This post is more for our memory of the food we ate on this leg of our journey, but we thought some of you might be interested in seeing our uninteresting diet (Aaron Taylor, you said you liked the food blogs so here you go!). Keep in mind we are on a budget of no more than $40 NZ per day ($24 US) for the two of us. We have actually been hitting around $21/day (US) so we’ve been able to go out for a nice meal occasionally. Here are some of our main staples:
- Rice & Beans. We haven’t been able to find black beans here, but there is a company that sells “Mexican Beans” which have a nice spicy kick to them and we have used those most times.
- Farm fresh asparagus. We have purchased this at roadside stands several times and it is delicious!
- Spaghetti. Boring, but quick and easy and we have discovered a new way to cook this meal that makes it our favorite cheap meal. First cook the noodles, then throw them in a saute pan with sharp cheese and fry. Finally, add spaghetti sauce over the top and cook in. Sounds simple, but it makes all the difference in the world!
- Soup and grilled cheese. Again, boring, but makes for a nice easy meal after a long day of driving or hiking.
- Kebabs. Of course, not native to NZ, but we call it a gyro back home so it’s much more exotic as a “kebab.” Bread, meat, lettuce, special sauce, wrapped up.
- Potatoes. The tuber is plentiful here and we have been using them for dinner and then cooking up the leftovers for breakfast.
- Oranges. We found a citrus stand that was selling a bag of nearly 30 small oranges for $2 NZ ($1.20 US). Needless to say, we have been eating a lot of oranges.
- Avocados. In the Northland many driveways displayed signs advertising home grown avocados. We stopped at one and managed six avocados for $3 NZ ($1.80 US).
- Vogels Summer Crunch. This is one of many delicious granola type cereals that have been one of our daily choices for breakfast.
- Kiwi. Of course, you can’t come to New Zealand, home of the kiwi (the fruit and the bird) and not eat kiwis. We have eaten both the golden and green kiwis and still favor the green.
- Fish. When John runs across a place that looks to have decent fish and chips (if the sign reads “Best in Town” he’s a sucker for sure), he jumps at the chance. It’s all been very tasty so far. He cooked up some dory just the other night. Mmmm… flaky and delicious. Be cautious of the flounder, though. They take the whole fish and deep fry it.
- Toast. We have toast with butter and Craig’s berry jam or Derry’s home grown honey nearly every morning with breakfast. Two pieces for John, one piece for Erin.
- Artisan bread, fresh tomato, and feta & basil spread. Inspired by the European style of eating, this makes for a great lunch.
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Fresh Avocaco
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Rice & Beans
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Backpacker Meals
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Standard Breakfast Faire
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Wild Clover Cream Liquor
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The Halloween Feast
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Cadbury Drinking Chocolate
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Ecclairs
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Snowballs
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Kebab
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Valentino’s Gelato
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Pavlova
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Perkynana Candy Bar
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Deep South Hokey Pokey Ice Cream
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Banoffee Pie
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All Day Breaky
Sweets must have a category of their own. If you know John Macy at all, you probably know he has quite a sweet tooth. Erin’s isn’t quite as strong as John’s but she definitely enjoys a sweet treat whenever they are available. We have tried to sample a good cross section of treats. However, each time you try a treat, the label reminds you to “Be Treat Wise” and encourages partakers to “Get to know your DIs” which is Dietary Intake, the equivalent of our Recommended Daily Allowances. Another thing that could potentially keep you from eating treats here is that instead of measuring in kCals or calories, they measure in kJ, kilojoules (which they label as Energy – I love that!). Kilojoules are about three times of a kCal, from what we can tell. For example, one small cookie, the size of a regular Oreo let’s say, has 350 kJ of energy. Yikes! If you’re accustomed to looking at the calorie content that seems like a crazy number. It hasn’t really stopped us, though. Here is our list of sweets we have enjoyed on a fairly regular basis:
- Squiggles. Squiggles are by far our favorite biscuit (cookie) sampled so far. They are a hokey pokey nugget in a cookie shape, covered by milk chocolate, and topped with a squiggle of toffee. Hokey Pokey is everywhere. It is a sort of butterscotch/toffee/caramel type of sugary goodness made from corn syrup and sugar. There’s Hokey Pokey Ice Cream (Robby was the first to tell us it was a must to try this), the Crunchie hokey pokey bar, hokey pokey granola bars, and the list goes on. We pretty much have tried any item that says it has hokey pokey in it and we haven’t been disappointed yet.
- Afghans. Not a blanket or a person from Afghanistan, these chocolate cookies are also unique to NZ from what we can tell and are quite good. Again, not quite sure what is in them, but they taste kind of like an oatmeal cookie covered in chocolate. We haven’t sampled widely so taste may vary.
