my latest blog posts

Most Kiwis think their home hygiene standards are up to scratch, but the number of campylobacter cases that occur each year (about 125 cases per 100,000 people) suggests that a lot of us are doing something wrong. To make sure no one gets sick in your home this summer, check your food preparation practices against our Clean, Cook, Chill list...

If I’ve been away, the first thing I do when I arrive home is to race up to the garden to see what’s happening. Right now, in early springtime, it’s enthralling. Even the air feels alive, and there’s a hum of energy as the countryside shakes off its dull winter coat and comes alive in soft greens and glorious blossoms...

At this time of year, when the stone fruit have come to an end and the citrus haven’t quite started, persimmons come to the rescue in the fruit bowl...

It has been such a thrill to collaborate with my talented foodie daughter Rose on our new publication A Free Range Life: Together. Our aim has been to create an exciting new way to approach cooking that is fresh and vital, while being lighter on our waistlines and on the planet. I love the way Rose and I have ended up in the same place with the way we both now cook, even though we have come from such different directions...

You can combine a few dishes from our new annual A Free Range Life: Together for a special-occasion dinner, or cook them singly as delicious, nutritious weeknight meals. To get you started we've provided four weeks' worth of meal plans using recipes from the annual, and to make life even easier we’ve created shopping lists itemising all the ingredients you'll need to make all the recipes in each of these menus...

I'm super proud to introduce to you my talented daughter Rose, who collaborated with me on our beautiful new book A Free Range Life: Together. So you can get to know her better I asked her to write a few words about herself...

Once you start travelling the path towards walking lightly on the earth, you start to crave more knowledge and inspiration. Here's some recommended reading to feed your hunger...

You can use this recipe as a basic guideline for making kombucha, then get a bit creative with it – everyone likes to brew their 'booch a little differently. The amount of sugar you use, the type of tea you use, how long you brew it for, and what additional flavours you choose to add will all affect the outcome of your brew...

Old favourites made easier than ever, classics adapted for modern tastes, indulgent desserts tweaked to be lighter and healthier, and loads of exciting brand-new ideas. That's what you'll find inside my gorgeous new book ESSENTIAL Volume Two: Sweet Treats for Every Occasion...

There's nothing I like more than stirring up a quick cake batter, rolling out pastry for a tart, or getting my hands sticky kneading a sweet dough. The process of baking is so therapeutic – mixing, whisking and folding engages the senses and forces you to be right in the moment. I really do think that it's good for the soul...

So many people around the globe live in war-torn societies and on a daily basis have to cope with bombings and loss and fear. But if you have never encountered war face-to-face it’s not an easy idea to get your head around. The sheer awful terror of war was driven home to me on a school trip with my daughter when she was about 11. It was at this time of year, coming up to Anzac Day...

When Ted and I moved to Wanaka to live, we would make the 15-minute drive into town every morning for coffee. Invariably, by the time we caught up with friends, an hour or more had passed before we were home again. It wasn’t feeling very sustainable on any level, but my husband Ted is a serious coffee drinker and he couldn’t imagine getting his daily fix any other way. 

If you haven’t seen my beautiful new book of sweet recipes yet, here’s your chance. I’m coming soon to a town near you, so check out the schedule and book now to meet me. See you soon!

I love the way people who are passionate about cooking are so generous with sharing their favourite recipes. This recipe was shared with me by a listener who called in to a radio show I was talking on. It sounded too good to be true, so I rushed home and made it...

Every year for as long as I can remember I have baked at least one Christmas cake. Given that no one in my family actually likes Christmas cake, this doubtless seems really odd. But making this special cake each year is one of those things that makes me feel like it’s actually Christmas... 

My gorgeous pop-up shop is now open at The Colombo mall in Sydenham. If you're in Christchurch between now and Christmas, swing by to check it out!

I'm celebrating Christmas early with my most amazing website offer ever! 

I love a good roadie, and there are few places more spectacular for a road trip than the South Island of New Zealand. I feel blessed to call this part of the world home, and grab any excuse to get out there amongst it. So the launch of my biggest and most beautiful book yet, ESSENTIAL, seemed like a good reason to hit the road and visit bookstores and top tourist attractions around the south. Here are some of the highlights...  

One of the best things about launching my new book ESSENTIAL Annabel Langbein is that it gives me an excuse to hit the road and visit some of my favourite parts of New Zealand for free book-signing events. Next month I'm going on a tiki-tour of the South Island in the amazing Jeep Wrangler that you could win if you buy my book...

I believe that cooking good food doesn’t require fancy techniques or spending up a storm on expensive ingredients. With planning and know-how you can cook fab food to delight and nourish, on a modest budget. My new annual Annabel Langbein A Free Range Life: Cheap Thrills is all about transforming affordable, everyday ingredients into delicious, nutritious meals...

My new annual Annabel Langbein A Free Range Life: Cheap Thrills is all about delicious, affordable eating, and one of the most effective ways to eat well while saving money is to plan what you’re going to eat in advance. Choose one of my menus for the week ahead, check what you have in your pantry and make a shopping list so you can budget for the week – after that it’s just a matter of sticking to the list...

One of the easiest ways to save money on your food bill is to eat fruit and veges while they're in season. When fruit, veges and herbs are in season they’re at their most plentiful and therefore cheapest. As a bonus, they're also at their tastiest and most nutritious. Check out my month-by-month charts to find out when your favourites are at their peak – and at their most affordable...

I was proud to represent New Zealand at a sustainability cooking challenge in Bermuda recently. As one of six celebrity chefs from the host nations of each America’s Cup team I made some fabulous new friends and got to enjoy the fabulous hospitality of Bermudian locals. If you're heading to Bermuda for the cup, here are my top tips...

The Beetroot Hummus from my new book ESSENTIAL ticks all the boxes – it’s quick, healthy, affordable and delicious, and
because it uses everyday ingredients you can whizz it up at the drop of a hat. My friends at Huntley & Palmers liked it so much they convinced me to make this cute little video...

