​I always feel that breakfast is the most personal meal of the day. Before any of the daily grind gets in the way, we have a moment to choose what we want to eat and how we want to eat it, before getting sucked into the void of a busy day. Smoothie bowls have become a huge cult fashion in healthy eating, appealing to the hard nose purists and those just riding the wave of the nutrition trend. Personally, the cuteness gets me every time. There’s something about a colour co-ordinated, delicately arrange breakfast bowl that creates a sense of calm and power in the morning. The morning is very sacred to me, and a quite moment spent over a pretty bowl that’s bursting with raw nutrients and enzymes, fresh fruits, and crunchy little toppings, is just a dream. It’s where whole foods meet Japanese kawaii (cute). After that, heading out into the big bad world isn’t so scary. I’m protected by a bubble of creamy pastel colours, snowy white coconut, and summer strawberries cut open with their green afro still intact. 

​Glucose is our main energy source and is therefore found in all carbohydrate foods to some degree, while fructose the main sugar in fruits, sweet vegetables, and honey. The presence of glucose stimulates leptin, a hormone that regulates the intake and expenditure of energy. Triggered insulin production allows the glucose to be processed into energy inside our cells. Any glucose not immediately needed is stored as glycogen, a substance easily converted to energy as we need it, but once these stores are filled the remaining glucose is stored as fat. Even though these are simple sugars, meaning we process it quickly and can cause dizzying blood sugar spikes if consumed in large doses, our bodies can easily utilise them, particularly in their natural environment. Eating whole fruits means we are getting these natural with their required and familiar side dishes of water, fibre, and micronutrients. Our bodies are well equipt to take advantage of the energy provided by fructose in this form. While glucose is processed within the cells, only our livers can process fructose. This is generally no problem but in our modern food system fructose is hidden in everything from cereals to condiments. The danger of fructose, and glucose as well, comes when it is isolated. Sweet fruits and vegetables are often refined to isolate the fructose for sweetening processed foods, the worst example being high fructose corn syrup. Our bodies are then bombarded with high levels of simple sugars, in a completely unfamiliar context, with no proper way to make us of it all. It all comes back to eating foods in their most complete form – the less we do to the plants we consume, the better. This is why smoothie bowls, which are whole, blended fruit, is preferable to juicing, as you retain all the fibre which stabilises our absorption of both nutrients and sugars. 

​At the core of this multi-functional fad is digestion. Breakfast is the ideal time to eat fruit, when our stomachs are empty and still waking up from the long nights fast. Optimal digestion is as much how we eat as it is what we eat. Optimal digestion results in maximum nutrient absorption, so we’re not just talking about indigestion and acid reflux here (both of which are far more common than you think and not just for the elderly). Paying attention to your digestion can have a huge impact on your health. No matter how well you eat, it is pointless if your body is unable to break down the cells and draw out the nutrition it craves. Basically, because of the high water content and simple sugars of most fruits, they digest very quickly. On an empty stomach this process happens smoothly and we are ready and waiting to accept all the nutrients on offer. Say you’ve had a large meal of grain, vegetables and protein first, all containing plenty of protein and fibre, which takes longer for our guts to break down and transform into usable energy and nourishment. Chasing this with a large wedge of melon (the fruit that breaks down fastest) gives us a layer of slowly digesting foods, topped with a layer of already digested fruit that just wants to finish its journey through the system. Being stuck in limbo means the fruit continues to break down and ferment longer than is should, which results in tummy aches, indigestion, and acid reflux (when it has no where to go but up). The high water content of some fruits will also dilute your stomach acid, slowing down the digestion of the first coarse even more. It’s all about timing. In the quiet moments of the morning is the ideal time to digest and utilise fresh fruit. Our bodies dehydrate over night as we rest, so high water and high sugar foods help ease us into the day without violently jolting the system. It’s the difference between waking up to the rising sun or an obnoxiously load alarm clock. Our gut is at the center of our health, impacting on nutrition, mood, and immune health, so be gentle with it. 

​Every time I make a smoothie bowl I think, ‘mmm that was a good one, put that in the (recipe) journal’, but I don’t think I’ve ever made the same bowl twice. It all comes down to what is seasonally available, what’s left in my fridge/freezer/fruit bowl, and what I’m in the mood for. So instead I’ve made you something more like a smoothie bowl mood board. It’s not about the recipe, it’s about luring your body out into the messy world of busy life with a nourishing, gentle, nutrient pack bowl of cuteness!

Bananas: In my opinion bananas are one of the greatest foods, in terms of versatility and nutrition. But their spot at the top of this list is all about texture. I always use two parts frozen banana to one part fresh. This gives you the dreamiest creamy texture that’s not too icy and not to gloopy. Note: Always use bananas with at least a few spots. This signifies that the starches in the fruit have started transforming into sugars, making them sweeter and easier to digest. A starchy banana will give a smoothie that’s more of the gloopy side.
Fruit: Use whatever your supermarket or farmers market has available at the lowest price. A decrease in price usually means it’s at the height of the season and therefore at it’s ripest and most delicious. Frozen fruit is also a great help in making a good thick smoothie. Freeze your own fruit during it’s season or buy from the super market.
Vegetables: Depending on how good your blended is, adding vegetables is always a great way to expand the spectrum of nutrition in each spoonful. It also tones down the sweetness if your not that way incline in the morning.
Extras: Adding ‘superfoods’ like spirulina, turmeric, wheatgrass, chlorella, and psyllium husk (the superman of fibre), I reserve for the days I feel I need it. I like to treat them more like medicines that garnishes. Partly because they’re expensive, and partly because they are not always necessary.
Fats: Some nutrients are water-soluble and some are fat-soluble. Because of this I always add a little fat, in a whole form, to each bowl. Using coconut milk or nut milks will achieve this, and make a creamier more satiating bowl. Or simply adding toppings like coconut, seeds, or nuts will make sure you’re absorbing as much goodness as possible.
 
One last tip! Stick to a colour palette and change it daily. Think about what you’re putting in the blender. A combination of blueberries, an orange, and a handful of kale will leave you with an unappetizing brown slurry. Pick a key ingredient and enhance its colour with other similar shades, like combing raspberries and beetroot. Fruits in the same area of the colour spectrum will also contain similar antioxidants and flavonoids, so blending up a different section of the rainbow each day will contribute to that depth of nutritional variety that we are aiming for. 

I've always loved pastry. There's something about it's completeness. Everything you need is bundled up into one item. The same simple pastry recipe can be used to house any produce or flavour combination you can dream of - sweet or savoury. It can be the foundation of a loaded tart, the envelope for a steaming saucy pie, or crusty embrace holding your galette fillings in place. A bowl so full of random collection of plants that it looks like a jungle, will get me most of the time, but every now and then the simplicity of juicy baked produce encased in some sort of grains/fat combo is all a girl needs. 
This Tomato Galette is it. The pastry is a collection of mucilaginous seeds, sunflower, pepita, and buckwheat flours and good olive oil, all snuggled around a few layers of glowingly ripe tomatoes and a hidden layer of cashew 'ricotta' cream.  

