Alex Hallatt 3/24/21 Alex Hallatt 3/24/21

New Zealand Garden Diary: What to Cook When You Have a Lot of Kale

My submission for Lyttelton's Harbour Kitchen cookbook uses something I have in the garden all year around (and store cupboard ingredients). Don't you love kale?⁠⁠

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Quick Kale and Cashew Stir Fry

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Ingredients (per person)

Small handful of kale

One serving of noodles

Small handful of salted cashews

Dash of soy sauce

Dash of sweet soy sauce (kecap manis) or sweet chilli sauce

Dash of sesame oil and enough sunflower oil to coat pan

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Method

If you want the recipe to be vegetarian, wash the kale. Then drain, pat dry and remove the big central ribs before cutting it finely.

Boil noodles until done, drain and set-aside.

Get the oils hot in a pan and stir fry kale until it all turns dark green, throw in cashew nuts and warm through for one minute.

Add cooked noodles and soy sauces/sweet chili sauce, stir through and serve.

Alex Hallatt 2/26/21 Alex Hallatt 2/26/21

Living in New Zealand: Dog Friendly Mini Break in Peel Forest

It's handy to have friends with holiday homes. We spent a weekend in one in Peel Forest. Our friends have a lovely big dog called Fred who tolerated Molly very well. Molly made herself quite at home.

Because there is a lot of agriculture in the area, you can't swim in the rivers. It's a shame as there is a beautiful river walk in Geraldine, but even the dogs aren't supposed to drink the water.

At least there are a lot of dog friendly walks and Molly and Fred had a great time. Well, Molly did for sure.

The best part of the trip was going to see friends of our friends who have built a house in the woods. There is a QEII covenant on the land and we walked through a forest with lots of old native trees (checking trap lines that had caught hedgehogs and a feral cat). It was beautiful and Molly preferred it to swimming in the river

Alex Hallatt 2/24/21 Alex Hallatt 2/24/21

Living in New Zealand: Mini Break to the Hurunui With Off Leash Puppy

We have friends with a bach in the Hurunui in the high country of Canterbury, New Zealand and we joined them there for a weekend.

My other half went fly fishing but I had a lot more fun swimming in the deep water pools. It is fairly safe to do this in the high country as there is not so much run-off from agriculture, particularly as there are no dairy farms there.

Molly learned to swim across the river, which she preferred to old rickety bridges. She taunted her new friend, Marlowe, who was not that keen to get wet.

Alex Hallatt 8/19/20 Alex Hallatt 8/19/20

Living in New Zealand: A Weekend in Moeraki

Moeraki boulders are weird and wonderful (Click to see options for using the image)

The alternative Maori explanation for the boulders:

I went to Moeraki for a weekend of walking, thinking and writing. I had to visit the boulders of course, but apart from that, there aren’t too many distractions in the area and it is a good place to mull things over. It’s easier (I found out the hard way) to walk from the village to the boulders along the Millennium Track than it is to get there by scrambling over the rocks at low tide.

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The other reason many people stop at Moeraki is the legendary restaurant, Fleur’s. You can get beautiful, locally-caught fish there if you don't mind paying a bit more (mains are $40 plus), but since I was on my own I went to the Fishwife to have fish and chips (less than $15). The blue cod was excellent.

And if you are on your own, I can recommend going to Fleur’s for coffee and cake, or a glass of wine before dinner. Unfortunately, the pub seems to cater more to the mass tourist crowd than to locals as you can't sit by the bar because it is a “working area”. A working area that is 15 feet long.

Because of Covid-19 there were very few tourists in town during the winter weekend and absolutely nobody in the water except me.

Very briefly.