Cooking in a Campervan - Part 2

Back to the food of the honeymoon.

Not actually something I cooked.  Rather it was something we found at Reefton, at the horse races.  A hamburger patty on a slice of bread with some grilled onions and tomato sauce.

Of course, had to get some chips and a soda.

Doug being annoyed again at such a tiny handle. Look at his giant man fingers! How is he supposed to pick that up?!

Lets give BeaNZ a chance.  (Turns out we've had better baked beans)

Mmmm.  Steak with caramelized garlic and red wine sauce.  Seeing this picture again makes me think I should be on the hunt for good steaks and a bottle of red wine.

Our last Farmer's Market.  Onions, avocado, bell pepper, zucchini, banana, mushrooms, and pirate ship coffee.  Their claim to fame was that they actually roasted their beans on a boat.  The coffee was alright, but not the best we had in NZ.

Just what is an "American Hotdog?"  Answer: a corndog.

More chips.  I love chips.

Roasted garlic and roasted garlic salt.  I'm not sure if we ripped this guy off or if he ripped us off, but the original deal was two bags of smoked salt, a head of smoked garlic, and a salt shaker.  I asked to exchange the salt shaker for an extra bag of salt and ended up walking away with four bags of smoked salt, two heads of smoked garlic, and no salt shaker.

One of the wineries did olive and olive oil tasting with their wine tasting.

Pretty tasty wine.  I asked if I could buy a glass, but they said they didn't have any to spare.

Another winery.  Had a great conversation about New Zealand with the woman who owned the place.  The conversation was so good she accidentally bagged a bottle of Pinot Gris for me instead of a bottle of Riesling.  Though the Pinot Gris was good, it didn't have the lemony finish of the Riesling, which was my favorite part.

Doug sniffing the smoked garlic.  I think he even told the clove it was to become dinner.

Oy! My lettuce is alive!!

A tiny plant.

Breakfast outside, the camper is getting cramped.

Easiest cleanup? Grill ALL THE THINGS.  Grilled onions, zucchini, bell pepper, and of course, LAMB.  All with a healthy sprinkling of that tasty smoked garlic salt.

A fancy last meal for the campervan: cup noodles and a glass of white.

Holy Giant Bread!

So, back to that starter I started 3 weeks ago...

 After 24 hours it was already starting to bubble nicely.  I think it helped that I put it in the oven over night with the light on.  It gets nice and warm in there with just the light.

For the next few days I continued to put it in the oven over night with the light on.  But on the 4th day it started looking flat.  It would be nice and bubbly after adding the 1/4 flour and 1/4 of water, but by morning all was still.  And when stirred it was very soupy.  So for a couple of days I skipped the water and only added flour.

That seemed to perk it up a bit again, but it would be flat by morning.  I decided it was because I was not feeding it enough.  And I stopped putting it in the oven, letting it get a bit cool at night (around 60 degrees).

When I got to two cups of starter I did a loaf of bread.

 The bread got HUGE.  My oven is small, 17 inches across on the inside, which means only my dinner plate sized stone fits within.  I started the loaf in the bread machine, no need to do all the mixing myself.  When the dough was ready for the final rise I put it on my little stone, covered it in plastic wrap and a kitchen towel, then finished the 30 minutes of the Dr. Who episode I was in the middle of.

I really thought it would take longer than 30 minutes for the loaf to double.  It did not.  And it continued to rise as I heated the oven.

 It's bigger than my head!

 Nice on the inside though, no big holes.

Nice texture too.

And: not too sour.  Could be for a couple of reasons.  Maybe my starter is too young.  Over time it may get more sour.  Or maybe the natural yeast in Hawaii just won't make all that sour of a loaf.  Either way, the starter now has a home in my fridge.  I'll give it a few more loaves before I decide how worthy it is.

Sourdough Starter

I really like sourdough, but where I live it seems hard to find.  I've often thought of making my own starter, and then I see a stray ant or two in the kitchen and worry that a starter would attract them.  Then recently I read an article on a quick sourdough starter in Vegetarian Times.  I decided it was time to give it a try.