As the weather gets warmer, tomatoes become easier to come by and much more worth the purchase. The local tomatoes start to appear at the market. The kind that have been allowed to ripen on the plant rather than being plucked immaturely and shipped great distances, before being artificially ripened. The ripened process itself, those last few days hanging from the mother plant, is when all the flavour and the nutrients are intensified in each individual fruit. The starches turn to sugars, the protein, phytonutrients, and antioxidants are practically bursting out of the skin. And all of this creates a more nourishing, and because nature is kind, and even more delicious little fruit. For tomatoes this means carotenoids, like lycopene and beta-carotene - phytonutrients that are link to preventing multiple cancers and chronic disease - as well an A, B(2), C of vitamins. In fruits that have travelled from the ends of the earth we miss out of a lot of this, not too mention that sweet, rich taste of a true tomato. Most commercial tomatoes are picked green, shipped and artificially ripened using ethylene gas. This is a hormone that is produced by the plant when its time for get sweet and ripe. (This hormone can also be released from the ripe fruit itself, which is why introducing a ripe fruit to a bowl of not quite there friends will speed up their ripening process.) When we remove the fruit from the plant before this phase we have to do the mama plants job ourselves. As per usual in matters of nature and ecology, we aren't as good at it as a small green bush. Gasing tomatoes with ethylene produces that beautiful red that implies a tomato is ready for that piece of toast or that rich sauce, but it cannot produce the flavour, or the nutrition that comes from those last few days on the plant. 
I'm not condemning eating tomatoes in winter, but when you can get your hands on those warm-weather, local gems go crazy! Appreciate just how delicious they are and use them in dishes that make and exhibition of that fact. 

Dairy, cheese in particular, seems to be the last frontier for many people who thinking about losing the animal products. This cashew 'ricotta' filling is a perfect stepping stone. It's rich, it's creamy, it's melty, but it's easier to digest, with heart loving monounsaturated fats and far less fat in general. Despite the fact that cashews are used a lot in vegan cooking to recreate that thick creamy texture that we are accustomed to getting from dairy products, they are lower in fat than most other nuts, and are a great source of magnesium, copper and zinc. Soaking the nuts before hand not only removes the phytic acid, making them easier on our tummies (explained further here), but it makes the nuts a lot easier on your blender and will give you a creamier texture. Make sure you discard the soaking water and add fresh water to blend. There are some many things you can do when you throw soaked cashew nuts into a blender and I find as long as you have the smooth creaminess of the nuts, salt, and an acid (lemon juice or raw apple cider vinegar), it can transport you back to cheesy memories without causing any bodily, or environmental, disruptions. 

What makes this pastry so easy to handle, while staying short and crispy is this slimy holy trinity of mucilage (discussed here). The goopy binding created by the soaked seeds imitates the flexibility that in standard pastry comes from the gluten content. With traditional pastry you are constantly walking the tight rope of a pastry that is easy to work with without falling apart, and working the gluten too much and ending up with a chewy crust. This sticky seed mix gives us the former without any fear of the latter! Or any heavy gluten. 
Buckwheat flour is one of my favourite gluten free flours simply because it's super easy to work with, being quite similar to wholemeal flour, and it has a dark, toasty flavour. Combining that with the sunflower and pepita flour, which brings it's own natural fats to the party, makes the pastry extra crunchy, loaded with fibre, and bursting with plant protein. 

I use cashew pieces purely because they're always cheaper. There's no need for perfect kidney-shaped nuts if you're just throwing them in the blender. Toss the nuts into a bowl, cover completely with water, and soak for at least an hour or over night. Drain, rinse, and put into your blender with the juice of a lemon, a whole peeled garlic clove, roughly chopped parsley, a splash of raw apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper, and fresh, cold water. Blend on high until smooth and creamier. Depending on the power of your blender, you will need to stop and scrap down the sides a few times. A cheaper blender doesn't mean you can't make recipes like this, it just means it make take a bit longer to reach that velvety texture so you have to be a little more patient. Taste and adjust the seasoning or acidity. If it's not packing that cheesy tang, add a splash more lemon juice. Lemons are all unique in their sourness, sweetness, and juiciness so trust your tastebuds. 
Set aside in the fridge while you make the pastry. 

Mix the chia seeds, flax seeds, psyllium husk and water in a bowl. Leave this to sit and soak while you ready the rest of the pastry. By the time you come back to it magic will have happened! Throw the sunflower seeds and pepitas into a food processor and blitz into a coarse flour. In the few minutes you spend doing this those mucilaginous seeds will have soaked up most of the water and transformed into a thick, sticky jelly. Add the seed flour, buckwheat flour, olive oil, maple syrup, and salt and pepper on top of this gloopy mixture and stir through with a wooden spoon. As the mix starts to come together, dump it out onto the bench or a wooden board sprinkled with buckwheat flour and knead gently until you have a smooth ball. If its a little dry, add more water a tbsp at a time, and if it's too sticky sprinkle over extra buckwheat flour until it becomes easy to work with. 
With your hands, press the ball of dough out into a flat disc. Rub buckwheat flour onto the top, flip it over and repeat. Grab a rolling pin and roll out until it is around 5mm thick. To get any even circle, each time you roll the pin away from you and back towards you, turn the dough ever so slightly (always in the same direction) that way you stretch the dough evenly in every direction = circle!

The cashew 'ricotta' recipes makes a little more than you needs (spread it on toast, crackers, or sandwiches - you're welcome), so dollop around three quarters of it in the center of your beautiful pastry canvas and spread it out evenly. Leave a clean edge, approximately 6cm, to be your fold over crust. Thickly slice four to six tomatoes (size dependant) and arrange as artistically as you like over their creamy bed. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and chilli flakes if you like it spicey, just to season the tomatoes. ​
Finally, to close it all up, gently fold over the crust in small sections. As you fold one piece over, press it down where its folded over the next section of crust, and then fold that section over the tomatoes. Repeat. This should a rough circle with many neatly folded corners.
Gently transfer onto a line baking tray. The easiest way is to sneak the paper underneath your galette and then use the paper to delicately lift the whole thing onto the tray. Throw over a few extra seeds, just for a little crunch (and cuteness), and put into a 200 degree oven for 20 minutes. Turn the heat down to 180, rotate the tray, and let it bake for another 20 minutes. The pastry should be golden, crispy when you tap it, and stable enough for you to lift up the galette if you slide a spatula underneath. At that point the tomatoes will be caramelised and cheerfully bubbling inside their crunchy, pastry origami.

