Thursday 11 January 2018

A Little Piece of Paradise

Wow - Happy New Year! 
This is busy season for us, if you had wondered why I have disappeared.
We live on the coast, so summer is when we get more visitors than usual. It's also the time when our band is busiest, currently playing 1-2 nights/ week.
And the garden - watering, mowing lawns, picking veg and bottling fruit....and Christmas in the middle of all that! 

Visitors with camera, impressed by home baking - rare shot of self.

We had a visit from Derek's brother and his wife recently. The best part for them is if we can get down the river for the day. I whipped up date scones and pikelets to take as we stay down there for morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea so that we can catch the incoming tide on the way home.

You can see our place - a little white speck on the green between our heads

We all piled into our little boat for what is a ten minute trip to the river mouth where there is the loveliest usually-deserted beach.



This year the mussels were thick, and a super low tide meant we didn't even need to swim to get them.

I just found a nice sandy place to kneel down - that's brother-in-law Jack


 With easily getting our limit of 25 mussels per person, we had enough for 4 meals of mussels - first with white wine, plus some of the fish I caught on the way home and other ingredients - a simple bouillabaise.
The next night they were done with coconut cream, and the other fish, a kahawai, was marinated in lime juice, then had coconut cream plus other things like chilli and spring onion added.
Next day mussel fritters. 
The rest I gave to my daughter who loves them.

It has mostly been beautiful weather here -I hope it holds out for Saturday, when our band will be playing in the garden bar of the Towai Tavern 

Garden bar awaiting a band

4 comments:

  1. I'm glad Christmas doesn't come in the midst of gardening season here. How inconvenient! I enjoyed a peek at you and your kitchen and the baking looks very inviting. What a pretty boat ride and private beach, and wow, all those mussels! You made quite a feast of them. I hope you have good weather for your music on Saturday.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Cynthia. I really don't like posting photos of myself, but I enjoy seeing others do it - it gives a glimpse of our lives - keeping it real.

      Delete
  2. Nice seeing you! Since my move I miss the water but loved seeing you enjoy your easy access. You have helped the winter doldrums by seeing the best of summer from you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Lois. I wish I could share a bit of our heat and sunshine physically - but over the net will have to do. Keep snug there :-)

      Delete

Hey, thanks for visiting my blog - it is just great when you leave me a comment.