An easy throw together dinner: carrots & chickpeas are tossed with crushed coriander and cumin and roasted until tender, and served with creamy slices of avocado, crunchy pumpkin seeds and handfuls of parsley. Jump to Recipe

Two things happened this weekend: winter arrived with a vengeance, and I managed to hermit inside and eat my weight in baked goods. First was the Flour Market –  a roughly twice yearly event showcasing some of the best bakers & patisseries in Melbourne: for Lynnette and me it was  breakfast, washed down with Market Lane Coffee. A sticky sugar coated donut bursting with creme patisserie and dollops of strawberry & bay leaf jam; a technically perfect lemon & mascarpone tart, topped with fresh figs & meringue; a deeply chocolatey brownie cookie sandwiching a mocha ganache centre; yet another donut, this time topped with maple & walnut crunch; a pina colada lamington of coconut cake coated in pineapple curd & toasted coconut flakes; and the obligatory sultana-studded, butter slathered hot cross bun. AND I came home with the best dessert jar I’ve ever had – layers of gooey salted caramel, hazelnut crunch, cloudy puffs of passionfruit and other unidentifiable but brilliant components.

Have I sold you on Melbourne yet, by the way? The city tourism should really employ me for this!

(If you’re visiting, the roll-call is: Cobb Lane Bakery, Millstone Patisserie, Butterbing Cookies, Shortshop Coffee & Donuts, and Pierre Roelof’s dessert jars.)

Sunday was the one day per year I go crazy on homemade hot cross buns. A friend and I proceeded to bake and demolish a huge batch of these roast pear & dark chocolate versions, filling the house with that unmistakable scent of freshly baked bread, warm spices and gooey chocolate. All while torrential rain fogged the windows and the temperature steadily dropped – the best kind of day to bake. Waiting for the dough to magically double on the windowsill meant time to make steaming bowls of steel-cut oat & chia porridge, topped with vanilla rhubarb & buttery macadamias. So all and all, one of those lovely slow weekends that is almost like a mini-holiday, particularly when sandwiched by long days of placement.

(FYI Mum, I did manage to fit some study in as well!). 

Though it does mark the transition into more autumnal, wintery mains. This roast carrot, chickpea & avocado salad with cumin honey yogurt is an easy throw together dinner: carrots & chickpeas are tossed with crushed coriander and cumin and roasted until tender, and served with creamy slices of avocado, crunchy pumpkin seeds and handfuls of parsley. The cumin honey yogurt is the best – seriously, even if you don’t make the salad, you must try the yogurt with SOMETHING – it’s slightly sweet, tangy and spiced, and gives a major boost to anything with those middle-eastern flavours.

The carrot top pesto is great served alongside with slices of toasted flatbread, but you could also save it for dinner the next night – just loosen with pasta water and toss through freshly cooked pasta with other roast vegetables (try asparagus and peas in spring, red onion, zucchini and capsicum in summer; pumpkin and brussel sprouts in autumn). Two dinners in one!

Cook’s Notes:

• This is one of those recipes that is ultimately very flexible. You can serve it on a large tray, platter, or toss it in a bowl; serve the avocado on the side or dispersed throughout; you can add extra greens like spinach or watercress to bulk it out if you wish; you can serve it with toasted bruschetta smeared with carrot top pesto; you could try it with grilled chicken or lamb. Just make sure you make the cumin honey yogurt – it just finishes it off so well!
• If baby carrots are hard to find or expensive: just chop regular carrots to similar lengths and either skip the pesto or sub extra parsley and basil for the carrot tops.
• You could also instead use the carrot top pesto for a separate meal: loosen with pasta water and toss through freshly cooked pasta with other roast vegetables (asparagus and peas in spring, red onion, zucchini and capsicum in summer, or try pumpkin and brussel sprouts in autumn).