First I located a glass jar. My last attempt at a homemade sourdough starter was in Colorado.  It took a few days, but I ended up with a bubbly, beer-smelling concoction.  It smelled so right.  And the resulting bread was anything but sour.  I think the problem was the plastic container it was in.  Though I managed to keep it alive for some time, it never got as sour as I would have liked.  Most bread made from it didn't even have a hint of sour to them.  When I gave up and threw out the starter I ended up throwing out the container too.  No matter how much I cleaned it, it always smelled like the starter.

Then I went back to the recipe in the magazine, but realized I did not have the yeast it called for.  My yeast was regular, it calls for fast-acting and has a side note that regular won't work.  That didn't stop me though, to Google!

Google had too many choices.  Then I remembered my book, Forgotten Skills of Cooking.  Her recipe looked to easy to be true.  So I looked in a couple of trusted cookbooks, and then returned to the hers: put 1/4C of flour in a jar with 1/4C warm water. Stir and let sit for 24 hours.  Feed with 1/4C flour and 1/4C warm water every 24 hours for 6 days.  Starter should be complete.  We'll see.

Cooking in a Campervan - Part 1

Part of the food adventure in New Zealand was cooking in a campervan.  This thing did not have a lot of space.  The table turned into a bed at night, and if I was in the "kitchen" cooking I either had to sit down at the table or go stand outside if Doug wanted to move to/from the table.  I might have had more counter space in this tinier kitchen though.

Cooking dinner our first night.

Setting it out on the table...

Beef sausages with spaghetti and cheddar cheese on top.

Another night cooking, using all the pots the camper came with. Yep, it only had two pots. And one tiny pan.

Oooh, street side veggie stand. I need this, and this, and this...

Our findings of the day: Bottle of Pinot Noir, Super yummy coffee, zucchini, asparagus, onions, bread, avocado, garlic, tomatoes, and mushrooms.  All of this food is a major improvement over what we find in Hawaii, where most of these items would be local, but out of my budget, or shipped in from the mainland.

A complete meal on wheels!

A New Zealand Ketchup bottle. I brought one home.

Doug is very excited about his breakfast. See, last night we took the ferry from North Island to South Island. That meant dinner was sandwiches on the boat followed by sleeping in a parking lot.  The last good meal we had was dinner two nights before.

Another street side veggie stand. Only this one is more out doors.

And you pay on the honor system.

Though you are threatened by the use of cameras.

Never seen milk in bags before.

Bacon.

One slice takes up the entire frying pan. The only frying pan.

Lamb sausage, alfredo pasta, and green beans. MMM

What to do if you don't feel like eating lamb sausages again? Strip their cases and make them into meat sauce.

Eating in Auckland

No, I have not forgotten about this blog. Rather I've been cheap with my time when it comes to blogging. I have been posting pictures to my other blog, but still haven't finished posting all the New Zealand pictures there either. But enough of that, lets get to the food.

Our first food on our honeymoon was airplane food. Usually disgusting fare wrapped entirely in disposable dishes. I think only the tray was reusable in the last airplane food I ate, and that was probably because the airline hadn't figured out a cheap yet sturdy disposable alternative.  New Zealand Air on the other hand is much more ecofriendly. The bowls and coffee cup were heavy duty plastic, nice enough I wanted to sneak it home.  The wine glass was really glass.

Juice, cake, some sort of salad with seafood in it and mystery food under the foil. I choose the beef mystery food.

Small piece of cake, but still, CAKE!

And the mystery food.  Beef pasta with marinara sauce and cheese. It was good. And in a ceramic bowl, to help keep it hot.

Doug's mystery food. Vegetable fritata with more veggies on the side. Sometimes when you order the healthy sounding food, you get the gross food.

That was the main meal. Later on we got a big snack/small breakfast closer to landing. By then I was quite tired and not in the mindset for taking pictures.  But enough of the airplane food, on to Auckland!