I know it's hard, but let it cool. The tomatoes will burn you! Dress with some roughly chopped parsley and cut into wide wedges. Eat for lunch or dinner with some extra veg, as an afternoon snack, or breakfast the next day (highly recommended). Xxxx

It is just the perfect colour. I wanted to celebrate that. It’s a purple cauliflower for goodness sake, if I lose the colour what’s the point? We really do eat with our eyes and I wanted to make a bowl full of the excitement I felt when I saw this beauty on a trestle table at the farmers market, surrounded by dark green leafage. Pickling it seemed like the best option, preserving its glorious colour in a bath of living acidic liquid gold.
It’s not unusual to find strange jars of vegetables in my fridge, suspended in liquids of varying colours. No plate is complete without a pile of some sort of sweetly sour fermented condiment. Pickled radishes with ginger and chilli, shaved pickled fennel with loads of lemon peel, spicy kim chi, a jar of sauerkraut the size of my head that takes us two months to chew through before its refilled. Pickled cauliflower has been on my list for a while but I wanted to keep it raw. Apple cider vinegar is one of the most magical elixirs. It’s full of wild bacteria that are so good for our tummies and our personal bacteria colonies, plus it’s a gentle acid that bolsters the strength of our stomach acid helping to efficiently break down whole food into neat little nutrient parcels. Drink it? Sure. Or soak vegetables in it and you create a whole new glorious eatable. A love child if you will. 
Commercial pickles are generally done with a hot vinegar solution to kill any bacteria and seal the jar. But this leaves you with vinegary cauliflower, not the crunchy, gut-loving, fermented jewels I was after. Rather than growing the bacteria myself an apple cider vinegar pickle would be better. It gives a brighter, sharper taste than wild lacto-fermenting. If you can find raw apple cider vinegar ‘with mother’ this is the fore mentioned liquid gold. This means it still contains the live bacteria. 

Sprouting is all about breaking open the seed and absorbing as much of its life force as possible. It’s earth mother meets vampire. It’s an understanding of the plant worlds’ life cycles and processes that allows us to exploit the nutrients hidden within. Phytic acid found in the hull of seeds, grains, nuts, and legumes is a large part of the seeds nutrient storage, waiting for germination day. However, this phytic acid can make it difficult for us to digest the protein and starches that we are hoping to get from said seed, grain, nut, or legume. Even worse, during digestion phytic acid is know to bind to minerals like iron, zinc, and calcium, before we can absorb it. Not only does it make us work for the macronutrients we are after but it carries away many of the minerals that we need. This is why those in the business of nutrients have dubbed it an anti-nutrient. Soaking is the great illusion that lets us break into these foods which, understandably, try and keep their nutrients hidden for the next generation. Soaking signals that it’s time to take the leap from seed to plant. The phytic acid then transforms into seeds main source of energy and phosphorous to begin it’s journey. Now that the phytic is gone, the goodness of the seed, grain, nut, or legume is freely accessible to us. Cooking, fermenting, and soaking are all great ways to break through the phytic acid but sprouting is one of my favourites, you’re creating a whole new food just by giving it a few moments of attention each day. It is gardening you can do in your own kitchen, in a very short period of time; personal ecosystems for this fast paced world of instant gratification and miminalism. Lentils are usually rich and dense, fodder for stews, curries, soups and all those comforting winter meals. Sprouted, they are crunchy and sweet, and add a serious satisfaction to any light salad or raw dish. Mung beans, adzuki beans, chickpeas, all make delicious crunchy, tadpole looking sprouts - I’m slowly working my way through sprouting all dry legume I can get my hands on. 

​In a jar, cover your legumes with cold tap water and leave them to soak on the bench for 10-12 hours/overnight. Place a piece of muslin over the top of the jar and tie tightly with string or a rubber band (you can also buy skewer on lids with a mesh insert). Pour the water out through the muslin to drain. Rinse with fresh water twice daily, once in the morning while you’re making breakfast, and once in the evening while dinner is cooking. Once they have started to grow little tails they are ready to eat, the timeframe depends on the legume. Lentils are ready in around three days. 

​He has become the mascot of the whole food movement. Kale is so popular now that you see it everywhere but it’s still that vegetable that divides the health conscious from the indulgent food lovers, the people who think we vegans just chew on kale straight from the stalk. ‘People who eat kale really know how to eat kale’, my brother said that to me. I thought it seemed obvious at first, but it’s true, kale is a green you need to learn how to eat. Kale needs to be pampered. Shredding it finely and tossing it with the acid from the pickling liquid breaks through that grassy flavour and those chewy leaves, making it a lot easier on the jaw. I like to give the kale a bit of a massage in the dressing before I throw in the grains. This lets the flavours really get into the leaves, making them soft and juicy against the light fluffy quinoa, crunchy sprouts, acid cauliflower, and sweet currants. 

Turmeric has become one of my obsessions. I put it in almost everything. It has that subtle earthy flavour. In this tahini dressing, it’s also mustard-like. But besides that it’s amazingly anti-inflammatory, which to me means ‘solves all bodily problems’, therefore the more I can sneak in, the better I feel. Plus how can you not feel happy pouring that liquid sunshine all over this very earthy salad with it's bright ruby flowers. 

​​1 Purple Cauliflower (white would also totally work)
1 tsp Coriander Seeds
1 tsp Cumin Seeds
Pinch of Black Peppercorns
½ tsp Salt
1 tsp Coconut Sugar
Apple Cider Vinegar
Water
 
Cut you cauliflower into bite-sized pieces. The bigger they are the longer it takes to pickle, but I like a decent sized floret to crunch on. Stuff these pieces into a clean glass jar and add the spices, salt, and sugar. Pour over the vinegar until it comes three quarters of the way up the cauliflower and then top it off with water so that everyone is submerged.
Screw on the lid and invert the jar a few times to disperse the spices and seasoning, and help the salt and sugar to dissolve. After an hour you can eat this, but the longer you wait the more acidic and intense the flavour becomes. I like to leave it in the fridge for a couple of weeks before I ‘officially’ bust it open, but I do sneak out a few early babies to have on my toast every now and then. Purely to check on their progress, obviously. 

½ cup white Quinoa
½ cup of Currants
Zest and Juice of 1 Clementine (or Orange)
1 cup finely shredded Kale
3 tbsp Cauliflower pickling liquid
1 cup Sprouted Lentils
1 cup Pickled Cauliflower
½ cup fresh Parsley leaves
Salt and Pepper
 
Turmeric Dressing
3 tbsp Tahini
Zest of 1 Clementine (or Orange)
Juice of 1 Lemon
¼ tsp Salt
1 tsp Turmeric
½ cup Water
 
Submerge the quinoa in water for a few minutes and then rinse in a sieve under running water until any foaminess disappears. Leave to drain in it’s sieve while a small pot of water comes to the boil. Once it’s happily rolling, throw in a pinch of salt and the quinoa. In something like ten minutes you should be able to see the little spiral of the quinoa seed opening up and be able to squish it between you’re fingers. Drain and rinse, again with cold water, and return to the sieve to drain of any excess liquid.
Zest and juice the clementine (or mandarin or orange, some sort of sweet citrus) and pour the juice over the currants to plump them up.
Wash and finely shred the kale, almost like it’s a herb. You could also put it through a food processor quickly. Pour over some of the cauliflowers flavoursome pickling liquid and give it a little rub down. Scrunch the leaves in your fists, bruising their cells so the acid can get in. They will turn a brighter, shiny green.
Rinse your sprouted lentils one last time and tip out onto a clean tea towel to dry. Fish out and roughly slice some of your glorious pickled cauliflower. Toss both the lentils and the cauliflower into the bowl with the kale, followed by the quinoa, plump currants and their citrusy liquid, and the picked parsley leaves. Combine. Getting your hands in there is the easiest way. Taste and season with salt and pepper. And then taste again.
 
