Saturday, December 30, 2006

Well the last week has been a great time relaxing week for me. I have had the last week off work for a 1 week Christmas break. I was planning on heading up Grouse Mountain a few times to get a bit of snowboarding in, but decided against it in the end as I have developed a bit of a cough and didn't want it to get any worse.

Uncle Murray and Auntie Joy flew in to spend a little over a week with Roz and Reuben on their way back to New Zealand. It was great catching up with them and seeing a little of what they have been doing over in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I spent Christmas Eve at Roz and Reuben's where we talked to family back home. It was nice to chat briefly with everyone, although Daryl seemed more interested in getting back to his game of cricket.

Christmas day was also spent at Roz and Reuben's and I must say the food was almost as good as the company. Roz concocted a very nice roast pumpkin soup for starters and Reuben made a particularly good roast lamb for the main course. The leftover lamb then formed the base for a couple of delightful salads over the next few days (I spent pretty much the whole week eating at their place or at restaurants with them).

All the good food and the new cookbook Roz and Reuben gave me for Christmas has inspired me to start cooking more regularly; and the new camera I bought for myself has given me the idea to start posting semi-regular reviews of the food I cook or maybe the food I eat while out, we'll see.


First up is the first recipe I tried from the cookbook I got for Christmas. The cookbook is called Simply Bishop's and is by a well known local chef and contains lots of very tasty looking dishes featuring local ingredients. Today's recipe was Pesto-crusted Halibut with Red Lentil Dahl. I had never made Dahl before but it is really easy to make and pretty tasty too. Halibut is a really nice fish that I have not seen in New Zealand. It is a pretty large fish with quite a solid flesh. It is not very cheap though so I don't think I will be buying it too regularly. If anyone wants the recipe just leave a comment and I will get it to ya.

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