Food for Thought

Swiss Soya and Linseed loaves from Freya are actually good. My son loves it and he eats it by itself. I actually never imagined ourselves having sandwhiches for a meal with ham/ sausages, scrambled egg, a cut of lettuce leaves from our small patch and tomato slices.

Hubby brought several packets of sinigang mix with him so we have the convenience of making sinigang whenever we feel like it. And by experimentation we discovered that salmon and shrimps with some tomatoes and spinach is a great twist. It tasted like something from Via Mare. Yum!

What we noticed about the meat here, whether it's beef or pork is that it's clean and not rubbery. Malambot ang karne nila and kapag pinakuluan mo, kakaunti yung secretion ng blood. So kapag nilaga, hindi kailangan umabot ng 1 hour para lang lumambot ang karne. Yun nga lang, bihira ang liempo. Mostly are lean meat. Di pa kami nakasubok ng lamb but that seems to be common. Pwede rin kaya iyun alernative ng beef or pork?

For snack, happy na ang kids sa crackers or fruit like yung matabang na saging (Dole) na parang hybrid na wala talagang lasa! I grew up na parating may saging sa bahay. May tanim din na mga saging sa probinsya namin. Paborito ko ang lakatan but meron din kaming latundan, senyorita at saba.

During summer, hubby brought home some ice cream delights on  a stick. Just like the popular Magnum, NZ got it's own designer flavors - Kapiti. One flavor that I tried has white chocolate coating with raspberry swirls in creamy vanilla. For me, lasang pang matanda iyun not the usual chocolate flavored ice cream. Sarap! We've also tried Whittaker Creamy Milk Chocolate. It has a tv commercial wherein it was being endorsed by Nigella kaya napabili tuloy kami. Masarap!

I think there are so many flavors and options that we have yet to discover. Right now, doon pa rin kami sa familiar na taste, Asian flair. But I'm sure later on, we'd get to know and appreciate more flavors that are common to here. Auckland's mix of migrants gives you that diversity on food and flavors.

Feels Like Home Again

@ Rocket Park, Mount Albert

@ the harbor downtown

Since the arrival of my husband and kids last January, things took a 360 degree turn as I'm now back to my old self again. I've got the kids to keep me busy and since they arrived, we've been into parks, fairs and then eventually, got my son into Kindie. Like what Alan said, it's all coming together. There were so many unknowns for us since last year but now things are all falling into place.

Mt. Albert Neighborhood

View of the neighborhood

From Mt. Albert Domain

Dog exercise area

Exit/ Entrance of Mt. Albert Domain

Summit Drive goes up to Mt. Albert Domain, and Kitenui is just across

The school's got a farm! And this is just behind our street.

Found this a couple of paces from our place, quite handy to send mail

Mt. Albert Aquatic Center, just next to Mt. Albert Grammar School

Apricot Muffins

Today's walk somehow ended up at the supermarket.

Too many biscuits

I noticed the aisle of biscuits seemed endless. And on my right were a couple of other snacks, including dried apricots. I thought I'd sample some and use it for my muffins. So when I got home I put these ingredients together to see if this second attempt on baking muffins would be better. I put together some flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, egg, butter, milk and vanilla then the dried apricots. I lowered the heat this time then popped them in the pre-heated oven. It smelled sweet and not burned this time. I tried one and it's actually good.
 

Preparing the batter

Spooning the batter in the silicon mold

Not too pretty but actually tastes good

One Night of Wonder

Britomart at night

Quay Street along the harbor

Crossing Queen Street

There really isn't much people here in Auckland even if it's already the biggest city (population-wise) in New Zealand. And seeing the city to be alive on New Year's Eve is perhaps the busiest that it can get apart from hosting the rugby cup. The crowd still follow traffic rules (at least most people do) and the only thing that people get concerned about here is that not a lot of young Kiwis can handle their alcohol.