For the dressing, combine all ingredients, minus the water, in a bowl and whisk. Once these have come together, slowly add in the water, whilst continuously whisking, until you have a smooth dressing that runs off your whisk in ribbons. Pour the dressing into a jug or little bottle and drizzle this liquid sunshine over each plate.

Breakfast is the most significant meal of the day. It is the beginning, the first thing we treat ourselves to; something warm to drag us out of bed, something fresh to fire up our belly and our brain, something nurturing after an early morning work out, something to enjoy quietly by yourself once every else has gone out into the day. Morning is a time of ritual and breakfast is at the center of it all. We all have our own take and it can be highly personal. If there’s time, I love eating my breakfast quietly on the couch with no one around. Only after pondering over what I will have for quite some time and finally conjuring up something that completes what I feel I missed out on the day before and will hopefully serve me for the day ahead. If I had a small dinner yesterday, breakfast is quite extensive. 

Weekend breakfast, however, is something completely different. Sometimes lasting into the PM. There’s nothing like a luxurious breakfast to start a luxurious day. Breakfast becomes about the group. We gather together at home or in babbling little groups outside the most popular breakfast joints. We come together to catch up and wind down, ready for the two days of the week that are all about socialising with those in our immediate community. During the working week we are forced out into the wider world to interact with people we do not know or understand. Humans can only hold stable relationships with a finite number of people who they know personally and whose emotions and actions they can anticipate and comprehend. This is thought to be around 150 people. Socialising with people outside of this intimate circle requires the following of social rules and imagined commonality – shared environment, shared grievances or shared beliefs. When the weekend arrives we can step outside of that imagined, yet concretely defined world, and spend our time with the people we know and who know us, not just the various bullet points of our identity. 

​Unfortunately, my breakfasting rituals do not align with the man I share a home with. As soon as he’s up he needs to eat. His ritual does not observe the rules of the weekend. I tend to get up, throw on whatever is closest and cosiest and wander around the kitchen taking stock of what we have and what I can conjure out of the madness (Friday night is no time for doing dishes). By the time I’ve decided, he’s already eaten! Which kind of ruins the whole communal vibe of a leisurely breakfast alone with the person I don’t even need to speak to to understand.
Thus began my journey to find a quick yet elaborately indulgent breakfast that I could enjoy at my leisurely pace but would still be ready before he made it to the muesli jar. The checklist: a house filling fragrance, beauty when plonked on any table like surface, ability to increase heart warmth, simple ingredients, and that little je ne c’est quoi that makes you feel like you’re being rewarded for a week well survived

​This Baked Quinoa Oatmeal ticks all the boxes, plus one I hadn’t thought of. What you don’t eat for breakfast, once cold, transforms into a sweet gooey cake to be picked at all through the weekend! (Note: Leave a knife in the tray, otherwise you will just end up with multiple dirty knives. Or picky finger marks from those too lazy/hungry to grab a utensil). It requires very few ingredients, dry goods that can be kept hanging around the house for when needed, and really whatever fruit you like. I’ve made this multiple times, with multiple different fruity combinations, before settling on this wintery version. Each season brings it’s own delectable variations. In summer, stone fruit and berries is a must. Apricot and blackberry is still my all time hero. But for these cold mornings, earthy pears, tart raspberries, and obviously chocolate, is all one could ever want. 

​Besides looking resplendent and being finger-suckingly indulgent, this bake (obviously) has a nutritious side. Quinoa is high in protein, as well as carbohydrates, to give you last energy throughout the day and quash any worries about plant based eaters being malnourished. Any time you can cram more than one whole grain into a meal is a bonus! Whole oats are known to balance blood sugar and metabolism, lower cholesterol, and aid with digestion. Just like the quinoa and chia seeds, oats are a great source of fibre, which helps with satiety and optimal digestions, key steps towards finding that balance of ideal weight and vibrant energy.
 
An important part of this recipe is the coconut milk. I don’t mean that coconut milk you can now buy in boxes to have on your cereal, I mean the thick creamy stuff that most of us buy in a can. Buying the pure canned coconut cream and milk, minus any emulsifies or stabilisers is of the utmost importance. You want the one the simplest ingredients list. Coconut fat is a saturated fat, meaning it behaves in a very similar way to animal fats. It sets at room temperature, it thickens when you whip it, and it adds moisture and density to baking. However, coconut is a medium chain saturated fat and is not processed by the body in the same way as animal fats. It goes straight to the liver to be used up as energy rather than stored unnecessarily in our nooks and crannies. It really is the best in both worlds. 

 This Chocolate Sauce is where the magic really happens, all the rest is so simple. Watching goopy tahini whisked into something that resembles melted chocolate in every way is life changing. Tahini is one of my favourite ingredients! It’s loaded with calcium and iron, but because it’s made from sesame seeds rather than nuts (like many other condiments of the same form) I find it a lot easier to digest. Plus I love the transformation. It’s sticky and slightly pastey, seeming to seize as you add the cacao, maple, and then the water. It puts up a fight, getting thicker and thicker, rejecting the water, but as you stir it begins to give up and becomes this crazily velvety liquid. Science/magic. You’re left with a chocolate sauce that’s one part calcium rich seeds, one part mineral dense sap, and one part antioxidant rich cacao. How could you not have an amazing day after pouring that all over your plate?!

Baked Quinoa Oatmeal
Dry:
1 ½ cups whole rolled Oats
½ cup white Quinoa
2 tbsp Chia seeds
1 tsp Cinnamon
Zest of 1 small Orange or Mandarin
Pinch of Salt
Wet:
2 ripe Bananas
1 ½ cups Water
1 cup Coconut Milk (the pure kind with no emulsifiers)
¼ cup pure Maple Syrup
½ tsp Vanilla extract or the seeds from ½ Vanilla Pod
 
4 Pears
Frozen Raspberries, or fresh if they’re available (as many as you can squeeze in)
Cacao nibs to sprinkle
 
Chocolate Sauce
¼ cup Tahini
¼ cup Cacao
¼ cup Maple Syrup
¼ tsp Salt
½ cup Water

Submerge the quinoa in water. It doesn't really need to soak, but it should be rinsed thoroughly. You'll understand why when you see the foamy water that comes off it. Tip it out into a sieve and let the cold tap run through it until the water coming out is clean. Rest over a bowl to drain completely.
Combine all the remaining dry ingredients in a bowl.
Put all the wet ingredients in a blender and blitz until smooth.
Pour the wet into the dry, adding the drained quinoa, and stir to combine. It will be quite wet, it’s supposed to be. Let this mix sit in the bowl while you prepare the pears.
Peel, quarter and core the pears.
Line a medium sized baking tray with baking paper. I’ve used a 20x30cm tray, but you could use any shape you like.
Poor the oatmeal mixture into the tray, giving it a little stir to make sure all the oats and quinoa are evenly distributed.
Gently lay your pears on the top, side by side. Scatter over as many raspberries as you can possibly fit! There’s nothing like finding a sour little raspberry amoungst the sweet oatmeal. Sprinkle with cacao nibs for a little crunch.
Bake in a 160 degree oven for 20-30 minutes or until it is soft to touch yet not wet.
In this time, make the chocolate sauce. This is more than you will need for your baked oatmeal, but it can never hurt to have wholesome chocolate sauce lurking in the fridge.
Combine the tahini, cacao, maple syrup, and salt in a bowl and whisk to combine. Slowly add in the water, whisking as you go, until the sauce is smooth and pourable.
Transfer into a bottle or jug for the breakfast table.
Once the oatmeal is cooked, allow it to cool for 5 minutes in the tray, just so it’s easier to cut.
Cut into bars and serve with a generous pouring of chocolate sauce.  

