Chicken, leek and lemon soup is a quick and easy meal, perfect for winters evenings and gloomy day lunches.
Barry and I returned to NZ yesterday after a month in the UK with my family. To be honest it’s a bit of a shock. We left the stunning English summer (no I’m not lying) and arrived back to flooding tanks and a saturated vineyard. Our fabulous manager filled our fridge with the essentials to get through jet lag – a chicken, vegetables, eggs and bacon and 100 Dilmah teabags. So all we had to do was cuddle the dogs and unpack.
After roasting the chicken for dinner last night, I threw the bones into the stock pot with some carrots, onion and parsnip and make a slow cook stock over night. This is a staple in our fridge throughout winter to make sure there is always a soup base ready for easy lunches. I love adding parsnip to stock. It provides a sweetness which works very well as a base for a winter warmer.
This soup is fabulous, quick, full of flavour and nourishment. As always add as many green vegetables and herbs as you like.
Ingredients
1 litre chicken stock
1tbsp butter or good olive oil
1 cup of shredded cooked chicken
1 cup of shredded leek
zest of half a lemon
2 tbsp grated parmesan
1/2 cup small pasta shapes
chilli flakes to taste
salt and pepper to taste
Method
In a saucepan melt the butter or heat the olive oil and add the leeks. Sweat until soft and add the chicken, parmesan and lemon zest. Stir around for a minute to heat everything through and add the chicken stock. Cooked until the pasta is al dente and season to taste.
For lunch we added some spinach and chard leaves and lots of chopped herbs and for a heartier evening meal, I topped the soup up with lentils, split peas and pearl barley for additional sustenance.
This soup works particularly well with parmesan or pecorino cheese. If you’re feeling especially decadent add a dollop of sour cream or creme fraiche.
Vaccine Certificates at Vineyard Cottages will become compulsory for all staff and guests from November 15th 2021. 2020 and 2021 have been two very hard years at Vineyard Cottages. When the borders closed our sister business The Big Foody Food Tours came to a grinding halt. We have shed many tears with brides and grooms for all the cancelled and postponed weddings as well. While we hope like everyone else that Covid19 would disappear from our shores, it is here to stay.
At Vineyard Cottages we have done everything in our power to make sure our staff and guests feel safe. This includes all staff being fully vaccinated and now we have taken the hard decision to become a vaccine certificate site. We don’t like exclusion of any kind, but having watched the decimation of my beloved tourism industry around the world. Watching the distress in our hospitality industry over the last five months sealed the deal for us.
When you arrive to stay or for a function there will be two kiosks for you to scan your vaccine certificates at Vineyard Cottages, or you can present to a member of the team for scanning. We ask that all wedding guests and function attendees to arrive a little earlier for events. This will give us time to get everyone scanned in.
Like international travel post 2001, in time we will get used to all the changes and requirements. Fingers crossed this hideous virus accepts it isn’t wanted and fades away. But for now we will just keep going and make the best of the situation. If you have any question about our policy changes, please do no hesitate to contact me.
Covid19 Related Refunds
While we’re talking about Covid19, our refund policy has changed for reservations that need to be changed due to alert / traffic light changes in future. All reservations are non refundable, however if you are unable to attend a function or event due to a covid related reason, we will issue a voucher for the full amount with a 12 months expiry date. This enables guests flexibility in rebooking accommodation or using the amount against any of our other products i.e. High Teas, Long Lunches and Food and Wine Tours.
Barry and I have spent the last four months watching the seasons change from a bitter winter to a beautiful late spring. While we feel very privileged to have spent this time in a beautiful place, we both agree it’s not the same without our guests here to enjoy it too.
Looking for something to do for a bride to be? Here are some ideas for hen parties at Vineyard Cottages.
Champagne High Tea
A champagne High tea at Vineyard Cottages is a delicious way to celebrate upcoming nuptials with your friends and family. Our high tea is an exciting take of some of the original classics and items with a delicious modern flavours. Sit out in the cottage gardens, up in the vineyard or on our fabulous deck and maybe combine with a cocktail or iced tea.
Wine Tour
The Kumeu Wine Region has some of the best vineyard secrets in Auckland. Let our knowledgable guides take you on a tour of some of our favourites meeting the wine makers and hearing the stories that stem from such a rich wine making history in this area. Did you know that Vineyard Cottages was originally built by Bill Spence who along with his brother, bought Sauvignon Blanc to New Zealand. We conclude our tour with a platter on the deck at Vineyard Cottages. Our luxury transport options include a Mercedes Benz minibus, but how about Combi Vans or luxury cars, let us know and we can create a package tour for you.
Food Tour
Vineyard Cottages is the place to stay if you love food. Elle has run The Big Foody tours in Auckland for the last decade, taking guests all around the country show casing the best of New Zealand through peoples taste buds. How does an afternoon food tour in the city followed by cocktails on the deck and a night at the cottages sound for the perfect food loving hen party? Amazing? It would be!
Horse Riding
For those ladies and gents who love horse riding, the endless expanse of of Muriwai Beach is an amazing equine adventure playground. Book your trek through the forest and out onto the legendary black sand beach for a memorable afternoon with your team. We can pick you up and drop you off and bring you back to Vineyard Cottages for cocktails, bubbles and delicious platters.
