we'll recall and treasure for many months . . . until we face each other again in our sequel - Hottest Baker Challenge”
Malcolm Cox

To read more about team building click here.

From Garden to Kitchen

Menno in Barrel

At Farmhouse Kitchen, we strongly believe that ingredients used in our cooking classes need to be pure and fresh. That’s why we grow our own herbs and vegetables, so they can be used in the kitchen within minutes of harvesting. Fresh at its best!!
Now the big winter wet is over and the gardens are drying up, the time has arrived for the first plantings of herbs and vegetables. The gardens around the kitchen entrance have just been planted with culinary herbs: thyme, tarragon, sage, rosemary and mint. And two half wine barrels have been placed in the court yard and filled with parsley, chives and basil.
These herbs will be picked regularly and used to add their delicate flavours to various dishes.
And it won’t be long until the first spring vegetables - lettuce, beetroot and broccoli - can be harvested and prepared in the kitchen.

Gift Voucher

Gift Voucher

A gift voucher from Farmhouse Kitchen provides the perfect gift for birthdays, Mother’s or Father’s Day, Christmas, anniversaries or any other occasion. We have gift vouchers for $60 and $90, which can be redeemed for any cooking class that the recipient chooses.
Buy a voucher online today and it will be sent out to your address with a flyer offering more information about the cooking school.

Dr Weston Price and Nutrient Dense Food

Our Fermenting and Nutrient Dense Workshops are based on research of traditional foods by Dr Weston Price and the work of the Weston A. Price Foundation.
Dr. Price was a highly regarded dentist and brilliant researcher who traveled the world in the 1920s, locating isolated tribes who followed their traditional diets, including Maori.  Among all the populations Dr Price studied, those that maintained and consumed their traditional, unprocessed foods enjoyed good health and a remarkable resilience that their contemporaries who consumed processed foods lacked.  He discovered there were variations in the diet between cultures, but remarkable similarities as well:

  • if dairy was consumed, it was consumed raw or cultured
  • each society made use of the entire animal in cooking including liberal use of organ meat and bones for broth
  • grain, if consumed, was consumed whole and only after a soaking or souring process
  • many foods were naturally fermented and thus rich in food enzymes and beneficial bacteria
  • refined sweeteners were absent from traditional diets with natural sweeteners being consumed only very rarely, if at all.

Weston A. Price’s research uncovered another remarkable insight: traditional foods were more nutrient-dense than modern foods.  The intake of vitamins, particularly fat soluble vitamins, and minerals among populations thriving on traditional, unprocessed foods far exceeded that of their contemporaries who consumed refined foods including coffee, white flour, sugar, canned vegetables and fruit.
Price’s full analysis is published in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.

Sauerkraut pounders

These pounders are designed to be used to make fermented vegetables, including sauerkraut. They are hand turned from ash, and can be used for small batches of sauerkraut, making the job easier.
They will soon be available online from the Farmhouse Kitchen website.

Recipe: Watercress Salad with Smoked Mackerel

Salad

This salad is a great entree or appetiser using tender watercress leaves and smoked mackerel from The Smokehouse (available at the Hastings Farmers Market).
Watercress can be replaced by other fresh greens like rocket, spinach and mustard leaves.

Ingredients:

150 ml sour cream
2 t coarse wholegrain mustard
1 t honey
Salt and pepper
Juice of one lemon
150 grams watercress tops, washed and dried
150 grams green salad leaves, washed and teared in smaller pieces
2 apples of your choice, with peel on, cut in match sticks
1/2 cup walnut pieces
50 grams dill tops
300 grams smoked mackerel, skin removed and cut in slices

Method:

  1. Make the dressing by combining the sour cream, mustard, honey and lemon.
  2. Season dressing with salt and pepper.
  3. Toss the greens with the apples, walnuts and the dill.
  4. Layer the greens and the dressing in the centre of a plate in a stack.
  5. Place the mackerel on top.
  6. Garnish with extra dressing and some dill tops.