After three weeks in India, eating a minimum of two samosas a day, I knew I had to make my own. Warm, fat samosa straight from a somewhat unhygienic looking road-side shack are in a league of their own. I’m now ruined for any of the small, hygienically made samosas from my favourite Indian takeaways. There’s something special about standing in the street with a warm samosa nestled in a sheet of newspaper, picking at it as you watch rows and rows more being folded and stuffed. It’s all about the filling to crust ratio. A jolly belly full of spicy, gooey potato with little pops of peas, and three salty, crunchy corners. The joy was that each one tasted different; new street, new samosa. Sometimes the filling was bright yellow and spicy, other times it was dark brown, slightly sweet and full of cinnamon.
 
We practically lived on street food. Unless is was in or attached to a hotel, there didn’t seem to be many restaurants. The income gap in India is huge, and I got the impression that restaurants were only for the upper echelon with more western tastes. In the smaller villages, the streets were full of carts of fruits and vegetables, and women sitting cross-legged on corners with complete spice markets at their feet. I got the impression that main meals were kept inside the home, where families ate together away from the over crowded streets. Outside of the home, however, is this wonderful snacking culture. Pop up stalls that make fresh Masala Dosa while you huddle around the counter, politely asserting your presence with you elbows so you don’t get cut off from you food. We weren’t even hungry but we had to stop for one. Eating that tube of crispy, fermented pancake with its fluffy potato filling and spicy sauce, touching elbows with a woman sharing the same thing with the child on her hip, and watching more being made by a man who looks to have done it the same way every day of his life so far. No hesitation, no touching up, just a fluid motion of pouring, spreading, filling, rolling, cutting, and flicking onto those shiny metal plates. 

Around every tourist attraction was a little shantytown of fried good stalls and small old men with giant pots of chai. Although we took advantage of every single one, these places weren’t really for the tourists. They were there for the drivers and tour guides who were waiting around for people like us who were leisurely wandering through mesmerizing ruins or intricate temples. Our driver spoke very little English, so every time we stopped somewhere we would say a time, both smile and nod, and go our separate ways. He always headed straight for the chai, while fishing in his pocket for a cigarette, handed over a few coins and was given a little white paper cup of steaming tea straight from the pot. Rather than sit somewhere quietly on his own, as people do in Australia, glued to their phones, this was a little community. He would chat to the chai walla for a while and then move on to sit with some other drivers, drinking his tea and smoking happily. There are millions upon millions of people in India and he was from a small village outside Dehli, he pointed out to us as we drove along the long, straight highway that looked out over fields of crops. These had to be strangers. Nonetheless, he was always busily chatting as we wandered off and was still surrounded by a group of men with steaming cups tea or deep fried pastries in hand when we returned. This culture of communal snacking highlights the meaningful connection that can be made through food. It is not the mindless snacking on junk food that is rife in the western world. A hand moving from packet to mouth and back again while eyes are glued to the TV does not have the same social significance. The snack carts become a communal space where people can chat and connect outside of the household.  

I’ve slowly learnt that there are no rules when it comes to spices. Use them liberally and to your own taste. I have a collection in my cupboard that I put in every single curry I make, just varying the proportions depending on my mood. I always go a little heavy on the turmeric, chilli, and ginger. Turmeric is amazingly anti-inflammatory which is something that can benefit your entire system, allowing your body to function at it’s best. Chilli and ginger both add that deep warmth that is so comforting and fires up our digestion. It is also wonderful for you circulation, something I dearly need in winter to stop my feet from freezing completely. All three are great for the immune system, one of the many reasons they are used so liberally in Indian cooking. I’ve added a few cardamom pods and some cinnamon to the filling because I love the floral sweetness that hides underneath the bold turmeric, cumin, and coriander.
 
Fenugreek seeds are a recent revelation to me. They look like tiny sandy pebbles but they have a sort of mysterious fragrance. It’s that smell that you find lingering in every Indian restaurant. Fenugreek is another of the prolifically healing spices, it is know to reduce cholesterol, balance blood sugar levels, ease digestion, and apparently promotes breast growth (I’m still waiting to see evidence of this). It contains high levels of fibre and mucilage, which soothe the stomach lining and help with issues like indigestion and acid reflux. 

Mucilage is the real hero of this recipe. It is the basis of my buckwheat pastry. Chia seeds, flaxseeds, and psyllium husks are all highly mucilaginous (such a great word!), which basically means that they absorb water to create a jelly like layer around themselves. It’s the seeds store of protein, sugars and water as it gets all ready to germinate. This slippery, absorbent layer makes these seeds a great source of fibre to help with any bowel issues (from either end of the spectrum). Most importantly this is process we exploit for gooey chia puddings and binding egg replacements. It’s what holds this pastry together; giving back some of the flexibility that you lose using a gluten-free flour so that it can be rolled out thinly and handled without disintegrating. It’s thin and crunchy, and does it’s job well – acting as a vessel so then we can eat gooey spiced mash potato without getting it all over our hands. 

​Gather all your spices and tip the whole spices into a dry pot over and medium to low heat. These can toast away gently while you finely chop the garlic and chilli, and grate the ginger. Shake the pot every now and then to make sure the spices toast evenly. Once you can smell all those beautiful spices, add the coconut oil to the pot. As it melts the seeds will start to pop merrily in the pan. Once this starts, strip the curry leaves from their stalks and toss them into the pot (there will be more popping and spitting) followed by the garlic, chilli, and ginger.
Fry gently until you can smell the garlic and ginger in the air and the chilli starts to catch in your throat. Then toss in the potatoes and the ground spices.
Stir almost constantly to stop any sticking and to make sure the potatoes become full coated in all that spicy oil.
After five minutes or so, pour in enough water to come half way up the potatoes. Add in the salt and put a lid on the pot. This will simmer away slowly, the potatoes absorbing all the spices and slowly breaking down into a chunky mash. This should take 20-30 minutes. Once all the potatoes are cooked through give it a very aggressive mix with a wooden spoon. Somewhere between mashing and whipping. Then add in the kale, peas, vinegar, and sugar. Stir again to circulate everything through the mixture and then remove from the heat to cool down. 