After two weeks on the road in my Jeep, signing hundreds of books, meeting thousands of people and visiting most of the North Island's top tourist attractions, it's fun to look back at some of the highlights of the first leg of my Essential Tiki-Tour... 

When I was passing through Taupo on my tiki-tour of the North Island recently, I was lucky enough to be invited to stay the night at New Zealand's most highly awarded lodge, Huka Lodge. It's not somewhere most of us get to see inside, so I'm sharing a sneak peek in my blog...

Join me at The Food Show, New Zealand's national food and wine event!

One of the best things about launching my new book ESSENTIAL Annabel Langbein is that it gives me an excuse to hit the road and visit some of my favourite parts of New Zealand for book-signing events. This year I'm going on a tiki-tour of the country in an amazing Jeep Wrangler that you could win if you buy my book...

All my adult life (and a lot of my childhood!) I've been in the kitchen, either at work or at home, all day every day, playing, testing and absorbing all I can about the science and common sense of cooking and eating well. My new book ESSENTIAL Annabel Langbein brings together everything I've learned or worked out for myself over the years, in one timeless compendium...

One of the most memorable New Year’s parties I’ve ever attended was held in the 1980s at an old woolshed in the country outside of Gisborne. As the clock turned to midnight a flaming hay bale was dispatched on a flying fox. It whizzed down the wire in a flaming fireball, into an old car sitting a couple of paddocks away. 

As much as I love Christmas Day, it’s Boxing Day that I really look forward to. It always seems that you have to get through Christmas before the holiday actually starts.

A golden roast turkey is such an impressive dish to bring to the table for a special-occasion feast – but a lot of people are put off cooking turkey by the dry, stringy turkey they've been served in the past. I used to think I was destined for a life of tough turkey – until I discovered the secret... 

As the year hurtles towards another rollover, there’s always so much to do. I guess this is partly because here in the antipodes we don’t just take a Christmas break, but run our whole summer holiday off the end.

My most important advice when you've got a big event like Christmas coming up is to keep it simple and make sure you don't get too hung up about impressing your guests with your culinary gymnastics. I find that if the cook is relaxed, everyone else will be. So don’t take on so much that your Christmas Day ends up being about sweating over a hot turkey rather than catching up with family and friends...

A pav is a quintessentially Kiwi dessert and perfect for any summer celebration. It’s not
a complicated dish to make but my tips will ensure you make the perfect pav every time…

Wherever you live in the world spring and summer are a time for celebration, but down here in New Zealand and Australia, Christmas and New Year give us even more excuses for getting togther with family and friends. When I was planning my new summer annual I tried to imagine all the occasions you might be needing to cook for, and then do all the thinking for you... 

From a vegan feast to a Christmas lunch or even a wedding menu, my new summer annual features menu suggestions for so many summer occasions. To make life even easier I’ve created shopping lists itemising all the ingredients you'll need to make all the recipes in each of these menus. Click the links to download printable pdfs to take to the supermarket...

Kokedama bonsai balls are the latest internet gardening sensation – so cute and quirky and they look great displayed on saucers and hung up around the house. Check out our video on how to put one together…

I’d heard about using the brine from canned chickpeas as a substitute for egg whites, but I’d never really given it any credence. It just seemed too… well… weird. And then I tried making mayonnaise with a few spoonfuls of the brine from a can of chickpeas instead of an egg and, hey presto, it worked like a dream!

Cupcakes are such a treat and it’s easier than you think to decorate them with pretty icing designs. Just follow my instructions and you’ll be icing like a pro in no time…

Edible flowers are blooming gorgeous and can really pretty up a plate of food – but it’s crucial
to only use flowers that are suitable for culinary purposes…

Candied petals make for a wonderful edible decoration on special-occasion desserts – they provide a little colour, crunch and sweetness all
at once. These pretty little additions are so simple to make but really add the wow-factor…

I love gathering friends and family to talk and laugh over delicious food and drinks. When it's
a special celebration I try to add some personal touches to make the day even more memorable for my guests… 

Mark the summer holidays with an end-of-school party – and make it an occasion to remember with all sorts of cool party crafts… 

Click through to download invitations, menus and place cards for the Garden-to-Table feast from my new summer annual A Free Range Life: Celebrate Summer…

Click through to download invitations for the
Fiesta drinks and nibbles party from my new summer annual A Free Range Life: Celebrate Summer…

Click through to download name tags for the
bake sale from my new summer annual A Free Range Life: Celebrate Summer… 

It doesn't take much time or cost a lot to brighten up a party or special occasion celebration with just a few simple craft supplies…

There’s no right or wrong way to organise a potluck and it can be as casual or as elaborate as you like. Whether you plan it with military precision weeks in advance or send out a group text on whim the day before, there’s fun to be had! Try my tips for a successful potluck party – with free invitation, placecards and conversation starters...

A couple of weekends ago, the 10 lovely winners of my Share the Love potluck competition flew
in from all around the country for a weekend
in Wanaka with a special long lunch Ted and
I hosted at our studio by the lake...

One of the things I love the most about my jar salads is how easy it makes it to pack a variety of ingredients and flavours into one meal. This is particularly beneficial if you’re considering the nutritional value of what you’re eating…

And the winners are...

Thanks everyone for your enthusiasm and creativity, and special thanks also to Air New Zealand, Lake Wanaka Tourism and Farro Fresh for the amazing prizes. 

You can view the entries and the winners here.

