First off I realise that a number of you readers haven't seen a picture yet of the most wonderful woman in the world. So here she is.
So now what else have I been up to? Unfortunately I don't have a camera at the moment so haven't been able to keep a photo log of my recent activities. One activity that I am particularly disappointed about not having photos of is my kayaking trip to Rangitoto Island in the Auckland harbour. There were 7 of us that went on that trip. It involved a nice little 6km paddle across the harbour to Mt Rangitoto, a dormant volcano. We had a pretty favourable wind and tide so the kayaking was pretty easy work and we got there in around 45 minutes. We then set off on a leasurely stroll to the top of the mountain (it isn't all that big and only took 40 minutes). We reached the summit just in time to see the sunsetting over Auckland city. It was a really clear evening and the view was quite something. It helped remind me just how beautiful New Zealand is, I think I forget that sometimes. We then walked back down and paddled back to Auckland again under the stars.
Last Saturday my family all got together for a meal. We actually have done this quite a bit since I have been back in NZ, but this time the meal was particularly good and worth a mention here I think. While living in Vancouver I bought a rather nice cookbook called "Tyler's Ultimate" by Tyler Florence. My sister'n'law Sharon has been eyeing a few of the recipes in it for a while and suggested maybe we could have an Ultimate Meal using a bunch of recipes from the cookbook. So we picked 6 recipes, 2 appetisers, 1 soup, 2 main courses and a dessert.
The first appetiser was one I had made for my lunch about a year ago, a caramelised onion toast. It was super good, with the anchovies adding a nice saltyness without overpowering the soft onions. This was served at the same time as the second appetiser, herbed goat cheese bites. They were little slices of toasted baguette with some herbed soft goat cheese and sundried tomato. I love goat cheese so these little things I thougth were jolly good.
The soup was probably the most interesting or unusual of the courses. Being summer here I thought a cold soup would go down well, so I made the watermelon gazpacho with chile and feta cheese. Basically it is tomato and watermelon blended up with a few chiles, then some finely chopped cucumber and onion is folded through it and finally it is topped with crumbed feta cheese. Although some people had reservations about this dish, wondering why anyone would put watermelon in a tomato soup, it seemed to be well received and there were lots of positive comments about it. I think I will make it again some time, I really liked it.
The first main course was a simple grilled salmon with smashed potatoes. This was a very, very simple dish but I thought it was really nice. I love salmon so as long as it is not overcooked I will normally enjoy it. I never had any fish in Ukarumpa, so I have really enjoyed being able to eat lots of fish since being back home.
Next up was my favourite course, grilled leg of lamb with lemon chickpea puree and greens. The lamb was marinated in a vinaigrette that was also used on the salad greens. Then the lamb was grilled on the BBQ. It was cooked just how I like it, medium rare and was oh so tasty. I have come to really love chickpeas over the last 6 months too, so the accompanying chickpea puree was just delightful.
The dessert was jolly nice too, lemon ricotta crepes with blueberries. It was supposed to have bananas too but we forgot to buy them. The simple blueberry sauce was particularly good.
All up a very nice meal with family.
Well that is about all I have to write about from the last month. I have enjoyed spending a bit of time here in NZ with friends and family and am looking forward to getting back to Vancouver now. Hopefully I will be there by the end of next week, I haven't booked any flights yet but am planning on flying on the 22nd Feb.