​Use this time to make you pastry. Combine the chia, flax, psyllium and water in a bowl. Let this sit for a few minutes to start to mucilaginate (such a great word!!). Pour in the oil, add the mustard seeds, salt, and pepper, and slowly mix in the buckwheat flour with a wooden spoon. Start with two cups and add the rest as you need it. Once the mix starts to come together turn it out onto the floured bench and knead it gently, only a few folds, to bring it into a smooth log. Cut into golf ball sized pieces and roll into balls.
Take a ball and roll it out into a circle about 2mm thick. A little cracking at the edges is no problem.
Cut this circle in half. Move one half to the side and lay the other in front of you with the curved side towards you. Grab a small cup of water, dip your finger in, and run it across the left half of the straight side of your half moon.
Here comes the fun part. It’s like making pancakes, the first one may be a bust, the second may be a bit funky looking, but you’ll get into the swing of it the more you do.
Lay your hand, face up, in the middle of the crescent. Fold the right hand side over your hand and the left hand side over that to make a triangular pocket. Rub down the seam and press down on the point to seal.
Hold the cone in your hand with the seam facing you and fill with the cooled potato filling. Fold the lip away from you, smear the other side with water and fold over to seal. Done.
Step back, admire, know that it will get easier, and repeat. It’s a great all hands on deck activity.
If you end up with more samosas than you think you can eat you can put the folded parcels into the freezer to take out and bake for instant snacking.
Lay on a lined tray, seam up, and bake in a 180 degree oven for 10 minutes. Flip them over at this point, and continue baking until the complete surface of the pastry is as golden and crisp as any deep fried samosa.
While these are baking, through all of the coriander sauce ingredients in a blender and blitz until smooth.
 
Eat while they’re still hot and steaming, straight off the tray is completely acceptable, drizzled with the green sauce.

​It’s winter in the desert, and all I can think about is woollen scarves, hot coffee, eating soup under a blanket, and whether it’s acceptable to wear a knitted beanie every day. I know in the great scheme of things Perth isn’t cold, but it’s all relative. Winter here hurts just as much. The days are shorter, the sun is absent, and comfort food is a must. 

​We all have our own version of comfort food, something that makes us feel all warm inside and almost empathises with our pain. We want a dish that says, ‘My poor darling, you are cold and miserable and deserve something extra special’. Woe is me! I need creamy, I need spicy, I need something in a bowl so hot I can cuddle it and it doubles as a hot water bottle. I love this about winter. Each meal is so emotional. We start looking at food as something we need, based on the most essential part of human nature – surviving what the environment throws at us.
 
Creamy and cheesy was all I wanted as a child in terms of comfort food. If there was creamy mushroomy pasta going, that was me. Happy. But the older I got, and the more in tune I became with what my tummy was trying so hard to tell me, the less silky, dairy fill sauces excited me. The first variation of this recipe that I made was really more of a puree to try and use up an old cauliflower. It went down a treat with the fiancé. He kept going back to the little jar of leftover puree in the fridge and digging out spoonfuls, exclaiming with a confused looked that it tasted like cheese. When he gets that look about something that tastes non-vegan it’s a good sign. It means its so good he almost doesn’t believe its made from plants. He squints his eyes slightly like he’s wondering if I’ve somehow been tricked by some packaging or weird recipe idea. 

​Macaroni Cheese was one of the things we quite often had when I was young. It was start really. My father had a busy, hard working wife, two vegetarian teenagers who were generally surrounded by bands of growing teenage boys searching for fuel, and me (the cheesy pasta fiend I just mentioned). Make a big pot of white sauce, stuff it with cheese, cook some pasta, fry a little bacon and some golden onions, and everyone’s happy. Minimal effort, minimal cost, maximum satisfaction – it’s basic human survival 101.
 
My white sauce is very simple. The cauliflower is the star. It’s just her, up close and personal, with a few accessories to enhance that cosiness we so crave from our comfort food. But as much as we love a little empathetic indulgence in winter, what our body needs is extra nutritional support to fight off the dreaded lurgies that take us down, one by one. Cauliflower belongs to the group of Cruciferous vegetables, so named because of their flowers resemblance to a crucifix. I’m not a religious person, but I would follow these vegetables to the ends of the earth. Cruciferous veg includes broccoli, cabbages, kale, radishes, most Asian greens, watercress, and bitter greens like rocket, collards, and mustard greens. They are champions in vitamin C, A and K content, all of which are important for a robust immune system.
 
Vitamin C doesn’t cure the common cold (or so they say) but it does protect against any shortcomings in our immune system, making sure we are always ready to fight what is thrown at us. This is my goal as soon as the days get chilly, cramming every immune boosting ingredient I can into each meal. It’s almost like a sport, while I remain cold-free I am the winner!
Vitamin A is powerful antioxidant, helping with cell repair and growth, and decreasing inflammation. The vitamin K levels of Cruciferous vegetables are amazing, and this regulates our inflammatory response. Not only helping to reduce inflammation but helping to prevent inflammation occurring for the wrong reasons.
 
Inflammation is so often talked about now in terms of health and nutrition. Localised inflammation is great! It’s our bodies healing response, rushing to the aid of every cut and bruise. But generalised inflammation, inflammation that spreads through out our whole bodies, responding to the foods we eat, our stress levels and the toxins we are exposed to, is linked to lead to the ‘Western’ illnesses like cancer and heart disease. What would normally be directed to the site of injury or infection starts to attack our own cells. Foods that reduce inflammation can calm the health effects of a stressful life, reduce gut inflammation caused by processed foods or allergens, and bring our systems back into balance. Considering the stressful, fast paced world we live in, it can’t hurt to have more of these foods on our plates. 

Regardless of it's nutritional goodness, this béchamel sauce is something very special. The cauliflower provides volume and that angelic white colour, and a very subtly sweet butteriness (Spellcheck informs me that isn’t a word but I have to disagree). Coconut cream is always my go to substitution for that fattiness that you need to create texture and that feeling of indulgence. Always use the brand that is purely coconut kernel. That way there are no emulsifiers messing with the chemical make up on the fat. It behaves just like cream so you can use it like cream. The hint of lemon gives a beautiful tanginess that, combined with the salt, black pepper, and coconut cream makes up and mouth-foolingly good cheesiness.
The Seed Crumble adds some much needed crunch and a deep toasty flavour. I snuck a few caraway seeds in there just because I adore them and they have a weirdly mysterious fragrance. The caramelised onions are a flash back to the way I remember having Macaroni Cheese as a child but you could really add whatever you like. Mushrooms, peas, handfuls of parsley, like crispy pieces of bacon-like tempeh, wilted spinach. Use this sauce as a base to build the Macaroni Cheese of your childhood. The more familiar ingredients you add the more transporting the dish, which is the most important part of cooking. To me anyway.
 
