Tag Archives: competition

Tis the season – Yule log recipe from Jane & competition

Posted on by Jane
10

The raspberries are ripening and on Saturday we bought our first cherries of the season. Christmas is upon us, so what I have I done? Well, I have done quite a few good and interesting things in the last few weeks but very few to do with Christmas preparations. I keep saying it is just one dinner, a few presents, and family to stay. However after three weeks away on a northern hemisphere tour we are home and I have a small sense of panic. Just a sniff.

Foremost for me at Christmas is family. This year we will have all the girls home, my sister Nicki and her family, which of course includes our Sophie, and my father. We are fairly traditional at Christmas. Breakfast, presents, champagne, lunch, lounging about, fun activities (planning croquet this year) and left-overs for tea. As you may have read we like to decorate the house for Christmas. Arabella takes the role of Christmas decorating fairy. I also enjoy setting the table with my Christmas napkins and wearing my Christmas apron.All accompanied by various drinks. Christmas lunch will be a roast turkey, but my favourite part is making desert. It is decadent and fun. Actually I really love the whole thing of the people I love best in the world gathering around the table.

Last year we (Libby the baker daughter) and I made a yule log for Christmas lunch. The combination of chocolate and fresh summer berries is excellent. This recipe comes from Nigella Lawson’s Nigella Christmas.
Yule Log
For the cake:
6 eggs, separated (luckily my new chickens have come into lay)
150g caster sugar
50g cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
3-5 tsps icing sugar to decorate

For the icing:

175g dark chocolate, chopped
250gg icing sugar
225g soft butter
1 x 15ml tablespoon vanilla extract

• Preheat the oven to 180 C
• In a large , clean bowl whisk the egg whites until thick and peaking, then, still whisking, sprinkle in 50g of the caster sugar sugar and continue whisking until the whites are holding their peaks but not dry.
• In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks and the remaining caster sugar until the mixture is mousy, pale and thick. Add the vanilla extract, sieve the cocoa powder over, then fold both in.
• Lighten the yolk mixture with a couple of dollops of the egg whites, folding them in robustly. Then add the remaining whites in thirds, folding them in carefully to avoid losing the air.
• Line a Swiss roll tin with baking parchment, leaving a generous overhang at the ends and sides, and folding the parchment into the corners to help the paper stay anchored.
• Pour in the cake mixture and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Let the cake cool a little before turning it out onto another piece of baking parchment.

- Jane

Here is how to enter the competition. We already have one entry on last week’s blog from Sharon for a Midori & Bailey’s trifle!

Competition details:

Post up your favourite Christmas recipe, meal, or serving suggestion on this blog and we will do the second draw this coming Friday 10th December for the next two bottles of Durvillea wine (your choice)

Terms and Condition to Enter:
* Must be over 18
* Comments must be posted on this blog, not our facebook or twitter accounts
* Only those in New Zealand and Australia are eligible for this competition
* One person’s recipe a week will be drawn from a hat each Friday until the 17th December and that lucky person will win 2 bottles of their choice of Durvillea wines
*Everyone who posted a recipe will go in the draw for the Durvillea Sauvignon Blanc magnum to be drawn 17th December

O’Tannenbaum – Arabella’s Christmas trees, recipe and competition

Posted on by Jane
7

It’s less than one month until Christmas which means that it is time to start erecting and decorating your Christmas trees! At the farm we have already put ours up, we tend to get a bit overexcited by decorations and already have three trees fully decorated. We have a big tree with all of our old decorations on it, a smaller red and white tree with lots of ribbons and gingerbread men and our latest addition is a radical white tree with colourful Dr Suess-esque decorations.

Another festive thing we get a bit excited about is the food. Although we love traditional Christmas cuisine, being in Marlborough we also have lots of summer produce ready for eating at the farm. There are always plenty of berries, new potatoes and peas from Jane’s vegetable garden. One of my favourite Christmas dinner dishes is peas and pancetta. This salad looks lovely and green on the table and is a delicious interval to rich ham and turkey.

