Creamy coconut chia pudding, lightly flavoured with vanilla, maple & lemon, topped with mango, passionfruit, strawberries, pomegranate and macadamias.  Jump to Recipe 

Weeow, we made it to 2016! Sounds so far into the 21st century, doesn’t it? Scary!

I wish I could tell you I had an epic New Years Eve last night, saw fireworks at a music festival or made a huge celebratory dinner and these salted caramel brownies to see out the last of 2015… but I didn’t. My New Years was as boring as they come.

It started with a freezer scare. I was home alone for a few days before joining the rest of my family on holiday, and got back from work on the 30th to an odd smell in the pantry – on investigation, my stomach dropped when I realised the freezer door had been left slightly ajar – by myself, nearly 24 hours earlier. Although most of the meat seemed to still be frozen, all the ice cream was liquid, and I didn’t want to leave the door any open longer to check out all the drawers. That evening it didn’t seem to have gotten any colder, the smell was stronger, and growing more and more concerned (a solo clean out of a defrosting freezer being NOT how I had pictured New Years Eve, as well as the utter embarrasment of having destroyed a freezer full of food) I added a little 1cm full plastic cup of water to the top shelf as a quick check to see if it would freeze.

Skip to 430am on New Years Eve: the meaty, off smell filling the pantry was stronger than ever, the cup of water was still liquid, and sticking around to try and salvage things would result in being late for work. While I spent the morning at work kicking myself and dreading the clean-up, Mum organised a repairman to visit in the afternoon, and neighbours came past to check it out.

IT WAS THE ONIONS. The smell, I mean. The freezer was working again (my cup having iced over – it had just struggled to cool down the overly full contents), all the meat was frozen, and it was a bag of rotting onions a couple of metres away that had caused the decaying meat scent that had begun wafting through the kitchen. Relieved was an understatement.

I landed in Gisborne at 9pm hungry, tired, cold and over life in general – that stage where you feel like just about anything could bring on tears, your eyes start drifting shut every few minutes and you keep desperately trying to shake yourself awake. Vague thoughts of heading to Rhythm and Vines (one of the main New Years music festivals in NZ) were completely out the window, needless to say.

So New Years was a non-event – I hope yours was much better!! And if I have one word of advice – ALWAYS MAKE SURE THE FREEZER DOOR IS COMPLETELY SHUT.

But for a much more satisfying New Years Day, and a healthier start to 2016 than many of the other recipes around here, this is my favourite coconut chia pudding recipe. Lightly flavoured with lemon, maple and vanilla, just stir it together the night before you want it, then top the creamy, coconutty chia with anything you like – I love the tropical combination of mango, passionfruit, berries, roasted macadamias and pomegranate. Chia seeds are packed with nutrients (full of protein, omega-3 fatty acids and lots more- google it for your choice of hundreds of articles proclaiming their benefits!), are really filling and the texture isn’t actually that strange. Once they have been soaked over night they don’t get stuck in your teeth either.

I am far from a health-nut who espouses coconut oil in baking, or unprocessed sugars and spelt flour (though it probably wouldn’t hurt!), but chia pudding does NOT sacrifice taste. Paired with mango, tangy passionfruit syrup and those bright pops of pomegranate, it feeds my sweet tooth without adding to the cups of processed sugar consumed over Christmas time. Try it for a 10-minute, fuss-free 2016 holiday brunch, or a breakfast on the go if you are still working!

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Chocolate chunk banana bread with espresso mascarpone – rich and comforting, with a creamy coffee-laced mascarpone and berries.  Jump to Recipe 

The ultimate comfort food – banana bread.

Finally. It is one of the basic, fill-the-tins morning tea recipes that emerges from our oven most frequently, so I can’t believe it has taken a year to make it up here. It actually came down to a deadline thing – one of my friends has been dying for the recipe, and threw down the ultimatum that it needs to be available for her perusal by the time she goes home for the summer – in two weeks time.