Discovering new flavours and ingredients and learning to cook with them is like learning a new language in the kitchen. Cooking this way makes me feel part of the world. I can take familiar meats, poultry and seasonal vegetables and with exciting flavours like lemongrass, fish sauce and dashi make them new again. In this simplest of ways, I open the door to a new culture…

I love the fact that down here at the bottom of the Pacific, Matariki is our very own harvest festival,
a celebration vested in the movement of the stars. A shared feast is such a great way to celebrate Matariki. It’s a wonderful opportunity
to gather friends, fly kites and light fireworks
and lanterns…

As the days start to shorten and the cold seeps in, I want food that’s hearty and warming – dishes that deliver up a big dose of comfort and fill the house with appetising smells to welcome everyone in from the cold. My new winter annual, Annabel Langbein A Free Range Life: Share the Love, is jam-packed with inspiring winter recipes…

Rich and nourishing, substantial and warming – there’s a lot to love about winter food. To help streamline winter eating I’ve created a six-week meal planner suggesting easy and delicious dinners five nights a week, plus menu suggestions for when you want to make a special meal for family and friends. All the recipes you need are in my new winter annual Annabel Langbein A Free Range Life: Share the Love…

When I was in Paris last year, Anne-Laure Pham, editor-in-chief of French food magazine Zeste and food blogger extraordinaire, showed me around the 19th arrondissement – an up-and-coming foodie area you might not know about yet…

I’m inclined to think that if you are going to get kids to feel differently about treats and lunchbox fare then, apart from tasting good, there has to be to be some sense of discovery and fun when they open the lid…

Terrariums are easy to grow, seriously low maintenance and a brilliant green-fingered project to get stuck into. Check out our video about how to layer up your own…

If you've made one of the terrariums in my new winter annual (or even if you've bought one ready-made from the shop) here's how to make a quick and easy macramé hanger to put it in... 

I can pretty much justify eating almost anything:
a fat wedge of thickly iced buttery banana cake
– the potassium in those bananas is so good for you… that extra glass of pinot – you wouldn’t want to waste a good wine… chocolate – well it turns out it’s actually not too much of a stretch for me
to justify the odd indulgence with that one…

When my kids were small, coloured boiled eggs were always on the Easter Sunday breakfast menu. Rather than using commercial dye, we wrapped each egg in a covering of onion skins and then secured them with a piece of cloth and a tie before boiling them. It’s such a nice little ritual and the marbling on the shells is so pretty...

I read an article the other day about how the repetitive action of knitting and needlework can create a relaxed state similar to how you feel when you meditate or do yoga, and can reduce harmful levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which unfortunately seems to be part and parcel of daily life these days. For me, cooking has the same effect...

It was the shortest 3.36 minutes of my life so far! That’s the time it took me to sprint anchor Matt Lauer through my Sausage, Tomato and Olive Pissaladiere recipe on the top-rating US breakfast show Today last week. I’d been invited on the show to share recipes from my TV series The Free Range Cook: Simple Pleasures, now screening on Public Television in the USA...

More than any other meal of the year Christmas dinner is a chance to indulge in your favourite foods. The challenge is in choosing dishes that will go well together as a satisfying whole... 

It’s such fun being here in the USA right before Thanksgiving. It’s by far the biggest holiday in the American calendar and everyone is excited about the prospect of going home or connecting up with family and friends.

While my family and I were in France recently, my dear friend, clever cook and long-time mentor Daniele Delpeuch came to stay with her grandaughter Lou. I first met Lou as a tiny baby some 12 years ago. Like her grandmother and her mother she loves to cook, and before you could say “voudrais-tu du thé?” (fancy a cup of tea?) Lou was in the kitchen whipping up a cake for us to enjoy. I watched in fascination as...

I liked the ceramic yoghurt pottles in France so much I couldn't bear to throw them in the bin, so I packed a few into my suitcase when I came home, and now I have two sets of five pottles to give away. To be in to win... 

As the seasons roll around from winter into a long-awaited spring and then summer, I always find myself on the hunt for fresh inspiration. In my new summer collection, Annabel Langbein A Free Range Life: Endless Summer, I'm excited to share all the fabulous foods I’m enjoying right now…

People often ask me how I come up with new recipes. I get loads of inspiration from my garden, my travels, reading and eating out but the truth is that the idea is the easy part as they just seem to fly out of my brain all the time! But I don’t think people realise how much work happens after this initial conceptual stage…

Flex your artistic muscles and get creative by colouring in one of the beautiful illustrations from my summer annual and you could win a Kenwood Triblade hand blender for your efforts. Read my blog to find out how...

To help streamline your summer eating I’ve created a six-week meal planner so you can take an easy breezy approach to dinnertime five nights a week. I've also compiled some menus for effortless entertaining. All the recipes you need are in my new annual Annabel Langbein A Free Range Life: Endless Summer.

I'm so proud to call New Zealand home, and to be bringing a glimpse of our spectacular country and the Kiwi way of life into American homes each week in my television show Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook: Simple Pleasures...

Who says winter needs to feel like a struggle and a chore? I want winter to feel easy and fun, not cold and difficult, so in putting together my first ever winter annual, I have streamlined and simplified winter cooking to give it the same easy mood that we love about summer...

Often the hardest thing about cooking is deciding what to eat each night. So to help streamline your winter eating I’ve created an eight-week meal planner to take the stress out of your evenings. All the recipes you need are in my new winter annual Annabel Langbein A Free Range Life: Winter Goodness...

It just doesn’t work to plant the same crops in the same place year after year. Different crops have different nutrient requirements, so growing the same crop in the same place time after time will drain the soil of the nutrients taken up by those plants, leading to reduced yields. Rotating crops keeps your soil healthy, at the same time disrupting the life cycle of pests and diseases and reducing the spread of soil-borne disease. 

Seeds and plants germinate and grow at different temperatures, so it's important to know what their tolerance is before you start to plant them. Only the hardiest plants can be sown when the soil is cold in early spring. This is the time to plant bok choy, broad beans, broccoli, kale, leeks, peas, radishes, spinach, spring onions, strawberries and turnips. Artichokes and asparagus tolerate cold too but you won’t get a crop in your first season...

