Preserving the harvest

Tomatoes galore

Now that summer is in full swing, there is fruit aplenty and sometimes, an overabundance even. Rather than forcing oneself to eat yet another tomato fresh from the garden or letting fruit rot on the vine, the best alternative is to preserve the harvest.

In our eagerness to have fresh tomatoes, we had planted 8 plants, including several heirloom varieties, and beginner's luck would have it that all are producing more than we can eat. In case you are wondering - we have Black Krim, Purple Cherokee, Golden Nugget, Tommy Toe, Green Zebra, Red Roma and 2 heirloom ones, which we cant remember the name of.

Tomatoes and Apricots, all chopped up, ready to cook

Anyhow, we get about 250 - 500g of tomatoes everyday, that plus some apricots from the supermarket that refused to ripen (never buy stone fruit from supermarkets if you can help it) made me decide on cooking up a chutney.

The recipe is really simple, and you can add any fruit to the tomatoes - cooking apples, add body and texture, sliced onions do the same. Sultanas or raisins add some sweetness - anything goes really. The aim is to get a mixture of sweet, tart, spicy and slighty salty flavours that will slowly blend together as the chutney matures.

Aromatics

So here's the recipe:

Tomato - Apricot Chutney

• 0.5kg fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 0.5kg fresh apricots
• 2 large onions finely sliced
• 4 cloves garlic
• 4 cardamom pods, peeled
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp yellow mustard seeds
• 2 tsp salt
• 250g brown sugar
• 150ml malt vinegar

Put all ingredients into a non-reactive pot, bring to the boil, let simmer with low heat for about 30min or till fruit and onions are soft, stirring occasionally to prevent mixture from catching. Taste and season if neccesary. Meanwhile, prepare jars for bottling.
Once mixture is ready, bring rapidly to a boil (a.k.a. jam making) for 5min till silky and jammy.
Bottle while hot.

Chutney simmering away

The chutney may be eaten fresh but letting it mature in a cool, dark place for a week or 2 is better. (some things are better when aged a bit...)

Chutney bottled, ready for maturing

This chutney goes well with cold meats, especially pork and chicken and will do well as a sweet but tangy glaze for a ham. Enjoy!

Back to the Mountains... at last

Ruapehu emerging from clouds

Established in 1887, Tongariro was the first national park in New Zealand and the fourth in the world. It is also a dual World Heritage area, a status which recognises the park's important Maori cultural and spiritual associations as well as its outstanding volcanic features.

The Park is only 2h away from where we are and now that we have learnt to drive longer distances, visiting this wonderful playground over a weekend is very do-able. The drive itself is very scenic, twisting and turning along SH4, often referred to as the "Para paras".

One of the big reasons for relocating to New Zealand is the wonderful hiking opportunities that exist here. Now that our house is more or less settled, what better way to start our hiking adventures than ticking off what has been described as one of “the best day walks in the world”

do not underestimate mountain weather

Many people underestimate the nature of mountains. Sometimes, due to the accesibility of this tramp, people may get into all sorts of trouble. We had made a booking for a shuttle bus run by Discovery Lodge. However, the day that we had wanted to make the Crossing, the shuttle was cancelled, due to bad weather. The owner-operator Callum Harland - an experienced mountain runner who appreciates the change-able nature of mountain weather and operates the bus only when it is safe. The Discovery Lodge runs the earliest shuttle (0545h) to the start, allowing hikers to enjoy the "wilderness experience" before the "hordes" arrive. (Most other operators arrive at the start between 0730h and 0830h) The pre-dawn start also gives plenty of time to take in the fantastic views and complete the crossing before the day gets too hot. They also have a wonderful pick-up schedule starting from 1230h and hourly thereafter till 1630h, which means that if one is fast, or the weather bad, you can complete the hike quickly, get down and back to warm hot showers or if the weather is good, take your time and snap endless photos, bag the peaks of Tongariro and Ngauruhoe and not worry about missing your pick-up.

When we arrived in National Park the day before, it had been raining badly the past few days and the mountains were completely covered in cloud. The weather report for the next day suggested a small break in the weather and we jumped at it. Waking up early to catch the 0540h shuttle reminded me of midnight alpine starts and I was happy to get back into this mode.

an early start

The track from Mangatepopo Car Park to Soda Springs is flat, well formed and easily covered in an hour. It was very pleasant stretching the legs on this section, stopping at Soda Springs for a toilet stop (no more toilets till Ketetahi hut!!) and a quick drink of water before making the ascent to the Crater rim.

