Our current kiwi life and garam masala lentils

So a couple of days ago we arrived to Rotorua, a small town in Bay of Plenty, to do some helpxing with super-vegan-friendly (and superfriendly) Trish & Martin.

Help x is basically like woofing, but without the organic farmin part. What you do is that you find a host that you think you're gonna get along with and you work in their home for about 4 hours a day with whatever they need you to do, for instance, here I've cooked vegan meals (which doesn't feel like work to me at all!) and we're also doing gardening.

In exchange for these 4 hours a day we get food and accommodation, so last night I cooked Persian rice with a Indian lentil stew that got good reviews (or it was their hunger speaking, don't know, but I have to say that I liked it myself! Love lentils!!)

With the 4 hours work, we also had time to go see one of the many thermal pools in the area, but thanks to the lovely rainy weather it wasn't steamy at all, so it just looked like a puddle of mud.. And the smell was hurrendous! But it was cool to see one anyway..

The park where this thermal pool is located also had the best climbing trees, so we took shelter there for a while before we headed back home.

Today, Trish and Martin invited us to come and visit their friends Liz and Steve who has this gorgeous house outside if Rotorua, right by lake Rotoma. It's so beautiful! And since the weather decides to shine today we had a lovely swim in the water, absolutely amazing! 

So far I like you, Bay of Plenty!

Garam Masala lentil stew in coconut milk

Crappy pic that doesn't give a fair image of this tasty dish. This recipe serves about 4-5 people, depending on how hungry you are - of course!

You'll need:

2 cups of Red lentils (dry!)

2 yellow onions

2 large carrots

Olive oil

3 table spoons garam masala

2 tea spoons smoked pepper

2 tea spoons ground ginger

1 tea spoon ground cinnamon

1 jar crushed tomatoes (400 g)

1 jar coconut milk (400 g)

Lemon juice from 1 lemon

4-5 cups of water

1 table spoon vegetable broth

Salt

Make it:

Wash and boil the lentils until their almost soft enough to eat. Chop the onions finely and use a graiter for the carrots. Put the onions and carrots into a frying pan with olive oil and stir around for a few minutes. Add all the spices except for the salt and fry until the onions and carrots have soften.

Pour in the crushed tomatoes and the coconut milk and stir around gently. Add the water, salt and the lemon juice, stir around and let it boil on low heat for about 20 minutes.

Serve with a nice bread or rice, and enjoy!