If you live in the city it’s much harder to be connected with the rhythms of nature than when you live in the country. At the supermarket you can get pretty much any item of produce in year-round supply, so you don’t always know when or whether something is actually in season. Sourcing fresh fruit and vegetables from our own backyard gardens, farmers’ markets and weekly produce boxes changes the way we eat – whatever is in season is what there is to cook...

Quinoa, buckwheat, farro – seems like every time you visit the wholefoods store there's a new grain or pulse to try. But each has its own unique cooking requirements, and sometimes it's hard to keep track. So we've created this handy chart with all the details you need to prepare everything from black beans to red lentils. 

This Anzac Day is a special one in New Zealand and Australia. It's 100 years since the Anzac troops went ashore on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915, and a time to remember the many hardships they endured there. As my small contribution to the 100th anniversary Anzac Day commemorations I've put together three special recipes to share...

Happy New Year everyone! January is always an exciting time as we look ahead to a year of new possibilities, but it's also a good opportunity to look back and savour what we most enjoyed about the past 12 months. In terms of my website, the recipes you most enjoyed were almost all sweet, frequently cakes and often chocolate! Without further ado, here are the 12 most popular recipes for 2014 from annabel-langbein.com...

It was during my teenage hippy years up the Whanganui River that I mastered the art of yeasted bread. We (my boyfriend Murray, his friend Tom and I) decided that city life was not for us and moved onto an old marae down by the river at Ranana (I had just turned 17 and looking back now I think, aargh, my poor parents!) We helped out on local farms...

My website has everything you need for Christmas, and is your one-stop-shop for all the recipes and inspiration you'll need for the big day...

One of the most thrilling things about making the third series of my TV show has been meeting so many clever people who are crafting good, richly layered lives around their passions. Winemaker Duncan Forsyth is one such person, and it was a treat to visit him to shoot this episode. Not only does he create beautiful wines but in his spare time he produces the most delicious prosciutto... 

I’m never sure whether it’s the idea of something for nothing, or some deep, primal hunter-gathering instinct that attracts me to the idea of foraging. Either way (and it’s probably both), heading out into the wild to find free things to eat is so appealing. Foraging has become popular even in urban environments these days...

Walk into a supermarket pretty much anywhere these days and you have the world’s pantry at your fingertips. On any busy weeknight you can grab a piece of fresh fish, chicken or meat, some seasonal veges and decide when you get home how you’re going to eat it. You might feel like Japanese-style, adding ginger, soy sauce and wasabi, and serving it up with udon or soba noodles. Or maybe give your meal an Italian flavour with pesto, olive oil and pine nuts... 

We spent a lot of time fishing when we were kids. When the wind swung around to blow offshore my uncle would call and we would all head off to the beach to help put his kontiki raft out. I remember he used a barley sugar to hold the line of hooks on the raft. Once the sweet had melted in the salt water, by which stage the whole contraption would be way out in the deep briny, the line would drop down with all its baited hooks...

I get to do a lot of travelling in my life, so one of the first things I do as soon as I get home – to make me feel like I am home – is bake or preserve. Just getting into the kitchen and filling up jars or tins gives me a feeling of being anchored. I have always been big on creating a sense of home no matter where I live, and it’s been great to see my kids, both at university now, bringing little rituals into their own living spaces and lives to create a sense of home and place...

When I left home at the tender age of 16, it was to pursue a subsistence life with two friends (one my boyfriend) in the wilderness up the Whanganui River. We lived off the land, helping out on farms, assisting the various marae up and down the river by painting their old meeting houses and clearing out of old cemeteries. We planted a huge vegetable garden down on the old marae at Ranana, which fed the local community...

You may have gathered that I am somewhat of a hussy when it comes to cheese. You can be sure that there will always be a nugget of some special cheese tucked away somewhere in my fridge where (hopefully) no one else can find it. In my world nothing beats it for sheer indulgence. The thing that amazes me, when I’m standing at the cheese cabinet trying to decide which to buy (and usually choosing way more than necessary), is...

There is an incredible lushness to the Hawke’s Bay spring, and even though we were filming 12 hours a day, staying at the Black Barn Retreats on the banks of the Tukituki River while shooting this episode felt like a holiday. Being out in the countryside you get a real sense of the seasons, something that isn’t always easy in an urban life. Arriving, as we did, in the full flush of spring meant the asparagus harvest was in full swing...

My first encounter with fresh truffles was not in some swanky restaurant in France or Italy, but in the poky kitchen of my tiny flat in Parnell. Back in the mid-1980s I had been commissioned to write a fortnightly column for the Listener magazine, and food producers often sent me their wares in the hope I might write about them. One day a most mysterious box turned up, labelled 'urgent/perishable/keep chilled'. Inside lay a single black truffle, like a nibbed nugget of coal...

Filming at Billy Scott’s strawberry farm in Hawke’s Bay for the third episode of my TV show made me feel like a kid all over again. Surrounded by fields of fat, sweet strawberries, I just couldn’t stop picking them. Everywhere I looked there was always another perfectly ripe, juicy strawberry just over there… and another… and another. Before I knew it I had picked (and eaten) way too many.

For this Saturday night's episode of my new TV series we headed up to Closeburn Station, off the road to Glenorchy in the heart of the South Island high country, to see the winter shearing in action. Walking into the shearing shed was like stepping back in time – nothing much seemed to have changed from when I was a kid. Muscled young shearers bent over the merino sheep, their handpieces easing off swift, clean arcs of fine wool into pillowy piles on the stand...

Thanks for all the fantastic feedback following the first episode of my new TV series last weekend!
If you’re looking forward to the next episode I’m afraid you’ll need to wait another week – tonight’s episode got the bump in favour of the election coverage! It'll screen next Saturday night at 7pm on TV One, but until then we’ve still gotta eat – and what better opportunity than election night to celebrate the diverse nation we are today... 