Cauliflower 'Macaroni Cheese'
 
Cauliflower Béchamel:
1/2 head of Cauliflower
1 clove of Garlic
1 teaspoon of Coconut Oil
1 cup of Water
Pinch of Salt
½ cup of Coconut Cream
½ teaspoon of Salt
½ teaspoon of Cracked Pepper
The juice of 1-2 Lemons (depending on juiciness and tartness)
 
Caramelized Onions:
1 Onion
1 teaspoon of Coconut Oil
Water, as required
 
500g of Brown Rice Pasta (Penne, Shells, or Spirals)
 
Seed Crumble topping:
½ cup of Pumpkin Seeds
½ cup of Sunflower Seeds
1 teaspoons of Caraway Seeds

Roughly chop the cauliflower into small pieces, so that they cook quickly and evenly. Slice the garlic and put into a heavy bottomed pot with the coconut oil over a medium heat. Stir frequently until the garlic is fragrant and just starting to brown.
Add in the cauliflower and stir to coat in the oil. Let this fry gently for 5 or so minutes to brown the cauliflower slightly.
Pour in the water, add the pinch of salt and place a lid on the pot. Turn the temperature down to low and let it all simmer and steam together until the cauliflower is soft. Remove the lid and set aside to cool.
 
Toss the seed crumble on a baking tray and place in 180 degree oven for 10 minutes or until the seeds start to pop and smell toasty.
 
Thinly slice the onion and put into a frying pan over a high heat with the teaspoon of coconut oil. Stir often as the onions start to brown. As the pan gets dry, add splashes of water to lift the browns from the bottom of the pan. Continue doing this until the onions are soft, dark brown and sticky. Reduce any remaining juices and set aside.
 
Boil a pot of water for the pasta with a good pinch of salt. Once it’s at a rolling boil add the pasta and stir gently to separate the pieces. The key to stopping pasta from sticking together is frequent agitation. Stir intermittently while you finish the béchamel.
 
Strain the water from the cauliflower into a jug. Add the cauliflower and remaining béchamel ingredients to a blender or food processor. Add just enough of the cauliflower water to allow it to blend at first. Blend on high until smooth, slowly adding extra water to get a thick, creamy sauce. Adjust the salt, pepper and lemon juice is necessary. Not all lemons are created equal so you may need more to get the acidity that gives the tangy cheesy flavour.
 
Once the pasta is al dente, drain it quickly and return it to the pot. Fold through some to the béchamel sauce and spoon in the caramelised onions. Add more of the sauce as you like, I love it super saucy and gooey. Any extra left over keeps well in the fridge for a few days and makes an amazing dip for roasted potatoes!
 
Put the pot over a medium heat to make sure the sauce is hot and let the pasta absorb some of those glorious flavours. Spoon into deep bowls, the kind you can really cuddle up to, and sprinkle over the seed crumble. Enjoy while wearing as many knitted woollen garments as possible.
 
Tess Xxx

​I'm always looking for that little extra something that makes a bowl of food shine. It is the hero, the one people praise when the meal is over. That one ingredient that you try to get into every mouthful; keeping a little bit aside to be sure it's the last thing your mouth remembers. On a meat-centric plate the cut of meat is often that hero and gets all the attention. In a plantbased kitchen you have so candidates just lining up to have their turn. As with most things, you get out of plants what you put into them. You can turn anyone into the hero with the right care and attention, there is no ugly duckling or under-dog left behind. 

​Having said that, no one could ever consider tomatoes the under-dog. Tomatoes are one of the most cultivated crops in the world. They are essential for numerous cultures and exploited in a myriad of different ways. Taken from South America by the Spanish, they’ve managed to colonise the globe and weave their way into lives and pantries the world over. The abundance of tomatoes is part of why the Mediterranean diet is considered so healthy. The lycopene which is behind that rich red colour is a powerful antioxidant, connected to reduced incidence of various cancers. While the high and celebrated vitamin C levels of tomatoes are diminished as they are cooked down, their antioxidant and lycopene levels rise higher and higher, making that rich tomato sugo as good for your cells as it is for your soul.
 
The oppressive darkness of winter has arrived, as promised, and our supply of chewy, semi-dried tomatoes is running dangerously low. That’s not to say the cupboards are entirely bare, winter has so many wonderful things to offer. Unfortunately, it is true that the grass is always greener and I can’t stop thinking about summers bounty and its days of kitchen pottering and the endless processing of surplus produce. These bursting delights are based on the classic Italian sun-dried tomatoes. Not the ones we pull from a jar, drowning in oil, but the ones lovingly laid out by Italian families when the glut of tomatoes is too large for pasta sauce alone. Perhaps based on is the incorrect phrase. ‘Inspired by’ may be better. It’s the process that appeals to me, not any experience with their specific flavour. I’ve never eaten a joyfully wrinkled tomato, fresh from weeks of laying in the sun. But I adore the inventive ways of exploiting plants at the height of their production, when the flavour of each fruit is at it’s absolute climax. This appeals to me. Every culture and every context has their variation.   

​I am not even the slightest bit Italian, but I do know a little about family preserving. My parents were, and are, preservers. Driving out to ‘pick your own’ tomatoes when they were at their lowest price, spending the day sitting around our outdoor table in the sun, cutting tomatoes into giant pots and bowls. Some were stuffed into jars and heated in boiling water to seal the jars. Pots with tomato, onion, garlic, and copious amounts of basil were boiled on the stove and poured hot into jars to be the base of pastas and ratatouille for the coming year. When my parents bought the orchard it was the same thing, but with fruit, a copper jam pot and a dehydrator. One of my clearest memories of my nana is sitting on the deck, over-looking the orchard and sitting across from her cutting fresh figs for the dehydrator. I was having so much fun tearing them in half unceremoniously, putting one half in my mouth and the other on the tray. My tiny little Nana was sitting there in her fine clothes, beige apron, the table at chest height despite the three cushions she was sitting on, delicately cutting the soft fruit in half and laying them out in perfect rows. Her thin gnarly fingers working slowly but with such care. 

​Our global food system has taken this away from us in many ways. We aren’t so connected with the seasonal flow of produce. We may see prices rise and fall slightly in the supermarkets but, unless you shop at farmers markets, practically everything is available in a continuous flow via various countries and technological growing methods. We are not forced to use our imaginations and utilise the abundance when it presents itself. In the same way, we are not forced to improvise when the ingredient we want is out of season. We live in a world where recipes dictate the contents of our fridge rather than vice versa. Our relationship with produce is flippant, we grab items from the shelves without a care for what they are, where they’re from, or any particular love for them. The seasons create the flow of daily lives. Just as the tides follow the moon, our environment, our sleep, even our clothing, are all aligned with the seasons. Yet somehow we have managed to remove diet from this list. We have found a way to artificially regulate the tides contrary to the moons pull. We have worked hard to win perpetual access to strawberries but we have lost our connection with the fluctuations of seasonal produce that is there to guide us through each season. It seems so counter intuitive to eat cooling foods like watermelons in mid-winter when nature has lovingly provided us with grounding pumpkins and sweet potatoes, perfect for hot soups. If we follow the piles of 'on special' produce we generally find just what we need.  