- Sour Squirms. The Natural Confectionery Co makes a very good line of natural fruity, chewy treats. The sour worms have been our favorite so far. We have tried all the different brands of sour worms in NZ and this is still our fave.
- Ecclairs. These are a definite favorite. This caramel chew has an inner chocolate soul. It’s best to let the caramel melt in your mouth until the chocolate begins to ooze out. These have gotten us through many a hike. We’ll be sending some of these home for later.
- Wild Clover Cream. This irish cream type liquor is made from honey, which is abundantly produced here, and is delicious in our semi-regular nightly cup of hot cocoa. Of course, this treat isn’t complete without Tim-Tams.
- Tim Tams. See previous post. We have tried traditional, caramel, double dip, and chewy fudge.
- Melting Moments. This is Erin’s favorite biscuit and a New Zealand classic. A shortbread sandwich cookie with a tasty cream filling. We have yet to try the homemade version, but purchased an NZ cookbook with this recipe–can’t wait to try it ourselves!
- Pineapple Lumps. Another food unique to Kiwis. We were at the gas station looking for a treat after a fill-up and we asked what the cashier thought about the Pineapple Lumps. She said they were a must-try and were a Kiwi classic. These chocolate covered pineapple flavored chewy pieces are interesting and tasty in a very fake, nowhere near real pineapple, pure sugar kind of way. It does make you feel a little better that the label says they have 7% real fruit juice which John says is almost as good as eating real pineapple.
- Snowballs. A chocolate covered marshmallow with coconut topping.
- Jaffas. Another Kiwi classic, we referred to these as an orange Tic-Tac with a chocolate center.
- Candy bars: Crunchie, Picnic, Pinky, Flaky, Moro Gold, Pixie, Perkynana… these are mostly Cadbury produced chocolate bars we don’t have back home.
- Tip Top Ice Cream. This was the first ice cream we were hooked on and was recommended by a friend. We tried Hokey Pokey and Gold Rush, Goody Gum Drop and Cookies and Cream, as well as more Hokey Pokey.
- Deep South Ice Cream. Only found in the very southern part of the South Island and made in Invercargill, this very creamy ice cream stole first place from Tip Top. We now look for it constantly. Is 8am really too early for ice cream?
- Real Fruit Ice Cream. The name says it all. Choose either frozen yogurt or vanilla ice cream; select your fruit from the frozen selections; and watch as the magic Flavorama machine churns out a soft serve cream into a waffle cone. Another one we would seek out regularly. Did I mention Erin is lactose intolerant? Yeah… so we have been pushing the limits of her stomach.
- Valentino’s Gelato. This outstanding gelato shop is by the ferry terminal. We have been there three times for the delicious passionfruit and lemon (Erin) and hokey pokey, coffee, and chocolate (John). Our last NZ treat was a few scoops.
- Pavlova. An airy, sweet dessert that melts in your mouth. Serve topped with fresh fruit. This is one New Zealanders claim as their own.
- Banoffee Pie. Not sure if you can get this anywhere else, but we have seen it here and there. A ginger cookie topped with a layer of caramel, then comes the layer of whipped cream and sliced bananas, and a chocolate drizzle on top finishes it off. John found an ice cream version of this just the other day. Not a combination we would come up with but it is great!
Other miscellanous food notes:
- As warned, the ketchup (or tomato sauce) here is different. It has a sweeter, less vinegary flavor to it. We don’t care for it as much as ketchup from home, but you certainly can’t eat your chips (fries) without it!
- Marmite and vegemite are both disgusting. We were told you have to put it on your toast in a very, very thin layer after you load it up with butter. Still disgusting.
- Instant oatmeal was weird. Very different than what we have at home. The oats are cut smaller and it’s more of a cream of wheat type of consistency with no flavor.
- There are “flavour enhancers” in a lot of things. Most potato chips and cereals have it included. Trying to stay away, but it’s hard.
- Organic sections are tiny here and the organic foods seem really expensive. We expected different here for some reason.
- The standard cheddar cheeses appear to be called by different names. We are generally going with the type called “Tasty” which is kind of like a sharp cheddar. AND, it’s a white cheese unlike our orangey/yellow dyed cheddar cheese at home.
- The salsa options are very limited. I think there were two brands–the generic store brand and Old El Paso. Old El Paso was about three times the price of the generic. Which one do you think we bought?
- Eggs aren’t refrigerated and they are almost all brown. If we don’t need to refrigerate them or dye them white, what are we thinking?
It has been fun to try new foods. Certainly our adventure in eating has come more in the area of desserts than regular food, but I guess that is what happens when you are self-catering.
