If I were a journalist

Winter has arrived in Auckland. I have bought myself a vat of Cadburys hot chocolate, a $20 heater and donned my thermal hoody to keep me warm during the cold that has descended on the city. 

Relatively speaking winters in Auckland are, quite frankly, mild. Nobody has central heating here in the traditional sense, if you’re lucky you might have a heat pump - a device similar to air conditioning except for heating not cooling. 

Besides, Auckland’s sees an average of 4 hours sunshine vs England’s mere 1. Instead we pay our dues in rain, roughly 3 times as much as home. 

What I like about the weather is how changeable it is. England, in the grand scheme of the world, is always described as quite a changeable place weather-wise, but Auckland is on steroids by comparison. It’s a genuine 4 seasons in one day type of place. When I first arrived I’d often completely misjudge the days weather. Either ending up freezing cold, because I’d been misled by the day starting with blazing sunshine, or boiling hot because I was convinced the grey clouds would rain, instead a humidity would slowly build throughout the day.  

To keep me going, today I made an improvised beef stew. It was meant to be an improvised chicken thigh stew, except I left them too long in the fridge and they went smelly. Either way, both meats would work lovely.

You need:

• Enough beef for 2
• 3 potatoes (reasonably sized)
• 3 carrots
• 2 onions
• 1 whole garlic 
• 1 vegetable stock cube 
• 1 tsps of paprika
• 1 tsps of turmeric  
• Dash of chilli powder (or more, if you prefer)
• Salt and pepper to taste 

Method: 

• Chop the beef into fine strips, cook gently in oil until sealed. 
• Melt the stock cube in sufficient water. I used approximately 3 mugs to 1 cube initially. 
• Chop potatoes, carrots and onions to reasonable size - chunky. Leave garlic peeled though whole. 
• Place everything into a big pot and simmer for around an hour and a half. Adding more water every 20 minutes or so. Just enough to keep it at the same level you started with. 

• Serve with rice, fresh crusty bread or by its self.

Not my most complicated recipe, I’ll admit, but surprisingly I found it to be one of the most yummiest meals I’ve made in ages. Looking forward to the leftovers for lunch tomorrow!