A Special Thank You To Melynda

This post is dedicated to my sister Melynda! I wanted to thank her for taking the time to help me out! 

When we first got here Nisha told us four girls that we would have to cook 3 meals each week, and then do the dishes the nights that she cooks. At first we were like, ok that will be way easy. But then we realized JUST how different food and cooking is here in NZ. First off prices for food are A LOT different than back in the states because everything is so expensive. Next, half of the ingredients we are used to using when we cook are either NOT here in NZ or are different than what we want. For example, we all have a bunch of easy recipes that include cooking frozen boneless chicken, but there are no such things here in NZ. The main meats they have are ham, fish, hamburger, lamb, and sausage. They do have some chicken but they are really little, very expensive, and all have bones. Another problem is that we have a lot of crock pot recipes, but Nisha doesn't have a crock pot (which is fine, we can still cook in on the stove, it just takes longer). But the BIGGEST problem of all is that in NZ they use different units of measurement than we do back home. We use lbs, tsp...etc., where as in NZ they use grams, litres...etc. Me and Brittany had to keep converting everything and just hoped that we were putting the right amounts of ingredients in. 

Because of all this, we were a little worried about what would be available for us to cook our meals and we had no idea what to cook lol!! Then I asked my wonderful cook of a sister Melynda. She e-mailed me a bunch of recipes that we have used and are going to be using soon! I am so grateful that she took the time to e-mail me these simple meals, where most of the ingredients were available for us to use (except NZ doesn't have "manwich" for the sloppy joes, but we are gunna do a bbq sauce instead). 

We first cooked the Hamburger Stroganoff type of meal and it was a hit! (Nisha wants the recipe, nice work Mel :).) Then we cooked Creamy Potato Soup, which was also another favorite! Next up is sloppy joes and then the rest of the meals Mel sent me. Thanks again Melynda. I really appreciate your help. We are easing our way into this whole NZ cooking experience. 

Hamburger Stroganoff

The kids liked it :)

Sweet little Dia liked it

Oh and let's not forget Siah. He loves getting his picture taken.

Yumm. It really was so good!

Creamy Potato Soup. We had to improvise a little because they don't
 have chicken broth in a can here, so we had to make it this other way,
 but it worked!

It was yummy once it was done :)

Last Friday night Nisha took us four out with her and her friends on their "girls night". The sit down restaurants are really expensive to go to here....what really? shocker! haha. But Denny's is one of the only sit down restaurants they have that is a reasonable price, so this is where Nisha and her girls usually go to get out for a while. It was funny to see this nicer version of Denny's and to see the prices still super high. I can't believe it!

We thought this sign was funny....what does the pooping
cow have to do with anything?

I love how they spell things differently than us.
(e.g. favourite, colour, litre, programme...etc.) 

This is a very common NZ dinner, Bangers and Mash. Nisha said she will
be cooking this for us soon. 

"Oh yes it's ladies night, and the feelings right". Phil sang that as we were
leaving and then coming home from dinner. Nisha is the one in the
pink shirt with the bandanna....you know the pregnant one that's due in March.

On Saturday night we got invited over to the neighbors for dinner because they were celebrating their little daughters 1st birthday. The Skeen's neighbors are from Fiji and are Muslim so we learned that 1st birthdays are a big celebration for them. This is because in the past children did not make it past one years old, so now it is a big deal and celebration. This also means that a lot people attend these celebrations, so there were A LOT of people at the party, and a lot of food. Only it was VERY different food than I have ever had. There was lamb, curry chicken, these potato type things that I can't pronounce the name of, sausages that are very different than sausages I am used to, a chicken nugget type thing (which I don't know what it was), chocolate cake, strawberries, and this interesting pudding. 

Can you take a guess at what my favorite food was???? If you guessed strawberries, you are correct! That was my meal for the night haha. I tried a bite of everything else and literally felt sick. I don't know what it is with me and foods, but I swear I have the weirdest taste buds in the whole world. At least they had those strawberries that I could eat :). It was a very interesting experience to see the different culture with the foods and clothing that they wore. We felt extremely out of place as we were white and did not have a dress on or something covering our heads.

As we were eating our food, this guy that was about our age, who had a pierced eye, came over to talk to us. He asked us where we were from and then what year we were in school. We then told him that we were in our 3rd year of college. After he heard that he like stopped talking and wasn't really interested in talking to us the rest of the night. We later realized that "college" means "high school" in NZ. So he thought we were seniors in high school. hahahaha. We were laughing SO hard! Yet again we really need to learn the lingo better here! 

The funniest thing ever though was what Phil did later that night. I haven't mentioned this, but Phil is extremely protective of us four girls. He treats us like we are his daughters and is always worried about when we get home, what we are doing, and especially what boys we are talking to. When this guy came and talked to us, he kept looking over at us and watching our conversation. Then later Phil was like, girls we need to have a little chat. He is so funny because he's not really serious, but at the same time he just loves taking care of his BYU girls. So that night we gathered together for scripture reading and he said, "the guy at the dinner tonight wanted me to give this to you." He then handed us this paper that is in the picture I took below. Phil so so stinkin funny. We just started laughing and laughing. We loved that he put "stud muffin" and even added the pierced eye guy at the end. Oh man. I love my host family! 

Phil could really make me laugh for hours!

Guess what was on sale the other day and I was able to get........????!!!!

Ok well before you go getting TOO excited for me, just
stop right there. NZ Doritos are NOT like American ones.
They pretty much taste like a bland, hard, stale Dorito lol.

That's the funny thing.....there are a lot of American brands
of foods here, but they all just taste a little OFF. It's deceiving
and I don't like it!! I see the packages and want them, but then
try them and am like what are these NASTY THINGS! We
are way spoiled in the U.S. I must say I will be waiting
to eat American Doritos. These ones just make me sad. 

They look normal, but they are NOT. :( :( sad sad day. 

We had a dinner with some of the other girls in our program. It was fun to
have them over and play games with them!

Lots of food tonight!

My host family! The girl in the red is Micha from our program, but not
including her...there's my mom Nisha, dad Phil, little girl Dia, oldest Richi, and
cutie pie Siah (oh and "new baby" coming soon). 

Beautiful

Just right outside our house!