Just one sleep to go until my new TV series hits our screens at 7pm on Saturday night on TV One! I'm going to be blogging each Friday during the 13-week series to let you know what I'm up to each week and give you all the links you need to access recipes, videos and behind-the-scenes blogs and photos from each episode. This first episode was shot in the middle of winter. The snow was deep on the hills around Wanaka...

One of the best things about launching my new TV series and book is that it gives me an excuse to hit the road and visit some of my favourite parts of the country. This year’s author tour is going to be even more fun because I’m taking my trusty yellow truck on a road trip as I visit garden centres to demonstrate the Tui garden projects that are a highlight of each episode of the new series. Check out the schedule to find out when I’m going to be in your area. See you there!

The sun is shining and there’s not a breath of wind but I know I need to rug up before venturing up to the garden. I can still see the frost lying thick on the ground – it must be only about two or three degrees out there. As I wander up the hill, stomping off the frost and looking in all my layers a bit like a yeti, I gradually become aware of a deep, heavy hum in the air. It takes a while to realise that the loud vibrating buzz is the sound of thousands of bees busy foraging in the alder trees above the path. 

I can't tell you how excited I am to be able to finally share my new book and TV series! It's exactly a year since we started shooting the series – we had to race to catch the last of the snow for the sequence when I go dog-sledding on the hills above the Cardrona Valley. It has taken more than a year to plan, shoot and edit the series because

I’ve just arrived home from an amazing few days at Queensland's Regional Flavours food weekend. Held in the South Bank Parklands along the Brisbane River in late July each year, it’s one of the best food festivals I’ve ever been to. I’d never thought of Brisbane as a culinary centre until I was invited to demonstrate some of my recipes at last year’s event...

Two apricot trees were the very first things I planted on our land in Wanaka. I put them up behind the cabin, on a rough bank that had been earthworked for the building site and the newly formed road – the only cleared land on the block. The bank was all peat, which, in this harsh, arid environment, seemed quite remarkable, and I figured this moisture-holding medium would be just perfect for my little trees. 

I’m a sucker for a spot of tradition, and even though Easter doesn’t fall in spring in our part of the world, all those European rituals involving symbols of renewal such as chickens, eggs and bunnies are something I always look forward to... 

If your garden is anything like mine, it's probably starting to look a little scrappy at this time of year. The annuals are starting to sag and the summer veges have just about come to the end of their run. White powdery mildew might have appeared on your zucchini plants, or aphids on your tomato plants. While it's tempting to pull up the lot and start again, I know if I keep watering, feeding and picking I'll get a few more weeks of harvests... 

It's true what they say – the fastest way to a man's heart (or a woman's for that matter) is through their stomach. So instead of forking out big money for flowers or extravant gifts this Valentine's Day, show how much you care by baking something for your sweetheart – a batch of One-Pot Chocolate and Raspberry Cupcakes should do the trick – or, better still, cooking them a really delicious meal. By Annabel Langbein.

Happy Chocolate Cake Day! No, I haven't made that up – January 27 really is National Chocolate Cake Day in the US, and that's one celebration I'm happy to tag along with! 

Everyone loves a good chocolate cake, and when it comes to chocolate cake recipes they don't get any better than my Ultimate Chocolate Cake. 

Have you got your portable holiday garden ready yet? It’s not too late to put a few seedlings in a tub so you’ll have fresh salad greens and herbs to snip while you’re at the bach or campsite. A few trays or tubs of baby salad vegetables, herbs and microgreens are up there on my summer holiday packing list alongside the sunscreen, books and essential cooking gear. They make such a difference to the way we eat on holiday...

My website is your one-stop-shop for all your Christmas recipes and inspiration – and it's all free! Click on the tiles for menu ideas, table settings, festive baking, homemade gift ideas and more...

Happy holidays!

Every year I promise myself that this Christmas is going to be different – this year I'm not going to cook 87 Christmas cakes (yes, I really did do that one crazy year), and spend the entire summer exhausted.

But every year, I realise it just doesn't feel like Christmas until I've spent time in the kitchen, cooking up homemade goodies to give away... 

I'm very excited to finally be able to share with you a project I've been living, breathing, dreaming, testing and tasting since last summer. As I prepared for Christmas, celebrated New Year and enjoyed time around the table with family and friends, I found myself seeking inspiration that would make the holiday season feel more relaxed and fun. And so the idea of a summer annual filled with easy, affordable recipes was born...

Picture this: you have created a wonderful meal, it tastes fabulous and looks amazing and you can’t wait to share a photo online. You grab the camera, give the food an extra little tweak, and click away. Excellent – until you see the results...

When you go to the effort of baking a cake, especially if you are not a regular baker, it’s only natural to want to start with the best recipe out there. When it comes to banana cake I think my Best-Ever Banana Cake is it!

This week I want to celebrate one of my personal bee heroes, Kim Kneijber, who has devoted almost a decade of her life to caring for bees and promoting issues affecting their wellbeing...

To celebrate Bee Aware Month the NBA recently ran a competition for school children, asking them to create videos that showed the importance of bees and how we can help them survive.

I was blown away by the entries – I’ve included the winning videos below so you can check them out...

It’s nearing the end of winter here in New Zealand and there is always enormous pleasure to be had as spring flowers emerge and the fruit and almond trees fill the landscape with their beautiful blossoms...

I am proud to have recently assumed an ambassadorial role for the National Beekeepers’ Association of New Zealand. In taking on this important cause I hope to raise awareness of the current plight of bees and help promote ways to ensure their long-term survival and success on our planet...

When my sister and I were at school our lunchboxes never contained any food that wasn’t homemade, aside from the occasional little packet of raisins. Did I know how lucky I was? No, I didn’t. When you are a kid, the need to feel you fit in is paramount – let nothing differentiate you from the tribe. Putting together some lunchbox ideas for Taste magazine recently got me thinking about ways to liven up this important meal of the day... 