Snack in a coffee shop. In this particular coffee shop, it was proper to eat a ham and cheese sandwich with a fork and knife.  This was also our first experience with New Zealand coffee in a shop.  There is no brewed coffee as we Americans are used to.  The closest thing you can get is a Long Black, much like an Americano.  This would be very disappointing to Doug who wanted a brewed cup of coffee.

Dinner on the town. Doug ordered fish and chips. And ate all of it. Then he felt kinda sick. 9.5 hours airplane travel + not enough sleep + too much greasy food = tired, icky feeling husband.

My food was better again. Beef stew with mash. The mash had carrots, turnips, and potatoes all mashed together. It was very tasty, but too much for me to finish.

Because it was our honeymoon, we decided one good meal was appropriate while in Auckland.  We found a nice little bistro.

I had roast lamb with garlic spinach and some kind of grain that was similar to barley.  This was my first lamb experience in New Zealand.  It was fantastic.

Doug had duck.  Looks like he's going to eat it straight from the plate, but I assure you, he used utensils.

During our meal.

Following the meal with some espresso. I am sunburnt from our 10 mile city hike earlier in the day. Turns out you can burn through clouds.

A lunch in Devonport, just a short ferry ride across the harbor from Auckland.  Pasta with cream sauce, garlic, parmesan, mushrooms, and bacon. I should figure out how to recreate this dish, it was awesome.

Our last meal in Auckland was at Hell Pizza. 

Two pizzas and breadsticks.  It was a good meal, but hard to say if it was because it was a funny name for pizza or because it was actually good.  We had leftovers, but it was no problem since we picked up our campervan the next day.

A (Fake) Food Rant: Margarine

I really don't know why I thought of this, but since I haven't posted in a bit I'll put it here.  No yummy food pics this time, but maybe some food for thought.

Early on in my BA, I wrote a paper on margarine vs. butter.  The purpose of my paper was to persuade people to choose the latter.  Thinking some research might help my cause, I went online and read many, many terrible things about margarine, many of which I included in my paper.

Sure, margarine has its benefits: it's cheap, shelf stable (at least more so than butter), and... I think that's where it ends.  There is the claim that it has no cholesterol, so it's better than butter which does.  But then look at the effects of hydrogenated oils on the body.  Unlike cholesterol, which only increases your bad cholesterol, hydrogenated oils increases your bad cholesterol counts while at the same time reduces your good cholesterol counts.  Don't believe me?  Ask google.  Google knows all.  So if you're avoiding butter for your cholesterol health, make sure you avoid margarine too.  Of course, with the negative hype of hydrogenated oils becoming more mainstream, there are more options made without.

Not eating butter because you're avoiding animal products?  Read the label carefully.  The cheapest margarines still contain milk solids.  Buying it because it is cheap?  Unless one package lasts you months, you might want to consider the negative health benefits from eating the junk.  Now which is cheaper?  Of course eating large amounts of butter will do you no good, but if you enjoy hearty servings of the stuff slathered on homemade bread butter is probably better.  And the taste is better too.

One thing that is really funny to me in all this is the size of the containers.  For the most part butter comes in 1 pound packages.  Usually in cardboard, with 1/4 cup cubes inside.  Margarine comes that way too.  But it also comes in huge tubs.  And small spray bottles.  And in flavors, since all by itself it tastes little like butter.  But the one that really gets me is the HUGE tubs.  Really?  You are buying a giant tub of margarine, and then wondering about the weight and health of your household members?  I remember early in our relationship Doug tried to buy a tub of country crock (does that stuff even come in sticks?).  I scoffed at his choice, and being a butter elitist, made him buy what I considered to be a better choice.  Now that I do all the shopping, margarine doesn't fit into the equation.  I'm not a pain in the ass about it enough to complain at someone else's home, but if I'm cooking for you I won't use the stuff.  I'll figure out the proportion of oil to butter first.  Just don't be offended if you notice that I'm not eating your bread with your offered choice of "butter."