Paheko Living Foods

11/06/2023

Kūmarahou’s beauty is revealed when the dense yellow flowers are blooming.

The plant plays an important role in traditional Māori medicine and is truly loved by herbalists for its medicinal qualities on the respiratory system, in particularly to treat colds and coughs.

The arrival of winter and colder temperatures reminded me to make the most of the handful of dry leaves and flowers that I have harvested and stored earlier this year.

Using an hydroalcholic solution to extract the healing properties of Kūmarahou, the tincture will be added to my Elecampane herbal extract for a complete chest complaints and respiratory formula.

As per the flowers, they contain saponins, a natural compound which has skin cleansing properties. They were used in our soap recipe which also includes Kānuka. I’ve added natural colours and rose petals on top to make it pretty 🙂

01/03/2022

A beautiful medicinal mushroom, Trametes versicolor – commonly called turkey tail photographed on a hike in the South Island last year.

22/02/2022

Learning the craft of distillation ⚗️

This aromatic water is obtained via spring water-steam distillation using the flowering tops of the beautiful Clary Sage, (Salvia sclarea) that I have grown from seed.

The oil of the plant is known in aromatherapy for its revitalising qualities. Gently astringent, I use this hydrosol as a skin toner and may blend it into other body care recipes.

I love having Clary Sage in the garden for its earthy and floral aroma. I have found that just inhaling the strong scent of the plant is incredibly calming and grounding. A highly recommended medicinal plant to have in your garden. I have some spare seeds, just reach out to me if you’d like to grow it yourself and experience its amazing benefits.

13/02/2022

So happy to have won the The Great Taewa Hunt :-) https://www.eatnewzealand.nz/food-stories/eatnztaewahunt-winner #

After much deliberation, our guest judge Nadia Lim chose a winner for The Great Taewa Hunt - a photography and food storytelling competition. This competition was a collaboration between Eat New Zealand and Potatoes New Zealand to help encourage the discovery and celebration of our treasured taonga....

06/10/2021

My first encounter with the Kiekie fruit today, considered one of the finest native fruit in New Zealand !

These ones are not ripe enough, I’ll have to wait as the fruits ripen in late autumn 😋

29/09/2021

Celebrating the full moon and Spring equinox by taking a fresh look at the environment we live in and exploring ways of unlocking nature’s potential.

I’m very pleased with this aromatic and therapeutic hydrosol made from distilled extractions of the leaves of the amazing Kānuka, a native tree of Aotearoa New Zealand.

03/09/2021

Kūmara growing season has officially started ! 🍠🍠

I’ve selected the best tubers from our previous year crop and put them in a box covered with sand and a bit of potting mix. I will keep them watered until new shoots are formed, like the ones you see on the first photo from our last year planting.

The shoots will be then planted out in our garden beds in about a month to give us some more colorful kūmaras!! 🤞🙏😊

30/08/2021

One of the things I love the most is to grow veggies from seeds and expand the shelf life by preserving them…

Gratefully acknowledging the rhythms of nature, learning to be patient and counteract the rise of our fast paced lives.

Slowly, this is showing signs of success : quality food and amazing taste !

I recently made kimchi from homegrown napa cabbages, daikon and white icicle radishes.

Just a few more weeks to let it ferment before eating it…and it’ll be gone in no time ! 😋

29/08/2021

Pretty organisms living under a big kauri tree 🤎

18/05/2021

Sisterhood is real and powerful 💫 Magic happens when women are together 🥰
I’m grateful to have been part of this retreat, cooking nourishing food 🥗🍎🥑🥦🥬🥒🍌🍠🧅🧄🥕 for a beautiful group of amazing women at Paradise View Retreat!
Thank you 🙏🙏🙏
✨Sista Trio Retreats
✨The Adaptive Yogi
✨Coryn Smith Wellness

11/04/2021

‘Na tō rourou, nā taku rourou ka ora ai te iwi -

With your food basket and my food basket the people will thrive’

Māori proverb

09/04/2021

Walk in the wilderness

Exploring one of the most diverse botanical area in New Zealand about a month ago in Kahurangi subtropical rainforest

Learning to identify native plants, and looking for the fruit of the kiekie, apparently one of the finest native fruit of the New Zealand bush.

I haven’t found it…but I keep looking !

04/04/2021

Baba Ganoush !! 💫🍆🍆

Replacing chickpeas with eggplants from the garden to make a hummus type dip recipe packed with mediterranean flavors😋

20/03/2021

Happy equinox everyone !!
Giving thanks to Mama Earth, always ! 🙏😊❤️💫

11/03/2021

That feeling of falling in love with…burdock!
 ❤️

It is a wonderful medicinal herb and a delicious root to eat.

For the first time, I planted Burdock Takinogawa from seeds and harvested the roots in the first year. It is a biennial plant which grows rapidly with huge rhubarb-type leaves.

I loved the nutritious roots braised in a Japanese stir-fried, sautéed or even pickled!

For many, burdock is an unwanted w**d (don’t let it go to seeds!) but it has many benefits in the garden. Its sturdy taproots go deep into our clay soil and help breaking up compacted earth.

