A vegetarian meal from the garden and beautiful Waitakere (and tui)

I made a dinner for 4 for the garden: fried zucchini flowers (recipe here), 

borage bread cutlets (recipe here), fried sage (just fried the sage leaves 

with the leftover oil from the zucchini and borage fritters), fresh salad leaves, 

boiled new potatoes and carrots with herbs sauce 

(just mixed feta with basil and parsley). It was delicious, 

and such a satisfaction to grown my own dinner!                                                                                                               And now, And And now some photos from the Waitakere Ranges, where I live, 

and of a New Zealand native bird, the tui, eating nectar from flax flowers.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Two New Zealand birds in my garden; tui and kererū

I love the fact that I can use my phone to video the birds I see out of the window. We are surrounded by native forest, including plenty of nikau palms, so we have lots of kereru, and we also have flowering trees like puriri, and a one exotic, an Australian frangipani, that tui love! In fact this morning there was quite a fight between two tui for the control of the frangipani, it was like living in a Attemborough's documentary. Here tui and kereru feeding (in peace).

The Tui is an endemic bird of New Zealand that mostly feed on nectar. Here is feeding on an Australia frangipani tree (Hymenosporum flavum).

The New Zealand pigeon or kererū is a bird endemic to New Zealand. The nikau is the only palm native to New Zealand. Filmed in the Waitakere Ranges, Auckland.