If you are organising a hen party for someone and would like some ideas please do contact us and we’ll put something really special together for you! Having a hen party at Vineyard Cottages is fun and memorable!
Spring Weddings at Vineyard Cottages are some of our favourites. The blossoms here are stunning. We have such a beautiful combination of fruit tree and ornamental blossoms around the property. The colours throughout the spring months create the perfect back drop for our couples wedding photos.
We specialise in boutique weddings at Vineyard Cottages. Our intimate weddings cater for no more than 45 people. The spring months offer glorious days and coolers evenings. The fire places are still on and the slightly earlier sunsets allow for maximum time with your guests.
With all of the blossoms comes the freshest of greens around the gardens. The bright leaves on the vines make a lovely back drop for romantic walks. The smell of the freesias and orange blossoms in the air always takes our breath away. Spring Weddings menus at Vineyard Cottages capture the best of the new season flavours.
Asparagus, strawberries and spring lamb favourites with our brides and grooms. Our bridal preparation High Tea uses the best of local ingredients
Vineyard Cottages is one of only a few Auckland venues that has accommodation onsite. Our delightful cottages are spacious and light, perfect for bridal preparation. Or, bring your family and friends and make a weekend out of it!
If you would like to talk to us about a Spring 2022 or 2023 wedding, please get in contact with the team here or download our wedding brochure.
This sign is on our wall just inside the front door. I threw a lemon at it!
We all saw it coming but this lockdown been the hardest of all of them and to be brutally honest I’m over it. This is the first time Barry and I have been in a lockdown on our own. Last year we had family and team members with us, this year it is just us and the dogs, who are more than happy with the attention and taking rabbit patrol very very seriously.
Every morning Barry tucks himself into Cab Sav (Cottage not bottle of) to get on with his day job and I get on with the lists of jobs around the cottages. Spring is definitely in the air, with blossoms on the fruit trees and the glorious forest pansies bursting into the radiant, regal purple leaves. The Tui and Kereru are racing around the driveway loving the emptiness and apart from the odd truck going past, it’s a very quiet time at Vineyard Cottages
Over the last three weeks we have done our very best to jiggle and juggle accommodation and wedding dates around for our lovely brides and grooms. One couple were on their fifth attempt at getting married. It’s hard enough organising one wedding let alone wrangling people together for a fifth time.
I spent the first week of lockdown 5 chopping more wood. It’s thoroughly therapeutic and will keep us well stocked for next winter. We had the septic filter system replaced last month and the new tanks are ghastly garish concrete. In a stoke of genius ‘!’ I topped them off with slices of wood and after a huge overnight downpour by the following morning the wood oils had run over the concrete creating a stunning natural stain blending it all together.
Lemons are plentiful on all the trees, so I have been making lots and lots of cake. I have also eaten a fair amount of said cake, so it’s back to pulping, zesting and fermenting so we have stacks of citrus for the summer months. One of the easiest lemon cakes I know is here for you to have a play with. I added poppy seeds but they aren’t a necessity. This is lovely with a drizzle of lemon curd and some thick plain yoghurt.
The vineyard is beginning to crawl back into life with bud burst on the white varietals. Bud burst is an important time in the vineyard as it allows us to predict other critical events such as flowering and harvest. By tracking these occasions year on year we have more of an understanding of what will happen to the vines and when. Speaking of the vines, we had a try of our first attempt at the VC Rose – mmmmm, we won’t be entering it into the AirNZ wine awards anytime soon but it was’t totally unpalatable! We’ve decided to add strawberries and vodka and make frozé if it doesn’t improve!
Last week we were battered by the storm that hit the North West Region. After spending an hour on the Monday night digging trenches around the place to divert the water pouring from the skies, when I woke up on Tuesday morning at 4:30am the nose from the gulley was louder than waves crashing on Muriwai Beach. I jumped online to discover the catastrophe that was happening around the region was very very real. Our neighbour lost his flock of new lambs, people were wading around in waist high water trying to salvage what they could and three ponies had to be rescued from the second storey of a house.
Apart from the garage being flooded, we were incredibly lucky that the water ploughed its way noisily through the gully for the rest of the day. SH16 to Helensville was impassable, Kumeu and Huapai were impossible to get and out of and the only supermarket in our area had water inching towards the door. By Wednesday it had nearly all disappeared again. I remember the damage flood water does. We were flooded when I was a youngster in the uk and I’ll never forget the smell. It lingered for weeks. A huge thank you to all the emergency services who worked tirelessly through the night to save and help as many people as they could.
Over the next week we’ll get the vegetable garden planted for summer produce and the seeds for the summer hanging baskets are growing away in our spare room . While it feels miles away at the moment summer is just around the corner and we’re looking forward to opening the lodge up for our long lunches and high teas. Our honey is about to be harvested and jarred so we’ll have that for sale on our little online shop. The fabulous team at Earthbound Honey do a brilliant job running the hives up in the vineyard and the honey is delicious! We also have some delicious olive oil coming very shortly which I’m very tempted to call Lockdown 5!
Looking forward to seeing you all very very very soon!
