Sweet Greens with Fresh Tomato

Being in NZ allows me to enjoy all summer things, including all fresh summer veggies. It's amazing having two summers in a year;) As I have quite enough of pasta, I bought some milet. BTW in Nelson I also found an organic shop (http://www.organicgreengrocer.co.nz/), it's not 100% vegetarian, but they are quite well stored. And they are the main reason why I prepared the Sweet Greens with Fresh Tomato;) I bought: a small onion, avocado oil, 120 g green beans, 70 g milet, 1 tomato and fresh herbs. Of course you need some salt.
Cook the milet. Meanwhile chop the onion, heat the oil and saute the onion. Cut the beans and add them to the onion after some minutes. When the milet is cooked add it to the beans. Stir well. Then the tomato, fresh herbs and salt come. Stir well and enjoy it with a local NZ's ginger bear;)

Peas Noodles

Although I had noodles three day in a row while tracking, it really appealed to me today to have them again. Human beings are sometimes really strange, aren’t we? However preparing noodles is one of the simpliest thing in the world. For the Peas Noodles I just boiled the water, put the noodles and the dried vegies in it (you get a little sack of them in the noodles’ package). Tol enrich a bit, I add half of the peas from can and some cheese. Well, typical backpackers I’d say;)

Kumara Mussaka in Christchurch

Remember what is a kumara? It’s the special NZ’s potato, which is a bit sweeter than the regular one. So why not use it as any other potato in recipes? We decided to make a Kumara Mussaka. We bought: 2 large kumaras, 1 large eggplant, 250 g silken tofu, 150 g cheese, oil (this time we used the avocado oil), nutmeg and herb salt. Preheat the oven at 200 C. Cook the kumara until soft and cool it. Peel it and sliced it into 0,5 cm thick slices. Meanwhile slice the eggplant into slices of the same thickness, season them with salt. Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the eggplant. Slice the cheese into thin slices (use the slicer;) and mash the tofu with some salt and nutmeg. Assemble the mussaka in a 30 cm round baking tray. Start with half of the eggplant, than a third of the cheese, half of kumara and half of the tofu mixture. Repeat this ending with cheese on top. Bake for 20 minute. … and enjoyed it with some authentic NZ’s merlot;)

Quick Mushrooms Goulash

Mushrooms are quite often on my home menu. Observing the local groceries I’d say that the same applies for NZ. If the shiitake and the porcini mushrooms are often on our plates at home, here the Portobello mushrooms are a must. I really don’t know why our shops don’t sell them. However, the last evening in Queenstown was very suitable for a Quick Mushrooms Goulash. I filled my shooping basket with some olive oil, a big onion and a lot of Portobello mushrooms. The cooking part is really simple: chop the onion, heat the oil and saute the onion for at least 15 minutes. When making a goulash make sure that you saute the onion very well. Slice the mushrooms and add to the onion. Cook for another 10-15 minutes. Season and serve with polenta.

Destination Organics

As already told one of my must in a city is to visit a vegetarian restaurant and/or organic shop. In Queenstown I found Destination Organics (http://www.destinationorganic.co.nz/), which is both - a shop and a small caffee/restaurant. The shelves were filled with all kind of delicious food, from fresh veggies to Italian imported red pesto. After some quick shopping (of course I’d buy everything if I was at home;) we tried their special salad and the natural plate. The salad (picture on the left) was a mixture of lettuce, coleslaw, really great avocado, tomatoes, hummus and lentil salad. On the other hand the Natural Plate (picture on the right) offered us the opportunity to taste the home made bread with fresh veggies and some dried fruit. Both were good, but I preferred the salad plate more.

Zucca Pizza in Queenstown

After four days of dry food and more than 60 km walking we decided that is time to have a pizza. Although I can have pizza at home, I didn’t have any objections to have a Zucca pizza at a restaurant in Queenstown (btw Zucca in Italian means butter squash). I have never eaten or even thought to have butter squash on my pizza. But I have to confess that it tasted pretty good. So the butter squash was baked in oven an put on the pizza with feta cheese, olives, red peppers, spinach and tomatoes. It tasted delicious and I’m determined to do a bis back home;)

Noodles in NZ's mountains

One of the must in New Zealand is to do some trekking or how they say it here - tramping. When planning the trip, we were looking for the Milford Sound track in the South Island. Unfortunately we were not able to book it as you have to do it at least one year in advance. After some brief reading on the net we took the decision to do the Kepler track, which is also located in the Fiordland (also South Island). Further research showed that things in NZ’s mountains are a bit different as in my home country. As a salesman in Wellinghton said to us: ”You are spoilt!” He was refering to the fact that in most of the European mountains’ hut you can buy food and beverages. Of course the menu is not like in the restaurant, but you can have at least water, tea, coffee, beer and some soups, pasta etc. Well here things are different. Beside the commodity to book the hut on-line, that’s it. If you want to eat something while tramping, you have to bring everything with you. As we were not inclined to have dry food for four days we had to buy a stove and some cooking pots adapted for tramping. The most “complicated” dish we made were noodles in a soup;) To have some variety we cooked every day a different soup: tomato, mushroom and thai vegetable soup;) Let’s say I have enough noodles and instant soups for a while;)