It is something I make whenever the bananas in the fruit bowl have been ignored for just that little bit too long – the spots appear first, and then at a certain stage we realise no one will eat them and the fruit flies begin to circle, so they get put in the fridge at eye level, skins slowly turning black and just begging to be transformed into mouthfuls of goodness to go with your coffee. We are a house of (mostly) perfectly yellow banana eaters (or at least I am) – the first sign of a spot and the banana is destined for the oven. I still don’t understand spotty banana lovers – something about the texture and flavour is irrevocably changed for me at that transition. However, spotty, blackened bananas are the BEST for banana loaf like this- sweeter, a softer crumb, stronger banana flavour, and just all round better.

But I couldn’t stick with plain banana bread, as good as plain banana bread is. Gooey chunks of dark chocolate found their way in, along with a whole heap of brown sugar for that rich, caramelised flavour. And being a newfound coffee fiend, the perfect partner for the warm, straight-from-the-oven banana bread was espresso mascarpone. Creamy, tangy and rich with strong espresso flavour, it balanced the sweetness of the loaf, mingling with those dark chocolate chunks. With new season strawberries around, I couldn’t help but use them and raspberries to top it off for a layer of fresh fruitiness.

And coffee + berries + bananas = breakfast. Yes, this can definitely be breakfast.

Unfortunately my time is up and I have to return to the books (being gastrointestinal physiology – I mean, why would I want to know what happens to food once it passes my mouth? I truly don’t).

Do give this loaf a go, especially with the espresso mascarpone for a treat. You won’t regret it, I promise.

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Chewy, golden-brown bagels, studded with raisins and warmly spiced with cinnamon, hot and crispy-edged when toasted and smeared with a creamy, tart smashed berry mascarpone, dripping and melting off the edges.  Jump to Recipe

I could not believe that I had never made my own bagels before.

Dumbfounded by how much better these were than any store-bought bagel I had ever eaten. So much better. 100000x better. The depth of flavour, yeastier and more cinnamon-malt-like (in a good way), packed with more raisins, a crisper crust with a softer and chewier interior, speckled with small air-holes.

And then that topping. That topping is like heaven. Seriously. Less tangy and sweeter than cream cheese, given a hint of lemon, imbued with swirling fresh berries, and topped with the crunch and nuttiness of pistachios. We had difficulty in sticking to a single spoonful. Sticky fingers were forgotten in the rush to consume mouthfuls of the stuff, melding with the hot, crunchy edges of cinnamon bagel. Not a drop, a smear, was left on a plate. (But no, you don’t have to put quite as much on as there is in the photo.. well, you can. And you will enjoy it. But you don’t have to.)

Afterwards, I had numerous friends and family members informing me that this was the best bagel they had ever experienced. I agreed. And I couldn’t believe how wrong my previous perception was – that bagels were hard to make, impossible to get right, a huge effort in kneading and shaping and proving and boiling and baking. Because yes, you do have to do all those things – but it is really not hard, after the first time is not insanely time-consuming, and it yields 16 bagels (which freeze extremely well) and are a million times better than any bought from a store (even a high-end, gourmet bagel making store – at least in my experience).

The berry mascarpone will keep in the fridge for a few days, for you to whip out and coat your bagels with at whim. The bagels are a Peter Reinhart recipe (barely adapted from Smitten Kitchen): please do not be put off by the length of the recipe – much of it is notes to help you along.

You can either start the day (or evening) before and make the bagels the next morning, or start early in the morning and make the bagels that night. I chose the first option just for convenience (and because the bagels use up a whole lot of fridge space!). This was my timeline: make the sponge before dinner, and leave it for 2 hours while dinner happens. Afterwards, make the dough – this is easiest with a strong stand mixer and dough hook (as the dough is very stiff compared to other bread doughs) but can be done by hand. Divide it into pieces, rest them for 20 minutes, shape into bagels, rest them for 20 minutes. Check with the float test to see if they are ready for the fridge. Leave in the fridge overnight.

