Raspberries in Akaroa

It's not a New Years resolution, it's just an idea which I'm hoping will work for both of us.  Mel doesn't like to get her hands messy in the kitchen and prefers to eat packaged low calorie dinners.  At least twice a week she eats out at her friends or the Friday night group.  My idea of cooking a meal together complete with a dessert each Tuesday afternoon seemed perfect!

What appears to be simple isn't always.  Mel spent time finding her perfect low calorie recipes, I spent just as much time shopping and checking the list. Today we cooked and we did well together.  We shared the preparation and the cooking and kept on task.  The recipe today was pork steak on a bed of mash and topped with a stir-fry style cabbage, spinach, bacon and garlic combination.  It wasn't gourmet but so much better than a meal in a box.  Mel took home two serves, one for herself and one for Harriet.  Merv and I enjoyed the remaining two serves.  Dessert was simple; sorbet made simply from frozen bananas and raspberries.  Once again it sounds simple but once you drag out the food processor from the back of the cupboard, set it up with all the bits and pieces (if you can find the bits) and later clean up on the hidden places where even sorbet wants to hide.   It can be easier just to buy a tub of low fat ice cream! 

Raspberries are rarely found in WA, it's too hot in Perth to grow them and they are bought over from the east at times.  The easiest way to buy them is frozen and I love them.  I have wonderfully happy memories of munching on raspberries in England where I was born.   When Merv and I cruised around  New Zealand at the end of 2011 we visited the tiny town of Akaroa.  I remember the rustic Italian restaurant where we dined, the locally made fudge, local wine, raincoats and warm scarves.  These are all pleasant memories but nothing surpasses the memory of purchasing and munching through a punnet of beautifully sweet, juicy raspberries.  Every bite entertains my childhood memories.  The taste of the sorbet brings back all of these memories!