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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