A Fresh Winter Feast

Our leadership team recently got together to celebrate Teva Stewart’s remarkable 20 year history at Commonsense. Teva has been our Head of Retail since 2015, and started 20 years ago as a “shop boy” (his words) in our old Wakefield St store.

As you may imagine, celebrations at Commonsense tend to revolve around food and we marked the occasion by each contributing a dish to a vibrant and fresh winter feast that could easily be recreated for your own Matariki celebration.

Lucy made Nigella Lawson’s Chicken in a Pot with Lemon and Orzo, a tasty and tender broth-style main which involved cooking the chicken, pasta and vegetables all in the same pot. She used a Bostock No. 16 chicken, Helios Orzo and lemons from Marion’s tree. Marion made a Beetroot & Walnut Salad that was fresh and vibrant pop of colour and Angela made a green salad with leaves from the garden.

Orzo Chicken and Beetroot Salad

Teva, who grew up in Scotland, finally made what he described as ‘Vegan Haggis’. He had been raving about this recipe for several years, even suggesting on more than one occasion, that we write it up for our blog. Perhaps somewhat unfairly, no one in the comms team could get excited about this concept and it became a standing joke amongst us whenever we were desperately hunting for content. We were never THAT desperate the joke went… Well, Teva got the last laugh and his offering was remarkably delicious so we decided to finally share the recipe with you all! We were thinking of renaming it a Lentil Loaf or Vegetarian Savory Pudding (or even 'Unicorn Loaf' in honor of the national animal of Scotland) but, in the end we decided to stick with his original concept -  so here it is finally, the recipe for Teva’s Famous Vegan Haggis. We’d love to know if you’re a fan!

Vegan Haggis and Lemon Cake

Finally, we finished the meal with Anna’s renown Lemon Yoghurt cake (easily the most popular cake in our office) which we’ve also written up for you here as she cut it out of the paper years ago so it’s not in an easily shareable format.

Whatever you’ve got planned for marking the Matariki weekend we hope that it includes great food and wonderful company. From our family to yours - Mānawatia a Matariki!

The Commonsense Leadership Team: Angela, Marion, Teva, Anna & Lucy