More Kiwi Cooking

Meat pies are a popular Kiwi dish. And they should be. What crazy person doesn't enjoy savoury meat and vegetables wrapped into a warm flaky pie shell? Not me! I'm not that crazy. Cute little individual pies are sold in all the cafes and corner daries. And they are tasty!

I bought small spring form pans, made for individual meat pies. Each week I have my daughters help with dinner. Last night it was Lucy's turn. She chose to make chicken and veggie pot pies. I have become a little obsessed with puff pastry sheets. Even the recipe in Edmonds Cookery Book calls for using store bought puff pastry sheets for the pie shell. They are so cheap and easy and they bake up perfectly flaky every time. We rolled and cut out the puff pastry. Plopped it in the pans. Filled the pies with chicken, veggies, and a soupy sauce. Threw the on a top and decorated it with cookie cutter cutouts from the extra dough. Super easy. Even a 6 year-old can do it. They turned out pretty cute and pretty delicious.

The Chef

Enjoy! 

Touring Middle Earth

A few weeks ago we toured the Weta Cave. It's the place where the physical special effects for movies are created. It's a live workshop. While we were there employees were busy working on their next projects. Because it is a work space you can't take photos during the tour except for in a few places. So, we don't have a lot of photos, just a lot of memories of all the cool stuff we saw and heard.

Lucy and Eva looking like happy Hobbits soon to be attacked by an ogre. 

My precious new friend. 

Flying the Thunderbirds Are Go exhibit. 

Kiwi Cooking

A Classic New Zealand Cookbook

I recently read a New Zealand travel guide that mentioned The Edmonds Cookery Book. It says, "Almost every Kiwi household has a battered copy of The Edmonds Cookery Book, first published in 1908... The book is the first place people turn for making the sort of cakes and desserts that fill the shelves of rural tearooms... Fancier modern cafes are now reinventing these retro Kiwi classics." Apparently, the cookbook has a recipe for Afghans. Afghans are the name for a yummy chocolate biscuit (cookie). I have bough them a few times and we have really liked them. They have something crunchy in them that I really liked but I wasn't sure what it was. Maybe toffee? Maybe hokey pokey (honeycomb, very common in sweets here). I remember seeing the cookbook at the grocery store and I knew I needed it.

The Secret Ingredient. 

 The recipe divulged the "secret ingredient," cornflakes! Seriously?! Cornflakes are the yummy crunchiness. Who would have guessed? Not me.

The Final Product. Dark and Delicious. 

I baked the biscuits tonight for our family treat and they were a big hit. Like always, I didn't follow the recipe completely. I didn't want to take the extra steps of making icing and frosting them. So I added small dark chocolate bits (chocolate chips) instead. All who tasted them were pleased and wanted more. I will bake them again and again. It's good to have a new cookie to add to my recipe repertoire.

Leave Nature Alone

Not the bird in this story, but a bird near where this story took place. 

One morning while running along the beach I spotted a seagull pecking at what looked like a plastic wrapper. I thought, "Oh no! I must save this bird from swallowing a plastic object." So, believing myself as being a good global citizen, I ran at the bird to scare it away so that I could then get the plastic from it. Only then did I discover that the "plastic wrapper" was really a fish. "Wow! birds eat fish in New Zealand," I thought to myself. But, I felt so bad for scaring that bird away from its breakfast.

Lesson learned: leave nature alone.

The Home Tour

We feel really lucky to have gotten this house. I had seen it listed for rent online back in April but I thought there was no way it would still be on the market when we would arrive in July. Lucky for us it was. It was the first house we toured. It was out of our budget, but when I told the realtor our budget, without hesitation she agreed. It is in a quaint little suburb called Seatoun, right on the mouth of the Wellington harbour. It is up on a hill so we have incredible views. It is a great location for work, just a 7 minute drive or 11 minute bike ride. All my girls go to the same neighbourhood school, which is walking distance from our home. The school has years 1-8 with about 400 students. The house also has central heating and insulation, which is not the norm here.

Another reason we liked the house is because it has four bedrooms. Getting four rooms was important to us because we felt like it was the only nice consolation we could offer our daughters when we told them we would be moving halfway cross the world and leaving their schools and friends behind. Telling them they could each have their own room made at least one thing special about moving. Also, we wanted to have a nice guest bedroom for visitors to stay in. So that means if any of you come to visit, Mally gets kicked out of her room and gets the top bunk in Lucy's room and you get her queen sized bed.

As promised here are photos of our home:

The Exterior. We are on a corner with an empty lot between us and our neighbours. So it feels very spacious around the house. 

Through the front doors. We have a mudroom area to take off our shoes.

The living room with AMAZING views of the water.

Dining room.

Dining room from another angle.

Kitchen. It is large and has tons of storage. The wall not shown has lots of pantry storage space.

View from the kitchen sink. Seeing this makes washing the dishes more delightful. 

The small office room.

The upstairs bathroom. They call it the toilet here. 

Heading downstairs.

Our master bedroom. 

The laundry room. The house didn't come with whiteware (here that means washer, dryer and refrigerator) so we needed to buy all that stuff. 

Downstairs toilet with shower.

Mallory's room/guest bedroom. Check out the windows and the view!

Eva's room. It's a work in progress. Last weekend we took her bed apart to paint it a pretty shade of mint green.  

Lucy's room.

Fun fact: Sir Peter Jackson (the director of Lord of the Rings and a bunch of other movies) owns the buildings across the street from us.

Our Lady, Star of the Sea Chapel (no longer used for religious services) that Sir Peter Jackson renovated and owns. 

The Sisters of Mercy Convent. Also renovated and owned by PJ.