The next morning (or whenever you are ready to bake in the next 2 days), it will take around an hour total to boil the bagels and bake them for 10 minutes in the oven. AND YOU’RE DONE. Just like that, the house is filled with cinnamon-bread smells and sixteen hot bagels are on your counter. Success. And it is way cheaper than buying those same bagels, which from gourmet bagel makers in Auckland are around $12 for 6 – so 16 would cost you $32 – while these homemade ones cost a fraction of the amount + a little time and effort. So worth it. Trust me.

As a side note, there has been a bit of a debate lately about Montreal vs New York style bagels, with Montreal style being apparently chewier and crisper, slightly sweeter, do not traditionally contain salt and are baked in a woodfired oven. New York bagels are known as being fluffy and doughy, larger beasts that are sandwiched with thick layers of flavoured cream cheese. However, according to many sources, New York bagels as we know them have experienced a decline over the last 50 years with commercial mass production and were formerly much closer to a Montreal style in terms of chewy and crispiness. So, these bagels are a New York style, being poached in a alkaline water (that’s the baking soda), including malt (or honey) as a sweetener, and being oven baked rather than woodfired, but not as they are currently churned out in many 24hr bagel stores in NYC – no, these are MUCH better.
(Read HERE for more on this)

(Although, I also added honey to the boiling water just for that extra flavour, which is more traditionally a Montreal style thing – so I guess these bagels take the best of both worlds!).

I also made a savoury sesame version of these bagels the day before (yes, it was a big bagel making weekend), and may or may not put up that recipe this weekend. Just currently debating whether I wait until I can remake them with a more interesting topping (decisiveness is not my strong point when it comes to food), so if you have a preference or would really like to see them let me know! BUT in the meantime, make these cinnamon raisin bagels with berry pistachio mascarpone. You will not regret it.

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Boysenberry, lemon and almond loaf – dense, citrussy and bright, and studded with juicy boysenberries. The perfect morning tea treat!  Jump to Recipe 

It is about at this point in the semester, with just under three weeks to go until “swot vac” (the worst kind of vacation) and exams begin, that everyone starts to get a little tired of university, tired of studying, tired of assignments, tired of being at college, and just wants to get out and go home. I am starting to reach that point as well. A proper break, with no looming assessments, is really what I want. However, that break is currently 5 weeks away, and, like a carrot dangling in front of my nose, is what will get me through this final push through to exams.

Renal physiology, a complicated balance of mechanisms keeping us all alive, is reeaaally doing my head in at the moment (my body is much smarter than I am!), while the Melbourne weather is making us all want to curl up in a sleeping bag all day – it has been hailing with snow down to 600m and freezing cold winds and torrential rain greeting us on our way to lectures. I’m pretty sure this is not normal for May – it isn’t even winter yet!

In saying all this…life is pretty good. Cafe trips, the college ball next week, birthdays, high pressure games of assassins on the floor at college, formal dinner tonight – we keep busy, and this blog has become my favourite outlet, or change of pace, from the intense workload and consuming nature of medical school.

However, life would definitely improve if I could have a slice of this Boysenberry, Lemon and Almond Loaf right now. Next year, when I will be out flatting and actually have a kitchen to bake in and people to bake for, cannot come soon enough. I know that food probably shouldn’t be linked so closely to my emotional state, but I definitely live to eat, not eat to live. You can’t deny that a good meal and better company can do wonders, right?

Perfect on wintery days, summer days, autumn days – anytime at all (thanks to frozen berries.!), this simple loaf will immediately make you feel a little better. A dense citrusy loaf, made moist and flavourful by the addition of almond meal, dotted with juicy purple berries, and dusted with icing sugar, it is a day-brightener and a people-pleaser. It also has the amazingness of being made in one pot, without any need to cream butter and sugar, and after whipping it up in about 15 minutes, you can sit back, clean your single pot and spoon, and enjoy the smells emanating from your oven.


 You can easily replace the boysenberries with any other berries that you have lying around, and alter the orange/lemon ratios to make it more orangey or lemony to suit. I do like the tangy but still sweet mixture that the current amounts give, however.

So please, for me, and for your friends and family, make this loaf. It will make your day, and the next day as well when you can sit down with your coffee or tea and a warmed up slice of boysenberry, citrusy goodness for morning tea.

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