 

Peas and Pancetta

Olive oil

Pancetta (100 grams or so)

1 cup white wine

1 small onion

5 cups fresh picked peas

1 clove garlic

Cook chopped onion and pancetta in olive oil until brown. Add garlic and keep cooking until it smells nice! Add wine peas and black pepper and simmer until peas are tender and wine is absorbed.

We already have some delicious entries into this week’s draw: Danielle’s mushroom and bacon pate, Kathie’s Ham with Spicy Plum and Mustard Glaze, Erin’s Meat Sauce, Lucy’s Sultana Cake, Cynthia’s Christmas mince and Claire’s Parsley Butter. Check them out on last week’s blog. To enter your recipe see the info below.

- Arabella

Competition details:

Post up your favourite Christmas recipe, meal, or serving suggestion on this blog and we will do the second draw this coming Friday3rd Decmeber for the next two bottles of Durvillea wine (your choice)

Terms and Condition to Enter:
* Must be over 18
* Comments must be posted on this blog, not our facebook or twitter accounts
* Only those in New Zealand and Australia are eligible for this competition
* One person’s recipe a week will be drawn from a hat each Friday until the 17th December and that lucky person will win 2 bottles of their choice of Durvillea wines
*Everyone who posted a recipe will go in the draw for the Durvillea Sauvignon Blanc magnum to be drawn 17th December

Meg’s Christmas recipes & a competition

Posted on by Jane
9

Ok, it’s the second week of our Christmas competition. We already have some entries that were posted on Sophie’s last blog. So far the recipes submitted are Florentine Tarts from Sophie Parker, Amy Maxwell’s Scallops on Cauliflower Puree and Claire’s Chocolate Trifle Supreme! Yum! I think those recipes show the range of foods that we think of as “Christmassy” in New Zealand! To enter this week’s draw see the competition info at the bottom of this blog.

One thing that I really enjoy about Christmas is having so many drinks and nibbles! As you can imagine we always have a well stocked drinks fridge at Astrolabe Farm and as we all know it is very important not to drink on an empty stomach. My favourite classic Christmas nibbles would be Jane’s mini mince pies (which her grandmother used to make for my grandfather) and the delicious smoked salmon pate from the Mapua smokehouse. Another Waghorn family favourite are Devils on Horseback and the recipe is very simple!

All you need are pitted prunes and streaky bacon (free range bacon pretty please!). Wrap the prunes in the bacon stick a toothpick through and bake. Super easy, sweet and savoury, delicious crowd pleasing appetisers!

Last year we celebrated Christmas in Canterbury. We had Christmas morning in Akaroa with the Waghorn’s and Christmas lunch/dinner in Christchurch with the McLernon’s. For lunch our responsibility was the dessert.

We made a chocolate log and a lemon/lime cheesecake. For the top of the cheesecake I made some sugar lemon slices. They are quite easy to make and can hide a multitude of sins on top of any kind of cake!

Step 1. Thinly slice lemons (or limes), put in a bowl and pour over boiling water.

Step 2: Leave to cool, take out and rinse to remove bitterness.

Step 3: Simmer one cup of sugar with half a cup of water until dissolved. Add lemons and simmer for five mins.

Step 4: Place on drying rack. When dry toss them in sugar (caster sugar is probably best).

Then use them for decorating whatever you like!

Competition details:

Post up your favourite Christmas recipe, meal, or serving suggestion on this blog and we will do the second draw this coming Friday 26th November for the next two bottles of Durvillea wine (your choice)

Terms and Condition to Enter:
* Must be over 18
* Comments must be posted on this blog, not our facebook or twitter accounts
* Only those in New Zealand and Australia are eligible for this competition
* One person’s recipe a week will be drawn from a hat each Friday until the 17th December and that lucky person will win 2 bottles of their choice of Durvillea wines
*Everyone who posted a recipe will go in the draw for the Durvillea Sauvignon Blanc magnum to be drawn 17th December

 

Sophie’s Update and a New competition

Posted on by Durvillea
9

It is just over six weeks till Christmas  and you can definitely tell. Christmas carols are already being played in stores, lots more orders are starting to come in and finally the weather is warming up- today is forecast for 27degrees in Blenheim!