Luckily for my husband Ted and I, both of our kids have grown up enjoying cooking. As with many kids, their interest in cooking started with baking. In the transformation of simple ingredients, such as butter, sugar, eggs and flour, into sweet, tender cakes, biscuits, pies and desserts there is not just that magical sense of alchemy, but generally a very delicious spoon from the mixing bowl to lick...

With the school holidays upon us again we've got an exciting competition to help encourage kids into the kitchen. Cook something with your kids during the holidays, upload a photo and the recipe to my website and you'll be in to win a gorgeous Cookie Inventor Kit worth $45, courtesy of the clever Kiwi company Seedling. It's a fun and easy school holiday project that involves two things all kids love – food and computers.

Throughout my childhood my mother’s lasagne was a dish I could never get enough of. It went on to be one of my kids’ favourite meals and last year when our daughter Rose was on a gap year and living with a family in Sweden, she skyped home for the recipe to cook for the family’s Sunday supper. The brownie points she scored were right up there and to this day they still email her saying, “Come back – we want more lasagne!”

If I think back over the years, some of the most fun times I’ve ever had have been at Easter.

Maybe it’s because here in New Zealand everyone is primed for the last big holiday before winter, ready for an adventure or an expedition, and definitely ready to be sociable. I know I am.

If you want to enjoy fresh vegetables over the winter, now is the time to get busy in the garden. It's hard to believe, when the full flush of autumn harvests is coming to bear as it has been in my Wanaka garden, that soon things will stop growing. But if I don’t get on with it now, I’ll find it’s all too late and my plants won’t come to ripeness before the shortest day.

I suspect I’m not the only woman – or man – who has an emotional relationship with chocolate. When I was living in New York in the Eighties I had this dishy boyfriend who used to pick me up in a limo and take me out to nice restaurants. Then I went up to Toronto to work for a while, and one night I rang my nice boy in New York. A woman answered the phone... 

I would never have picked my husband as a romantic when I first met him. But shortly after we were married I was going through some drawers when I pulled out an old Valentine’s card, still in its envelope.

I always feel incredibly feral when I get back to work after the summer break. Weeks with no mirror, no hairdresser, no makeup, no smart clothes... a daily routine of easy, lazy meals, nothing fancy or complicated. And that’s as it should be, for the best thing about summer is that whole wonderful sense of freedom.

My mother was a brilliant cook and a fabulous baker. She was always in the kitchen whipping up treats to fill the stash of cake and biscuit tins that lined the pantry.

There’s something about the fresh summer air that gets the appetite going. Whether I’m swimming, gardening or off on an adventure, being outdoors always makes me hungry.

One of the best things about the summer holidays is the sheer simplicity of life. For a few days or weeks, home is a rumpty old bach or a campsite or caravan somewhere by the sea, a river or a lake.

Today's recipe is quite simply ambrosia – Raspberry Ripple Ambrosia, to be exact!

The best thing about Christmas Day is the fact that, after a morning spent preparing the big midday meal, you've got carte blanche to curl up on the sofa for a little afternoon nap while the teens do the dishes.

If there's one day of the year when a little indulgence is practically compulsory, it's Christmas Day. And dessert doesn't get much more decadent than my Chocolate Sponge Roll with Figs. 

Three hundred and sixty four days of the year I believe in keeping things simple. A plain tablecloth, a candle or two and a jug of water are all it takes to set the scene for dinner. But on Christmas Day I like to create magic at the table...

When I'm serving a showstopping main dish like Roast Turkey with Cider Gravy or Spicy Barbecued Beef I like to keep the side dishes simple. A Trio of Vegetables featuring crispy roast potatoes and a couple of green vegetables should do the trick.

One of the great things about celebrating a summertime Christmas is the plethora of fresh seasonal vegetables and fruits that abound at this time of year. I love to serve at least one big salad with Christmas dinner, and this year I'm mixing it up a bit with my Pawpaw Spinach Salad.

I used to think I was destined for a life of dry and tough turkey – until I discovered the secret powers of brining. Now I brine my turkey overnight before cooking it I've revealed a whole new world of juicy, flavoursome Christmas dinners.

For some people, the stuffing is the highlight of any chicken or turkey roast. Others can take it or leave it. But if there's one day of the year when you pull out all the stops and make your own savoury stuffing, make it Christmas Day.

It was the jam that did it - my fabulous Ten-Minute Raspberry Jam that I was making with the haul of fresh raspberries I’d brought home from a gathering expedition when we were shooting the final episode of my new TV series.

With my oven already busy cooking the turkey, I like to make sure my Christmas Dinner starter is a simple assembly that doesn't require any cooking – and ideally it will be something I can prepare in advance.

Ham and turkey are the centrepieces of a traditional Christmas dinner, but here in New Zealand we often cook something on the barbecue as part of our festive feast. 

If you're looking for a quick and easy crowd-pleaser to launch your Christmas Day dinner, my Sesame Prawn Toasts are the answer. They're a snip to make, reasonably inexpensive if you use a bag of frozen prawn meat, and a hit with kids and adults alike.

For most of us, oysters are a special-occasion treat, so what better way to greet your guests on Christmas Day than with a champagne cocktail and a big platter of succulent oysters on the half shell.

At the start of Allison Pearson’s novel I Don’t Know How She Does It, there’s a fantastic scene that any busy working mother can relate to.  

I’m dreaming of a delicious Christmas. This year my theme for Christmas dinner is “traditional with a twist”, so I’ve put together a menu that takes classic dishes including bubbly cocktails, roast turkey and chocolate sponge roll in a new direction.

Some years ago I wrote a book about entertaining called Cooking to Impress Without Stress. I wrote it (as is the case with most of my books) for myself, as a template to seamlessly enjoying the process of having people over to eat at home.

Every year for as long as I can remember I have baked at least one Christmas cake. Given that no one in my family actually likes Christmas cake, this doubtless seems really odd. But making this special cake each year is one of those things that makes me feel like it’s actually Christmas.

