While it takes a while for our spring vegetables to appear at the farmers market and on supermarket shelves, there are still ways to lighten up your dinnertime offerings as our contributors show.
Joining the Fresh team this month is Jo Elwin, former editor of The New Zealand Herald’s Bite magazine, now resident in Bannockburn. Inspired by the amazing food served at our Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes district restaurants, Elwin shows how to take a lighter approach to the soups and stews we have been enjoying the past few months.
The Two Raw Sisters, in their new cookbook More Salad, suggest that while their lemon and walnut crumble works perfectly on new-season asparagus spears, you can also use it on any other in-season vegetable.
Alison Lambert embraces the unpredictability of spring, making the most of spring herbs to add punch to dishes and raiding the pantry to make use of tins of beans to add a twist to a roast chook.
They also offer a quick masterclass on "supreming" a grapefruit for their grapefruit salad with mozzarella and watercress.
Joan Bishop, on the other hand, has gone for morish portable fare that’s perfect for a spring outing or entertaining.
Inspired by spring cleaning, our wine reviewer Mark Henderson takes a look at what the 2024 vintage might bring for white wines and 2023 for pinot noirs and the less well-known cabernet franc and primitivo. He also does a tasting of cost-effective bubblies which would go nicely with any of our spring dishes.
