Ingredients

• 25og rice stick noodles
• 450g chicken thigh fillets, sliced thinly
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
• 2 red thai chillies, sliced thinly
• 2 tablespoons chopped palm sugar
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1/4 cup (60ml) sweet chilli sauce
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 3 green onions, sliced thinly
• 1 cup (80g) bean sprouts
• 1 cup (80g) snow pea sprouts
• 1/4 cup loosely packed, coarsely chopped fresh coriander

Method

1. Place noodles in a large heatproof bowl; cover with boiling water. Stand until just tender, drain and rinse thoroughly with cold water.
2. Heat wok or large non-stick frying pan; stir-fry chicken, garlic, ginger and chilli, in batches, until chicken is browned.
3. Return chicken to wok with sugar, sauces, and juice; stir-fry until sauce thickens slightly. Add noodles, onion, sprouts to wok; stir fry until hot.
4. Serve with coriander sprinkled over the top.

Preparation Time

30 mins

Cooking Time

15 mins

Calorie count

390 per serve

Serves

4

Source:  Australian Women’s Weekly: Good Food Fast, lose weight – feel great, page 80

Top 5

5. Endemic world
A great site where  New Zealand designers can showcase their designs. Here you can purchase art, gifts, books and subscribe to their newsletter (get a $10 credit) and read their blog. They also a deal section for bargain hunters.

4. The Department Store – top shop just landed.
If you lived in London and loved shopping at Top Shop you can get your fix here. They bring in a small but select range of the best selling items from Europe. If you can’t find what you’re looking for you can always shop online as they now offer free international shipping for orders over  £100. 100 quid soon adds up or you could go in with a group of mates.

3. Threadless
A site that allows the community to submit their tee shirt designs. The most popoular deisgns get printed and sold online.  You can grab some truely unique and cool tee’s for as little as $10USD.

2. Mac Cosmetics
Beautiful and bold colours and looks makes this email a must open.  You can watch tutorials on their site so the looks can be replicated. A bit off topic but a good fact none the less, if you have 6 empty plastic containers you can take them into any Mac store and get a free lipstick (excluding the Viva Glam range).

1. Once it
A site that has sales on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays starting at midday. The deals are usually clothing and accessories including handbags and jewelery, prints and homeware, and gifts.  The discounts are heavy and the brands cool- you won’t find The Warehouse on here!

Highly recommended

• Weight Watchers - if you’re watching your waistline and looking for some new recipes and inspiration
• Powershop – if you love tracking and measuring, like I do, you’ll love Powershops emails
• Fitness Magazine – they have great fitness and healthy eating tips. They did come dangerously close to being blacklisted by me due to their persistent emails about buying their magazine subscription.
• Mashable
• Runkeeper
• Malt bar - on your birthday they send an email with a free meal for one. Nice touch.
• Mischief Shoes – I have never enjoyed shoe shopping until I came across this awesome little shop in Newmarket, Auckland

Top 5 Reasons I don’t open emails
1. Generic subject lines.
I love trip advisor newsletters  but they always have the same subject line “member update”. Sure I open it but I always think that it’s a bit lazy and I’d like to know upfront what’s in the email.

2. Over delivering in the subject line and under delivering  in the content.
There is a certain supermarket that knows exactly what I buy every shop because I swipe a certain card every time to get a minimal discount. I know, I should stop swiping said card but I am waiting for the “rewards” they keep alluding to. So, it’s not surprising that they have very tailored subject lines, mine are usually around the wine and beer I buy. (I wonder if they do this for everyone or just me because it would seem I buy quite a bit of it?) Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that if you say in the subject line you have x wine on sale it better actually be a decent discount not just a dollar or two off.

3. Capital letters in the subject line.
I feel like I’m being yelled at! If you can’t get my attention with an interesting subject line what’s your actual going to be like?

4. Mailings that are too frequent
I’ve opted in to receive your email so I want to hear from you but don’t email me every day unless you have something great to say.

5. Repeat emails
Much like point 4 I’ve opted in to hear from you but if I don’t open your email and take up your offer don’t keep sending me the same email! Chances are I’ll unsubscribe and whinge about you on a blog

A simple and delicious, fail-proof recipe that takes under 10 minutes to make.

Preparation Time

10 mins

Storage

Keeps in the fridge for one week but can be frozen for up to three months.

Equipment

• Food processor
• Cheese grater
• Garlic crusher

Ingredients

2 cups of fresh basil leaves

2 -3 gloves of garlic

1/2 cup coarsely grated parmesan cheese

3/4 cup olive oil

1/2 toasted pine nuts

Method

Blend the basil leaves, toasted pine nuts, garlic and parmesan cheese together.  Slowly add the olive oil with the motor still running until smooth.  Pour into a small preserving jar.

Source: The Australian Women’s Weekly: The cook’s garden, page 65

5. Anything hand made – sure you may have put the time and effort in but unless you’re 5 years old handmade gifts are hard to pull off without seeming cheap.

4. Anything with your suppliers logo on it – pens, mousepads, drink bottles. You get it.

3. Pot plants – WTF. I can’t eat or drink these.

2. 12 beautifully wrapped boxes with stale food in each. This one looks like you’re getting something cool but as you unwrap each box you quickly realise how lame this gift is .
1. Shit $2 ceramic angels. I don’t care if it is a corporate gift and comes with some witty card about how you can be an “angel” by donating to a charity of your choice. C- marketing. Show me the chocolates and wine.

