Jetboil Inspirations

Jetboil Soup Recipe - Veggie Avo Zestiness

Bicycles equipped with touring gear allow for a tad more flavor filled meals than an ounce counting backpacking trip may allow. I'll admit, I've made some pretty tasty meals on the road...and of course, the barely edible as well. More recently, I had an entire CAN of chickpeas on me. And a carrot, zucchini, lime, a small pumpkin, avocado, mustard, and salt. Mind you, most of the veggies I got on the side of the road at a veggie stand a few hours prior to stopping for the day. One of the great wonders of cycle touring - fruit and veggie stands to fuel your depleting tank. The best ones are when they magically appear when your tank is very nearly empty.

So, here's the magical mixture of a can of chickpeas, mustard, salt and a load of by-the-side-of-the-road-veggie-stand vegetables via a Jetboil (please note, this can completely work on a regular house stove as well).

       *please note, pumpkin missing from picture - it's shy.

1) Add water to pot

2) Add chopped veggies to water in the pot...and bring to boil- I used a carrot, zucchini, and small pumpkin

3) In a separate bowl (the one you will eat out of if you are camping), add a scooped out avocado, squirting of mustard, a squozen lime, and salt (mustard, salt and lime to taste - I like a lot of lime and mustard).

4) I forgot to say, salt the boiling veggies to taste - also, go ahead and throw in the leftover lime rind to the pot of cooking veggies - might as well get as much out of that lime as you can :)

5) Let the veggies boil to al dente style...well, I like my veggies cooked al dente style - you can cook the crap out of them til they are soft and mushy if you want. Up to you. Do NOT drain the water - this is your oh so flavourful broth...can't waste perfectly good water out in the woods.

6) Open and drain the can of chickpeas...then dump the can - well the chickpeas rather than the actual can- into the pot of cooked veggies

7) Add the avocado mixture to the pot and mix together.

8) Taste test - how does it taste?? More lime? salt? mustard? Is it just perfect?! Chances are if you are out on the road it will be just perfect cause your tummy is grumbling for fuel and doesn't really care about the extra lime juice...but add as desired.

9) If it all taste yummy, then eat and enjoy (either out of the pot if you are camping, or into that little tiny bowl and/or cup you are carrying with you - or if you are at home, you can serve it up into a proper bowl and enjoy with a slice of bread, crackers or as is. Up to you).

It's limey and tasty. The squashed up avocado gives the soup a creamy-ish texture and makes the broth green - doesn't everyone love green these days??

Ok, ya'll so the one piece of each veggie is due to the fact that I was traveling solo. The great thing about this meal is that you can add more veggies/can of beans to suit your quantity of people needs.  You can soak/cook your own chickpeas, too.

So, the soup itself is a great gluten free meal as well. In fact, it's completely grain free. Yes, I'm pretty sure my body is advising me and waiting so patiently to go completely grain free. Still some sinus issues when I eat rice. But this is worthy of it's own post.

Now it's your turn to test out some made up creations in your kitchen - or campsite. Some of the tastiest things are just a bunch of random, what you have in the foodbag/kitchen food items thrown together - and using your gut as well - both literally and figuratively.

Does anyone have any tasty creations via the tent-life wilderness they'd like to share?? If tent-life wilderness is your house, that's ok too!

Fruitpicking 101 - A day in the life of a genuine kiwifruit picker...

A day in the life of a kiwifruit - from vine to crate...and eventually in your belly.

This can only mean that YES, I am finally employed again after months of working my butt off and not getting paid, aka cycle touring, aka one big fat holiday (vacation).

Fruitpicking is a fairly common way for the working holiday visa traveler to make some extra cash on the road. It's definitely a seasonal gig. Right now is kiwifruit. March on the South Island was cherries. Mandarins are just about to finish up. And in the wine-making regions, grapes are going mad. Later on there will be pruning and trimming jobs. And there is also work in the packhouses. It's minimum wage. Different than the US, though, minimum wage is $13.50 an hour. At least that. But it's too bad tipping isn't a habitual practice here, otherwise my butt would be waiting tables in a heart beat. But table waiters make $13.50/hr as well. So I figure might as well do something new. And fun, right?! hmm.

I wouldn't by any stretch label fruitpicking as my dream job. But it's not horrid. Yet. Granted, I have only been at it two days. I must say though, that I am genuinely fascinated by the process that the kiwifruit I buy at the grocery goes through to sit on the shelf waiting so patiently for me to buy it so I can gobble it up. Yes, that fruit that you are eating may have been picked by me!!

We start the day in a team of ten people. In my group, I believe seven of us are backpackers and the remaining three are kiwis. We have these rather handy bags designed especially for fruitpicking. They are functional and surprisingly comfortable and extremely effecient. There are rows and rows of kiwifruit which grow on vines (?) that are above our heads (intentionaly done), so it's like we are walking underneath kiwifruit tunnel after kiwifruit tunnel. I'm 5'4", and on average I reach maybe 1/2 a foot above my head to pick a hanging fruit.

These are finicky fruits. They have a soft skin that can easily be damaged, so we have to pick the fruit without any of it's stalk still attached. We can't let it rub against any branches or it may scratch it open exposing it's bright green flesh. The fruit isn't quite ripe yet, so it is still rather firm.

We use our special designed fruitpicking bags to let the fruit rolls gently out the bottom of the bad - then we have to strap the bag back to itself so the bottom is hole-less...make sense?

Today it rained. Rain makes the fruit wet. Did you know that? :) Well, wet kiwifruit is even more finicky then dry kiwifruit so we have to be even more careful.

So yes, it rained. And it continues to rain. More on kiwifruit picking and how it lands on the grocery store shelves into your belly coming soon.

Now my thoughts are rolling to my tent (home for several weeks) and hoping it will hold up in the rain day in and say out (the forecast - which likely will be wrong, at least :)

Cheers from up North