Every summer when we were growing up, my mother would spend several weeks bottling the season’s harvests for the pantry. Our tiny kitchen was transformed into a full-blown canning and pickling production line, and just getting in the door involved clambering over cases of produce and navigating your way carefully around masses of glass jars, lids and bags of sugar...

Every Christmas when I was growing up, one of my mother’s friends would send us a repurposed shoebox filled with different kinds of homemade baking and other sweet treats. 

When I was a kid my family had the best holidays in and around Nelson, and as we headed out with nets to catch flounder in the estuary up near Cable Bay for this weekend’s episode of my TV series, all the happy memories came flooding back.

I get so many comments about my big yellow Jeep that sometimes I think it’s more the star of my new television series than I am. 

Up until the advent of the huge stock truck in the early 1980s, sheep and cattle were moved around New Zealand by drovers. With a horse and a swag, these hardy types would walk their mobs to the sale yards, often taking weeks, sometimes months to reach their destination.

I’ve had the most incredibly busy time lately, promoting my book and TV series Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook: Simple Pleasures. I find the antidote to the increased pace is to reconnect with the outdoors – so the moment I got back to Wanaka I found myself out in the garden seeing how my vegetables are faring in this mad spring weather. 

At the end of a busy working day, I find that the last thing I want to do is think. The whole day has inevitably been about rushing around and trying to fit in too many things, so I just want to come home and have some wonderful fairy deliver a delicious dinner to my table.

In this episode of my television series Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook: Simple Pleasures I visit my friend Karen the lavender grower, who is always giving me snippets from her garden, and farmers Ben and Erika...

One of the things that struck me most whilst making my television show Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook: Simple Pleasures was the passion and energy of the people we met along the way and the diversity of crops that are being grown and artisan food products that are being made in New Zealand these days.

The Abel Tasman Coast Track is an incredible piece of landscape and has been named as one of New Zealand's Great Walks. Extending around the coast from Marahau to Golden Bay at the northwestern tip of the South Island, the route passes many glorious beaches, crosses frequent streams and winds over headlands through luxurious bush... 

We have been coming to Wanaka since our kids were toddlers, and for them as well as for Ted and I, it’s very much our home away from home.
Even though our cabin here is incredibly small, we still all love coming here to chill out and recharge our batteries. 

It’s been years since I've headed up in a chopper on a deer muster. As a teenager I worked for a couple of years trapping possums in the bush and spent some time jumping out of helicopters to recover live deer...

Whenever you’re filming on location, like we did when we were shooting the first episode of my television series Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook: Simple Pleasures at the Mt Maude vineyard in Central Otago, everyone is just holding their breath about the weather.

It’s always fun doing live telly. There’s a real energy there that keeps you in the moment, and when you know you’ve only got six minutes and you have to get two or three dishes done you really get your act together!

Just two more sleeps until my new television series Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook: Simple Pleasures hits our screens here in New Zealand. The first episode screens at 7pm on Saturday night, and I can't wait to hear what you all think. 

There's nothing like the satisfaction of harvesting fruit straight from a tree and transforming it into something delicious.

This cute video clip has just arrived from my Dutch publishers Unieboek and reminded me of why the Netherlands would have to be one of my favourite countries on earth. As you can see from the video, my recent trip there was so much fun.

I’d never thought of myself as a cruise kind of a girl. I’d always been more a casual boatie type – cooking simple food in some tiny rigged-up galley, jumping off the boat for a swim in the sea, hanging a rod over the side to catch a fish – the kind of super-casual holiday we New Zealanders all know and love.

In a world increasingly geared to instant gratification, vegetable gardening doesn’t really play the game. The results are never instant – vegetables take weeks, sometimes months, from seed to harvest. But when it finally comes time to pick your home-grown crops (provided the slugs haven’t got to them first!), it becomes well worth the wait.

There seems to be a division in the world between cooks who never make the same meal twice, and cooks who find six or seven recipes, learn them inside and out, and recycle them endlessly without deviating from the ingredient list.

There's nothing quite like fresh produce straight from the garden. It was a big part of my childhood – my father Fred would come home from work each night and tend to his vegetable garden, offerings from which arrived washed and trimmed at the kitchen door, ready for my mother to cast her magic over them. 

My philosophy has always been that leading a good life is about friendships, community and time around the table. That’s why I love this time of year. After the busy-ness of Christmas this is a great time to relax, re-energise and reflect – and get all my friends over for a meal. 

I kicked off my feminist-hippy period as a teenager, leaving school at 16 (University Entrance successfully passed – whew!) to move up to the Whanganui River with my longtime boyfriend and fellow idealist, Murray, and his friend, Thom.

For years I’ve been disappointed by my turkey-cooking efforts because the bird has inevitably been dry and rather stringy. But then I discovered the magical, transforming effect of brining.

In the summer when I am down in Wanaka, I love getting up with the sun and wandering around my garden. There’s something incredibly still and soft about the land at this time of day­ – a hint of dew on the ground, everything looking so fresh and new.

If you're in New Zealand you might have noticed my face popping up on your TV screen this week. No, it's not a new series of The Free Range Cook - that'll be next year - but the latest installment of my Fresh Everyday campaign.

Paris has been basking in the most glorious Indian summer – clear blue skies, hot without being too hot and not a breath of wind. It could not have been more perfect for the launch of my cookbook Annabel au Naturel (the French version of The Free Range Cook) at the New Zealand Ambassador’s wonderful residence.

One of the things I enjoy most about eating out is the chance to sample really creative food made by other cooks and chefs. I love it when someone puts together an idea that works that I had never imagined or tasted before

Sitting here in the gloomy grey rain of an Auckland winter, it’s hard to imagine that just a couple of weeks ago I was frolicking in the clearest blue waters of the Aegean, having one of the best holidays of my life. 