Burdock is also highly valued by Chinese and Western herbal medicine, considered having amazing detoxifying and immune stimulating properties, so I also kept aside a few roots to make a herbal tincture...

It is such a versatile plant offering myriad uses, I am so glad to be experimenting with it ! 😊

05/03/2021

New Zealand wilderness

Exploring Lewis pass in the South Island, pure beech forest and hot pools 😍

21/02/2021

Awesome weekend catering for Sista Trio Retreats at Paradise View Retreat !

Just a few snapshots of the food served on the menu...too busy cooking for 15 beautiful ladies !

11/02/2021

Waiting until those beautiful seed pods are fully dry for a poppy seed harvest !

17/01/2021

Pastèque 🍉 !!!!!

17/01/2021

Kamokamo comes under the protection of Rongo, god of cultivated foods in Māori mythology.

It is a subspecies of Cucurbita pepo which includes common vegetables such as zucchinis and some type of gourds. The fruit can vary in shape from long to round and in colour from pale yellow or white through to dark green and orange!

It is a fast growing summer annual plant and believed to have been introduced in New Zealand during the early years of settlement in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The young tips of the kamokamo laterals (runners) known as wenewene are used as a green vegetable in the same way as pūhā, boiled!!!�.

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08/01/2021

The warmer summer nights are an ideal time to check out the stars. Look north, and find the three bright stars, the ‘Belt of Orion’. Sirius, Rigel and Canopus are also easy to find. And of course, the beautiful star cluster, the Pleiades – known in Aotearoa as Matariki 💛

04/01/2021

Starting the year with a great harvest of elephant garlic !!

08/12/2020

Preparing and eating the food you grow is an amazing and a rewarding experience.

There's nothing like a nice dinner made with the vegetables from your own garden. Pure happiness !

 Just simple ingredients…but so tasty. Back beauty zucchini, agria potatoes, red salad bowl lettuce and….elephant garlic scapes.

Have you had them before ?

They are incredibly tender and sweet, almost like asparagus.

Stir fry them slowly in coconut oil and add some salt and pepper…and voilà ! A culinary delicacy! 😋

05/12/2020

It feels good to see the tomatoes forming, and the calendulas blooming yesterday for the first time. I’ve just transplanted capsicums, eggplants and jalapeños in the garden.

Cucumbers are doing good (second photo, they are outside the fence so hopefully possums won’t get them before me!) It’s a beautiful and rare Russian variety called Kaiser Alexander. I’ll definitely save the seeds from this one.

To save seed, you need to make sure to plant varieties that won’t usually cross-pollinate. Unfortunately, black beauty zucchini might cross with spaghetti squash in the garden or as they are both from the same species Cucurbita pepo (same as kamokamo) so I might end up with an interesting vegetable zucchini squash next year if they do get pollinated with each other ! To save pure seeds, you want to prevent cross-pollination between two different varieties in the same species and planting just one variety in a species will help you do that.

08/11/2020

This is a flower of a Rewarewa, a New-Zealand tree which can grow up to 30 meters, emerging out of the canopy with its striking flowers at the moment.

11/09/2020

Plants are starting to flower in the bush which makes the identification way easier !

This is one is a beautiful Puawānanga, a native Clematis vine which uses touch-sensitive leaf stalks to climb up its forest support.

Apparently cuttings are the easiest way to propagate clematis...imagine having these beauties all around the house and the garden !!

25/08/2020

Growing food in a valley surrounded by native bush is not easy.

We’re losing a few hours of direct sunlight per day; the land is not flat...and possums love fresh organic veggies...

It’s been raining so much lately but luckily the good soil on the garden beds haven’t been washed away by the water running down the hills and, the plants finely seem to have settled down.

We started the garden by digging the ferns and finding them a new home, we broke the clay a little and added bokashi, volcanic soil and compost to give it a good start.

After a couple of winter months, the garlic is cranking. Kale, coriander, nappa cabbages are not too far from being ready, and the peruperus are in.

But Spring please, bring it on!

xo

25/08/2020

A talk with Dr. Jessica Hutchings. An inspiring response to the broken food system in Aotearoa and how to regain our ability to choose what food is grown and where.

While overseas versions of food sovereignty have focused on peasant rights and their ability to choose what food is grown and where, in the context of a colonised country, the use of ‘sovereignty’ has a different, more painful history.

28/07/2020

This is the second winter I spend in New Zealand. The last 2 winters, I was in France with my family so this is kind of something new to me but I really enjoy it. The night sky is so clear and the stars so bright. We’re coming up to the full moon soon; time to choose what seeds I will be sowing 2 days prior. It seems like it’s already time to sow things like tomatoes or capsicums! So I will give them a go in trays and keep them indoors. I have other interesting seeds like schizandra, pomegranate or pink bananas, so that’s gonna be fun !!!

I’ve spotted a type of New Zealand spinach at the beach today called Tetragonia implexicoma which is edible and quite abundant; closed to the more popular New Zealand spinach Tetragonia tretragoinoides (last photo) a hardy perennial, which works great as a ground cover and provides me with yummy leaves at the moment, one of my favorites.


@ Mangawhai Beach