5. Sleep cycle
It would seem I love tracking and analyzing stuff. I particularly enjoy the tracking and monitoring of pointless stuff like sleeping. So I have found a cool little free app called Sleep Cycle that tracks the type of sleep you get. The app records the time you go to bed and when you wake and charts by hour the type of sleep you get whether it be deep sleep, just sleep or if you’re awake. It also acts as an alarm clock and there is the usual “share” functionality via email or facebook. You never need to wonder why you wake up feeling so rubbish in the morning just check the app and see how much deep sleep you got. A word of warning though – this app tends to chew through the battery so make sure you have keep your phone charged throughout the night.

4. Chicktionary
My EBF introduced me to this addictive little word game – Chicktionary by Bing. The point of the game is to create different words from a jumbled list as letters. Play against the clock and get as many words as you can or find a set amount of words in a given time limit and earn ribbons. You can also challenge your friends and post your results on Facebook if you’re a nerd.

3. Tripit
Gone are the days of printing out your flight times, hotel reservation and rental car hire. Yip you can store them all in one handy little electronic place. Simply send your email reservations to tripit support or let trip fetch them automatically. You can also share your travel plans with friends and family. The feature I like the most is the fact that you can check flight statuses and boarding gates all from the push of a button. Can you say awesome? Yes, download for freeeeeee then!

2. Instagram
Instagram is a great way to add a twist to your photos. Take photos on your iPhone and run them through an instagram filter. You can share via all the usual suspects – Facebook, Twitter, Flickr!

1. Runkeeper
The perfect little fitness app that allows you to: track and monitor all your exercise activity and weight; find routes created by fellow runkeeper users as well as create your own; track your fitness progress by day, week or month, find races near you. You can also friend your mates up so you can keep them honest and give them assholes about their nancy 2km walking activities. For a little bit extra you can purchase fitness classes to train you for running a half marathon, 5km, 10km race etc. When you are out exercising you can select the prompts to help keep you on track. And of course it has all the social media plugins (facebook and Twitter) so you can skyte to your “friends” and “followers” about how fit you are. It integrates with itunes so you can select playlists to listen to while you’re pounding the pavememt. But the feature I like most is the angry / happy voiceover lady. Let me explain. If you’re trying to run a race in a certain time you can you can set a target pace. If you’re ahead of your target pace the voiceover lady speaks to you in a soft voice providing you with all you vital stats but if you’re behind she sounds like an angry (but posh) fishmongers wife. Check out my runkeeper profile!

1. Never calls you except when he feels like it
2. Never invites you out with his friends and when he does introduces you as a work colleague
3. Always wants to split the bill. Always.
4. Does nice things for his friends who are girls but never you
5. When he doesn’t get his way he will storm out of bars, cafes, restaurants etc and leave you sitting by yourself. Awesome. Winner
6. Never apologises even when he admits he was an asshole
7. Only ever wants to do things he enjoys
8. Tells you you could do with a gym workout or two
9. Yells at you when he doesn’t get his own way
10. Promises to do things with you then can’t be reached until you threaten to call his parents. “Well, you’ve got 24 hours to organise something else”. Fair to say New years 2010/2011 wasn’t the best!

4. Sandfly Bay is an isolated surf beach on the Otago Pennisula. To access the beach you’ll need to walk across a farm and down some sand dunes but the effort is truly worth it. If you’re lucky you’ll get to see some seals hanging out on the beach. Given it’s located deep in the South Island, warm clothing is recommended regardless of the season.

3.  Mangawhai Heads. Conveniently located one and a half hours north of Auckland Mangawhai Heads makes for a great trip if you’re short on time.  There’s heaps to do aside from some see side frolicking you could go to the markets, charter a boat and go fishing or do a wine trail.  Here’s a more comprehensive list. 

2.  Manu Bay, Raglan. Another great option due to its proximity to Auckland.  If you’re looking for some perv action, you’ve come to the right place! Some of New Zealand’s top surfers like Daniel Keropa.

1. Karekare Beach. Located  on the West Coast of Auckland –  the same stretch of  coast as other popular beaches Piha and Bethall’s Beach – Karekare is a less commercial and in my opinion far superior beach choice. The highlight of Karekare is the waterfall which is a 5 minute walk from the carpark.  There’s also some great walks you can do that have an amazing view out over the West Coast.

Ingredients

• 250g full fat cream cheese
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tins of smoked salmon
• 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon rind
• 2 teaspoons of lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons of french mustard
• 4 shallots
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
• Salt and pepper

Method

Beat cream cheese until smooth, add sour cream and mayonnaise, beat until smooth.  Fold in drained, chopped salmon, lemon rind, lemon juice, mustard, chopped shallots and parsley, mix well. Season with salt and pepper. Refrigerate.

Ingredients

• 375g zucchini
• 1 large onion
• 3 rashers of bacon
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 1 cup self-raising flour
• 1/2 cup oil
• 5 eggs
• salt and pepper

Method:

Grate unpeeled zucchini coarsely. Finely chop onion and bacon. Combine zucchini, bacon, grated cheese, sifted flour, oil and lightly beaten eggs, season with salt and pepper. Pour into well greased dish . Bake in a moderate oven for 30 to 40 minutes or until brown.

Serves 4 to 6

Over the past ten years Dunedin really has picked up its game. There are a great range of  cafes, restaurants and bars nestled in the heart of the city as well as a plethora of boutique clothes shops. Flights to and from Dunedin are reasonably priced now compared to the 90’s so there really is no excuse not to check out this little gem.

The Top 5 Things to do in Dunedin
1. St Clair beach – If you’re brave enough you could go for a swim / surf, take a walk along the esplanade, go for a swim at the hot salt water pool (again you’ll need to be brave as it’s not really that hot) or have a drink at one of the bars / cafes on the esplanade

2. Go for a walk around the university

3. Take a drive out to Sandfly Bay

4. Go to a game of rugby at Carisbrook

5. Take a walk up the steepest street in the World, Baldwin Street