It’s so much easier to cook a dish when you’ve seen it being made. Ideally, of course, this will be from the comfort of a kitchen stool, glass of wine in hand while you watch the cook at work and wait to eat whatever delicious concoction he or she is creating!

It was such a buzz to launch my book Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook in London last week!

I have always loved the persimmon tree in our garden. It is such a pretty shaped tree and through the autumn the fruit hang like a profusion of deep orange lanterns.

As I write this, the first fire of the season is blazing in the hearth and the soothing smell of simmering chicken is giving the kitchen a welcoming homey feel. 

It’s always such a buzz being in Australia, where the whole world comes together around the table with the best food of every ethnicity, style and and flavour.

For weeks now, bakeries and stores have been seducing us with various versions of hot cross buns. The really yummy boutique bakery ones can be expensive, but actually they’re very easy to make at home and baking them is a lovely way to engage with the traditions of Easter.

When our kids were little I would spend hours each Easter creating elaborate Easter egg hunts around our Wanaka cabin.

Recently I drove over from Wanaka to visit my dear Aunt Liz on the remote farm where she lives near one of the hydro dams on the Waitaki River in North Otago. I get so inspired whenever I see Liz

There were still piles of snow on the ground when we landed in New York a week or so ago. Then, just like that, the sun came out. After one of the coldest winters in decades, the hardy were out in their T-shirts at this first hint of spring – but we stayed rugged up in full winter woolly mode.

I’ve just been in London for a busy round of meetings and interviews to publicise my TV series Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook, which has just launched on UKTV’s Good Food Channel.

Just over a week ago I was in my garden at Wanaka, savouring the simple pleasures of zucchini and sweetcorn picked fresh at the end of a New Zealand summer.

Right now I am enjoying the full flush of summer harvests in my garden. My six zucchini plants are producing so profusely it’s hard to keep up with all the zucchini (or courgettes, as the French prefer to call them).

One of the things that often trips up vegetable gardeners is the time a seed or small seedling takes to grow to harvest. Crops like leeks, for example, are notoriously slow, taking three and a half to four months before you have something of a decent enough size to eat.

Luxury isn’t what it used to be. Less and less these days is it about being flashy or ostentatious or even necessarily expensive.

“Summertime and the living is easy, fish are jumping and the cotton is high…”

I’m very excited to be bringing you my first post. I’m joining the blogosphere to share bits and pieces of my life in food, great recipes I’ve stumbled over, interesting ways to cook and dishes that I have found worked really well in this busy run around life.

My mother Anne was a natural cook and a home science university graduate. Her well-honed cooking skills and astute relationship with Cryil the butcher, coupled with my father’s prodigious garden efforts, provided us with an interesting and nutritious diet...

My pack list for the West Coast seemed to go on forever and I found myself wondering if we would even get it all on the truck - barbecue to cook all the whitebait we would be catching, tarpaulin for rain, wardrobe change in event of spilling tomato sauce down my front or falling into the river, props for our picnic, food for the crew, food for our supper ...

It was absolutely freezing when we headed to the Wanaka A&P Show. I wondered if anyone would turn up, but country folk are a staunch lot and even with the prospect of snow they weren’t going to miss out on a couple of days of fun. The show circuit does the rounds of small town New Zealand through the spring and summer each year...

At the end of a hot, dry day there’s nothing more thirst quenching than an ice cold beer. But that’s usually where I leave it. My list of things I like to eat or serve with beer are limited. I like beer with snack foods, fish and chips (anything fried for that matter), sausage rolls and meat pies, and anything spicy.

I love the sense of freedom around cooking outdoors. Somehow, just by virtue of being outdoors, our gastronomic expectations are lessened and everyone loosens up and has a good time. ..

I often think I am lucky not to have a particularly sweet tooth. But if there is one ingredient I can get really greedy about it’s cheese. Come the end of the day, while we are making dinner, I’ll often raid the fridge for a piece of yummy cheese to have with some crispy crackers and a nice glass of wine. Goat’s cheeses like chevre and Cabicou, with their clean, lightly acidic taste, seem to partner really well with creamy chenin blanc styles...

Until lemons were introduced to the Mediterranean during the Crusades, virtually every household with access to grapes would make verjuice from the unripened grapes that were thinned before the harvest, employing the sour juice as a flavour enhancer and acid note in cooking...

I often wonder if I was only allowed two or three flavourings (salt and pepper aside) what might they be? I guess it comes down to cultural bias and personal preference as to what the must-have flavours for each cook might be – chillies or ginger, rosemary, smoked paprika, lemongrass, coriander or mint, and so on.  There is so much choice, but for most people it comes down to the way you learnt (or like) to cook...

Heading into the pristine wilderness of Breaksea Sound was one of the more awe-inspiring trips in my life to date. The only way in is by boat or chopper (an hour and a half ride from Queenstown). The weather is famously notorious - raining more days than it shines, with ferocious storms lashing in from Antarctica at the drop of a hat...

When it comes to ingredients I’d find it hard to be without, eggs sit right at the top of the list. They are just so versatile, and I love the way they morph into so many different textures - the light puff of a soufflé, the firm bite of a hardboiled egg, the creaminess of a scramble...

I’m really paranoid about bee stings. It probably stems from the time when dad, having kept bees for years, developed a major allergy from a sting. I remember it so vividly. It was the first dinner party I had ever cooked for my friends, so I guess I would have been about 14 or 15 years old. Just as I was dishing up, dad came in with his face and neck all swollen and unable to breathe. We just dropped everything and RAN. I don’t even remember what I cooked, and I don’t know if we made it back to the table...

I get so mad at myself if I miss the farmers’ market. It usually means I haven’t got out of bed early enough - probably because Saturday night rolled over into the early hours of Sunday morning. Worst of all, I’ve missed the market and all those fresh goodies on offer...

Annabel prepares her all-time favourite Bacon and Egg Pie for a cherry-picking adventure with young friends George and Evie. It’s the perfect thing for a portable lunch or dinner.