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Raw broccoli & pomegranate tabouli with harissa chicken skewers and a lemony, garlicky tahini yogurt sauce. An easy, fresh summer salad.  Jump to Recipe 

For the last couple of years, I have struggled with the inextricable linking and opposition of my love for food with my health and exercise goals. Blogging and food often dominate my mind – the next meal, the next way to combine different flavours, what I could eat for dessert or the next blog post – and to be honest, my self control around butter, sugar and quality ice cream is almost non-existent. But growing up in an extremely active family (the sort where the week was based around who has sport where when, and it was normal, expected, that exercise is a daily kind of thing) has left me with an entrenched commitment to health and fitness. Studying medicine and seeing the impact of our obesogenic environment on our communities has enforced it.

And I do enjoy exercise! I love starting the day with a run or a swim, or heading to the gym for a workout. Bircher muesli remains my favourite breakfast, and I don’t shy from green vegetables. It’s just that it is in constant competition with the square of brownie that accompanies my morning coffee, the afternoon snacking on whatever baking is sitting in the pantry, and the feeling that dessert is not an option, but a necessity. Who else manages to gradually cut off slivers of cake until you’ve basically polished off two or three slices? I even have a freezer stash of individually wrapped balls of NYT chocolate chip cookie dough ready to bake up – resisting a warm, gooey cookie studded with dark chocolate chunks is near impossible.

I’m sure we all wish baking and health weren’t so conflicting. What would you give to be able to eat whatever you wanted, whenever?!  It wasn’t an issue for me through school – swim training 16 hours a week will do that. It’s been the onset of long university days, a consequent decline in exercise, and a ramping up of my baking: weekend cookies has turned into over-the-top cakes, tarts, brownies and crumbles. And more often.

I turned to more drastic measures this month. I’ve never dieted or done this kind of thing before, but when I realised I couldn’t stop myself from reaching for sugar-ladden treats multiple times a day, I decided I’d have a go. This is the third week ‘refined sugar-free’. For me that means no brown, white, raw, coconut or any other obvious sugar, and no honey, maple syrup, agave or other sweetener. Though some ‘I Quit Sugar’ style diets also eliminate fruit, they’re also fibre and nutrient-rich – so I’m not taking that step (and, to be honest – I probably couldn’t do this without my morning strawberries and summer peaches for snacking!).

Side note: I’m not a dietician, my normal ethos is everything in moderation, including moderation, and I am not at all a proponent of elimination diets. Gluten, dairy and sugar make up the bulk of my favourite foods!

Thirty days seemed doable, and it has been a lesson in just how often sugar becomes a crutch during the day. Don’t get me wrong – I’ll be back to baking brownies as soon as February is up. I just hope that it teaches me a little about how to exercise my (flimsy) self-control, that I can survive days without dessert, and that not every meal needs to be followed by something sweet.

I couldn’t exactly follow this up with one of the decadent cakes I photographed over the holidays, so instead here is my current favourite summer meal – raw broccoli & pomegranate tabouli with harissa chicken skewers and tahini yogurt sauce. The broccoli is whizzed up to a crunchy crumble and combined with all the goods – ample parsley, mint, pomegranate, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, toasted pumpkin seeds and spring onion. Bulgur wheat bulks it up, and I love that it only takes a 10 minute soak to cook, compared to the long boil of quinoa or pearl barley. It also uses my favourite fast dressing – lemon juice, olive oil and a dollop of sticky pomegranate molasses for extra tanginess. Barbecued chicken skewers and a drizzle of zesty, garlicky tahini yogurt sauce tops it off.  If you’re a bread lover like me, fresh pita or turkish bread makes an ideal accompaniment. AND it makes the best lunch leftovers.

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Dukkah, asparagus & hot smoked salmon potato salad – loaded with pomegranate, hazelnut dukkah, fresh parsley and mint, and chunks of avocado.  Jump to Recipe 

I’ve spent the weekend making layers and layers of tender buttermilk chocolate cake (eleven, to be precise), dressed up in the fudgiest, smoothest, darkest chocolate frosting I’ve ever made, thanks to Thalia (and yes, it’s worth all those superlatives). So much cake that by Saturday evening I would have been happy not to see any again for a week, with chocolate-coated dishes piling up in the hot kitchen, over-heated by our poorly insulated oven, and that sickly sweet mouth-feel from taste testing for much of the day.  But then I woke up this morning – to a clean kitchen – and realised that’s a complete lie. Give me a 24 hour break and I’ll be right back on the chocolate wagon.