Tasting new releases at Chesters, Brisbane

Last week Jason, Jeremy our viticulturist and I were in Brisbane for a meeting with our Australian distributors. This meeting went really well, we tasted all of our new release wines with them and all four states seemed to be in line in terms of pricing, the branding, and their views going forward. Interestingly the Kekerengu Sauvignon Blanc from our Astrolabe range seemed to be very popular over there.

Currently we only have Durvillea in two of the four states, QLD and VIC, but in both states the brand is being well received, the Durvillea Pinot Grigio seems to be a real winner at the moment.

Coming back to Christmas however, this year we are having Christmas at Astrolabe Farm, and it will be my family (the McLernons) and the Waghorns. Christmas is one of my favourite times of year, and the food on Christmas Day is definitely a highlight. We normally have a hot ham and a turkey and many other delicious treats that various family members bring along. This year Meg and I have decided that we should probably contribute a bit more, so we are being a little bit cheeky using this competition to get recipes and ideas from you!

Family Christmas '09

But we will also be giving you a chance to win!

To enter this competition we want you to give us your favourite Christmas recipe, it can be an entree, a dip, a stuffing, a glaze, a whole meal, a dessert, whatever Christmas food/meal is most dear to you.

At the end of each week the prize will be 2 bottles of Durvillea Wine (for the first five weeks) and then the last week (being drawn 17th December) everyone who has entered the competition will go into the draw again to win a Magnum of Durvillea Sauvignon Blanc.

Each week each of us Durvillea girls will also be posting one of our favourite recipes, so to start of this week I am going to give you two little ones that are almost always used in our family!

One is a fantastic Hot Ham glaze, and the other a Turkey Stuffing that my mum Nicki always uses.

Hot Ham Glaze
½ c runny honey
1 ½ c brown sugar
2 tbsp mustard (any)
½ c juice (pineapple or orange)
Whole cloves

Heat honey in microwave until warm,
Stir in the brown sugar
Add the mustard and then juice

Remove skin from ham, cut diamonds into the fat, stud with cloves and brush glaze over. Bake for a couple of hours at 160degrees. Check regularly to ensure it isn’t burning.

Turkey Stuffing
1 C fresh brown bread crumbs
4-6 shallots cooked in olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic sliced and cooked in olive oil
1 c black olives
200gm bacon or prosciutto-chopped
1 tbsp finely chopped rosemary

So post up your favourite recipe or meal on this blog and we will do the first draw this coming Friday 19th November for the first two bottles of Durvillea wine (your choice)

Terms and Condition to Enter:
* Must be over 18
* Comments must be posted on this blog, not our facebook or twitter accounts
* Only those in New Zealand and Australia are eligible for this compeition
* One person’s recipe a week will be drawn from a hat each Friday until the 17th December and that lucky person will win 2 bottles of their choice of Durvillea wines
*Everyone who posted a recipe will go in the draw for the Durvillea Sauvignon Blanc magnum to be drawn 17th December

Winner of the first July Durvillea Competition

Posted on by Durvillea
6

With ten fantastic entries for how to enjoy Pinot Noir, we all found it too hard to decide on a winner! So we ended up picking it out of a hat this morning. The winner of the first July competition for the “Best way to enjoy Pinot Noir” is Kate Fisher. Kate Fisher likes to drink Pinot Noir in the sounds while the sun is setting with salty hair and skin under warm clothes after a long day of fine entertaining with best marlborough friends! Kate we have a mixed six pack of Durvillea Wines coming your way. Please email us sophie@durvillewines.co.nz with your address.

Do you want to go in the draw to win a mixed six pack of wine too? At the moment my favourite wine is the Pinot Grigio, so for the new competition this week, we want to know your Best food match with Pinot Grigio, it can be a recipe or simply a food wine match. Just comment on this blog below for your chance to go in the draw!

Terms and Condition to Enter:
* Must be over 18
* Comments must be posted on this blog, not our facebook or twitter accounts
* Only those in New Zealand and Australia are eligible for this compeition
* One person’s comment a week will be picked Wednesday mornings each week for the whole of July by the team in the office and that lucky person will win a mixed 6pack of Durvillea wines