I had visions of hard work on scree (memories of the infamous Caneleta on Aconcagua), but the new track which zig zags its way up was really easy underfoot, steps well formed and it kind of took the excitement out. Almost a walk in the park. We hurried along as the clouds were creeping up the mountain and unfortunately, we were beaten to the South Crater by the weather.

view down to Soda Springs, clouds moving in

With thick cloud and the possibility of rain, we decided against climbing to the summit of Ngauruhoe and after a snack, walked briskly across South Crater, trying to imagine the views!

South Crater in the mist

Reaching the far end of the South Crater, we climbed up to Red Crater, again, not too steep, but the rocks and clay were somewhat slick from the mist and care had to be taken.

Red Crater rim, rocks, slick from mist

Just as we topped Red Crater, rim, the highest point of the Crossing, the clouds parted briefly and we were treated to a magnificent view of the Emerald lakes.

Emerald Lakes emerging from mist

Descending to the Emerald Lakes needs a little care, as the path is on loose scree and the ridge is moderately exposed. In high winds and poor visibility, one could potentially be blown off. This probably is the only location with some objective danger on the crossing, assuming one does not attempt the summits of Ngauruhoe and Tongariro.

descent from Red Crater, note sulphur stains

At this juncture, we noted sulphurous smells and saw numerous steam vents on the side of the crater, many with sulphur deposits around them. It was a reminder that the area is still very much a geothermal area and volcanoes here are by no means extinct.

Once we had gotten down to the Lakes and were about to explore their shores, the wind picked up and clouds came in again, this time with rain and this rain followed us all the way down to Ketetahi Car Park.

Blue Lake in the rain

So, looks like we'll have to go back, sometime soon to re-visit the area in good weather, bag the summits and take in the views (and snap a few pictures!!)

Christmas Holiday in Auckland

We flew out on Christmas day evening to spend some time in the City of Sails. As I had to work on Christmas Eve, so the only flight we could catch was 5.30pm on Christmas day!



Visiting Auckland over the Christmas holidays was quite enjoyable, to our surprise. Being the “ulu sampah” country folk living in Wanganui that we are - the hustle and bustle, crowds and traffic fumes of NZ’s biggest city are something we try to avoid. Fortunately for us, the evening of Christmas was very quiet - most places were closed and indeed, we were worried that we would not find a place to eat.



Fortunately for us, opposite our hotel (City Life Heritage Hotel) was a very busy Chinese coffee shop. Its customers are mostly chinese locals and backpackers, but the more savvy local Kiwis come there too. As you can see, it has chinese roast meats as well as a very decent menu of stir fries, noodles, porridge and every order of rice comes with a generous potion of delicious soup made from bones and meat scraps. The portions are huge, so an order of roast pork rice or in my case, beef stir fried with bitter gourd and fermented black soy beans was large enough for 2 of us to share.



We ate our fill and took a “digestive walk” down to the waterfront - see the first picture and watched the sun go down over sailing boats and the Auckland Sky Tower. A particularly good watering hole (which also has excellent food and service, is Soul, down by the wharf.

New Zealand (like Singapore and probably many other places) is notorious for having sales. Pre Christmas sales, Before school holiday sales... Queen’s birthday sales. So it was no surprise that many stores were open on Boxing day and offered very good discounts on all sorts of goods. We bought some quick dry trekking clothes from The North Face shop and a couple of CDs from Marbecks.

After an energetic morning of shopping we stopped by for dim sum lunch at a local Chinese restaurant. The food was very good, pretty genuine (judging by the number of chinese patrons) and the egg tarts light and fluffy.

Since we were on holiday.. after a dim sum lunch, we decided that the best thing to do was to have an afternoon nap, which we did.

This rest gave us plenty of energy for a long walk to church and Spanish Tapas at a delightful restaurant called Limon by the water front for dinner.

There was real Spanish guitar music and a waitress that spoke Spanish (OK, she was from Argentina) and melt in your mouth Jamon Serrrano. Ole!