I’m lucky my family puts up with the constant clatter and whir of the stand mixer, the lack of available surfaces in the kitchen, and (for my brothers), seeing masses of cake pass through the house without having access to any of it. Though the boys did get to scrape out the bowl a couple of times – it was the least I could do. This week I’m also starting the Christmas mince tarts for the season – packed with sultanas, dried apricots, prunes, mixed peel and chunks of dark chocolate, all laced with spices and a deluge of brandy. If anyone is in Auckland and wants to put in an order for fruit mince tarts or Christmas party cakes, send me a message!

To me, summer in New Zealand is synonymous with outdoor dinners and barbecues. Our Christmas is a lighter affair too, with barbecued lamb and spatchcocked chicken, Ottolenghi-style salads and icy cold desserts and pavlovas having a firm place on the table. I’ve never been a huge potato salad fan: it used to bring to mind flashes of pot-luck offerings of sun-warmed mushy potatoes, coated in heavy store-bought mayonaise and topped with a couple of green-tinged hardboiled eggs. BLEUGH. It was the summer potluck salad option I would always bypass – along with maybe the mayo-coated coleslaw. Instead, this summer I’ll be making this vietnamese green mango slaw, and today’s dukkah, asparagus & hot smoked salmon potato salad.

The counter point to the heights of December decadence, it uses crisp fresh spring asparagus and just-tender new potatoes. It’s studded with bright jewels and bursts of pomegranate and loaded with parsley, mint and zesty lemon. Chunks of creamy avocado meld with the burnished orange streams of egg yolk, and the hazelnut dukkah provides both crunch and extra flavour. It’s worth making your own dukkah – this recipe makes about 1 and a half cups, and you can use it in countless ways. Lately I’ve sprinkled it on eggs of all kinds, smashed butternut & feta toast, homemade hummus, smoky baba ganoush, and every kind of grilled vegetable, to name a few.

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A winter Middle-Eastern cauliflower & brussel sprout salad with miso almond hummus – adorned with an oozy poached egg, goat’s cheese and dukkah.  Jump to Recipe 

pro-cras-ti-na-tion |prəˌkrastəˈnāSHən, prō-|
noun
the action of delaying or postponing something

Let’s talk procrastination. I’ve been particularly good at it this week, you see. Very good at browsing the web aimlessly, reading irrelevant new stories, watching instagram stories, checking the fridge in case inspiration strikes, and generally avoiding or prolonging whatever I’m attempting to ignore. I’ve even stooped to the level of scrolling facebook on my laptop, giving up, picking up my phone and scrolling facebook there too, as if something different might miraculously appear on a different sized screen. It’s almost automatic. Procrastination is a strange phenomenon – you’re completely aware of your time-wasting habits, but somehow can’t quite stop yourself. Like Tim Urban put it in the TED radio hour talk I listened to yesterday – it’s like a rational decision-maker monkey waging war on an instant gratification monkey’.

If you want to procrastinate some more, read Tim Urban’s blog post on the topic here for an entertaining ten minutes.

There was another positive spin on it, however. According to Adam Grant (LINK), mild procrastination actually increases creativity – but only a particular form. The key is to start early, but finish late. By starting a task early, you begin to consider possibilities and ideas. They sit and simmer at the back of your brain, a low, slow burn. You make new connections, draw on different resources, and end up with something much more than when you first contemplated it. As long as you don’t leave it TOO long – because then you’ll end up with a rushed, half-finished, unoriginal product completed during an all-nighter right before it’s due. But being too eager, too focussed on getting it finished – sitting down and completing it all in one go as soon as possible – could result in an equally conventional, generic result. It’s a fine line, apparently.

