Waitangi Day

Pining for a bit of New Zealand nostalgia, we decided to get our kiwi on and celebrate Waitangi Day. Just like back home in the good old days.... Oh wait - nope, we've never celebrated Waitangi Day in New Zealand.

Oh well! Nothing like a good excuse to celebrate being a Kiwi when you're away from home and missing all those 'fush and chups' accents and things like chocolate fish and Griffins' gingernuts.

So I decided to cook a roast lamb dinner - Kiwi stylez. Well actually British stylez as there was a sad lack of yams in this roast dinner.* And I forgot the peas. Oops! Anyhoo I did manage to find a shoulder of New Zealand lamb, sun drop apricots from NZ, some Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, and some kumara, pumpkin and parsnip - though they were reared in Britain. Oh and I made some mint sauce using a peppermint teabag and some secret herbs and spices. Not bad eh?


So we had our delish roast meal and an apricot crumble for dessert.

(* Yams. You cannot buy them here for love nor money. The New Zealand yam, or Oxalis Tuberosa, is not something that has ever taken off in Britain and so we have searched in vain but not been able to discover any yams. (They're not actually a yam, which can get very confusing). We even have our local greengrocer on to it, but he has found nothing either. A sad state of affairs really.
Britain, you have a lot to answer for.)



Despite the ongoing saga that shall be known as yamgate, this was the most delicious Waitangi Day we have ever celebrated (if the only)....