Here in Melbourne, the seasons are really complicating my blog posts and plans. It’s cold, and brussel sprouts, cauliflower and pumpkin are all still around – but strawberries are also the cheapest they’ve been all year (coming down from much warmer Queensland) and zucchini and tomatoes are on special. I’m torn between making winter posts to suit the winter weather, using strawberries to celebrate the arrival of spring, or hanging with the northern hemisphere and making autumnal harvest recipes. Can we not be so confusing please, supermarket?

Today we’ve gone with winter, however.  This middle-eastern cauliflower & brussel sprout salad with miso almond hummus combines some of my favourite ingredients and flavours – golden edged, caramelized florets of cauliflower, fragrant with fresh thyme and garlic; bundles of chopped mint and parsley; the crunch of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and chopped almonds; a hint of pomegranate molasses and tangy lemon juice. Creamy goats cheese and spiced dukkah. The hummus works – don’t doubt the miso. Salty and savoury, a little richer than usual with almonds added too. It’s a smooth and creamy base for the winter vegetable salad. And of course, a salad isn’t complete around here without a runny poached egg on top. It pulls everything together – and who could resist the allure of that bright yellow yolk?

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An all-green spring or summer salad with a sesame, lime and chilli dressing. Topped with sesame-crusted seared tuna for an easy, healthy no-cook meal.  Jump to Recipe 

The worst part about New Zealand summer happens now. The time when the end of January draws near, and the rain clouds and unpredictably cold bands of wind which hover around Christmas and New Years tormenting holiday-goers finally seem to give up for a while. Blue sky day after blue sky day, muggy and sticky, coincide with the peak of summer produce – boxes of cherries, ripe peaches dribbling juice, cobs of wrinkle-free corn and the reddest, sweetest tomatoes you will encounter for another 12 months. Zucchini and apricots, bags of avocados – this year, even the strawberries seem to be sticking around a little longer.

And yet, at this very height of the season, just the point made for hours reading in afternoon heat, hosting barbecues which aren’t forced indoors, and just letting the very warmth seep in to carry us through the year to come – we go back to work. And school. And routine.

The best time of the year, this late January and February, is when the country returns to normalcy –  while the traditional holiday week after New Years was spoilt by torrential, horizontal rain swamping half-empty campgrounds and beaches too cold to visit.  My main memories of selling Christmas trees, at a time you might expect to end up reddened and tired from hot hours sitting on the road, largely involve raincoats, puffer jackets and wind strong enough to topple the outdoor umbrella, leaving me huddling inside the garage to stay dry. Some days you might even think we were about to have a white Christmas.

Personally, I would vote for a nationwide holiday shift to now, rather than December.

Enough of my whinging though – it is just two short weeks before university beckons, and with work and travel taking up a chunk of that time, the days seem to be dwindling away all too fast. In the meantime, I will be found at home in the aforementioned sun, making everything possible with the aforementioned summer produce as my Mum complains regularly that I am making the family obese. Apparently dessert every day isn’t normal. But I figure a crumble has fruit in it, as does chocolate cherry brownies, and blueberry scones, and apricot cake – so it has to be okay, right? Just a more advanced version of a fruit salad?

I managed to placate her momentarily with this green tuna salad the other night, however. Inspired by Ottolenghi, an all-green bowl of grilled zucchini, broad beans, snow peas, french beans and baby spinach is taken up a notch with the addition of coriander, avocado and goat’s feta. A sesame oil, lime and chilli dressing, nigella seeds and black sesame seeds (which although look very similar, are not the same at all) boost it onto a level so different from a “green salad” that it really shouldn’t be called that at all. Even if it is a VERY green salad. Any combination of greens can be used – if you are making it in spring, swap the zucchini for asparagus, or try peas rather than broad beans.

Seared sesame-crusted yellowfin tuna topped it off – seasoned with salt and pepper, rolled in sesame seeds to coat and cooked briefly on a barbecue hot plate, it really doesn’t get easier. If tuna is not budget friendly or available where you are, try salmon, barbecued chicken or poached eggs. And of course, in my book, no salad is complete without a side of crusty, hot ciabatta.

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