​When the cherry tomatoes are available in one kilo tubs it’s an opportunity not to be missed. Standing in the kitchen, slicing each one in half and finding it a place on the tray, gave me so much satisfaction. I sliced mounds of tomatoes, stopped, and arranged my little gems in organised rows. Once the tray was practically full I had to slow to slicing one at a time, hunting for a gap to stuff them in. A little salt and pepper. I just happened to be at a friends house when they were pruning their rosemary and smuggled home the overgrown stems, so a full branch – flowers and all – was stripped over their happy little faces. Somewhere between 50-80 degress (celcius) for as long as you can bear. By the two hour mark there will be no where to hide, the smell of sweet, sticky tomatoes gets into every corner of the house. After an afternoon of pottering around the house in a haze of pasta fantasies and floral rosemary, I put a few pieces of bread in the toaster around the 3 hour mark. I left the tray in the oven while it was cooling down to draw out a little more moisture, but I had to steal a few. I really couldn’t wait much longer. Warm from the oven, smeared over some crunchy toast, it tasted exactly like the house smelt. They were still plump and juicy in the middle, with leathery little edges and the crunch of dried rosemary. Sweet, a little tart, and just bursting with an exaggerated tomatoey-ness. I just sat happily, chewing, the smell of tomatoes all around me, fantasising about the jars of chewy, sweet morsels to sprinkle over salads, add to pasta sauces, throw all over pizzas, or fish out of the jar to nibble on like some sort of plantbased jerky.

​It’s true. I love baking. There’s something very child-like but also maternal about it. It’s the sort of thing you want to do when you’re feeling sad or cold, dragging your feet around the house feeling a little lost. When you know someone else is feeling that way, there’s that like spark in your chest that says ‘I should bake something’.  When you say it out loud, it’s extremely 1950’s but for me it’s definitely still a reality. It’s like giving someone a little piece of sunshine, impregnated with your time, effort, and love. 
​Unfortunately, and it breaks my heart to say this, but I don’t really like eating baking or sweets.

 I’m very much a savoury girl through and through these days. In my early years of cooking I was a complete disciple of sugar. I spent hours in the little kitchen in the downstairs of my parents’ house, teaching myself everything I could about cookies, cakes, and pastry. I made Danishes, tarts, and madeleines until they were perfect. The first café kitchen I worked in, my job was to keep the cabinet and the dessert fridge full of sugary delights. Obviously I had to sample each item (scones and muffins hot from the oven of course). I couldn’t let a single Caramel Slice edge go to waste as I diligently cut huge trays into dainty little bars. I was constantly on a roller coaster from Date Scones to coffee to Humming Bird Cake and cream cheese icing. It’s only now that I realise I was a complete junky. 

​But this is one addiction where you can’t blame it all on the object of desire. Sweetness is not the enemy. Our bodies are hard wired to crave sweet foods as a survival mechanism. As hunter-gathers, fruits, sweet plants and honey were the energy mother load, and energy was what we needed. The more we were driven to finding these foods, the more likely we were to survive, thrive, and raise children. When we are talking survival of the fittest, having a sweet tooth made you one of the fittest. Now, however, energy is not what we need. We need nutrients, we need fibre, we need fresh, high vibrancy food. Sugar addiction is a massive detriment to health now that it is hidden in so many processed foods. The food industry uses it in the exact way that smoking companies use nicotine. It’s there to keep you wanting more, whether the product you’re eating is sweet or savoury. 

​Sweetness definitely has its place; a balance of sweet, salty and acid is the goal for every mouthful. That’s what we are always working to master with each dish, like a kid playing with a chemistry set – get the right quantities of each and boom! Mouth explodes. It’s the quantity of sugar that we consume which is throwing out our health and our attitude towards food. If you check the labels of the packaged foods on your supermarket shelves, you will find that almost every product contains sugar in some form or another. They may give it cute or scientific names but its still sugar. This sweet overdose has lead to a population that craves sugar in intense amounts. No longer satisfied with a spoonful of brown sugar on our porridge, we get more than that in a packet of salty chips. When I was in the throws of my sugar addiction, I didn’t think that what I was eating excessively sweet. It tasted normal to me. Now, if I eat anything with white or refined sugar, my mouth starts to water, my eyes clench shut, and I feel physically nauseous. The more we eat, the less we appreciate the taste but the more we crave it and become accustomed to that well-known, joyous sugar high. 
Eating whole foods such as grains and good fats balances blood sugar and provides real energy and satiety, so that you aren’t always looking for that sugar high. I also credit bitter dark green leaves, like kale, spinach, silverbeet, rocket etc, for balancing my pallet. Having that variety of flavours in your diet helps you taste things for what they are. They also balance blood sugar and provide huge amounts of iron, fibre, and phytonutrients, but there's no need to brag. The sourer fruits like berries, plums, and citrus are also great transition foods. The sourness really brings out the sweetness through contrast, rather than layer upon layer of different forms of sugars, like we find in so many foil packages. 

But through all of that, the therapeutic mixing, sliding into the oven, waiting, wafts of toasty smells, and pulling out a product completely change from when it went in, gets me every time. I wanted to make something that wasn't just a sweet treat, something we could snack on at anytime of the day - and that would really intensify the sweet tanginess of the plums available at the moment. These bars are filled with oats, seeds, coconut, banana – for sweetness and binding – and cinnamon. The fat from the coconut and the cinnamon both work to balance out blood sugar levels and stimulate digestion. So these are great for a little pick-me-up treat for some long lasting energy, or a breakfast on the run. 

​3 cups whole rolled oats
1 cup sunflower seeds
2 tbsp chia seeds
¼ sesame seeds
2 tbsp whole flax seed (1 tbsp if using ground)
 
1 very ripe banana
½ cup of coconut butter
3 tbsp raw honey
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground cloves
¼ cup water
 
8-10 Plums – Or any fruit that you prefer, or is in season.
2 tsp coconut sugar
 
Take aside 2 cup of oats and half of the sunflower seeds and pulse in the food processor to make a coarse flour. Add to a bowl with the remaining whole oats and seeds.
In a blender blitz the banana, coconut butter, honey, spices, and water until smooth. (If you cannot coconut butter you can use coconut oil and just add a little shredded coconut for texture).
Add the wet to the dry and combine. It will be a wet, chunky dough.
Press two thirds of the mixture into a small tin (any shape you like really), until you have a layer that covers the bottom.
This is the fun part, the fruit layer. I used a few different varieties of plum for my slice. Cut them in half, remove the stone, and place them cut side down haphazardly until they cover the base. You can use whatever fruit you like! Any stone fruit can be treated in the same way; you could add berries; if you want to use apples or pears, just slice thinly and layer across the base. Anything goes.
Once you’ve artistically arranged your chosen fruit, crumble over the remaining dough. You can do this as roughly as you like, but the more little peaks you have sticking up, the more little crispy bits you get.
Sprinkle with the coconut sugar and bake in a 180 degree oven for 35-40 minutes or until crispy and golden. 

Creamy was my favourite adjective in the title of any dish as I was growing up. It's not something I've been able to let go of. Despite the fact I remember never being able to make it through a cream-rich dish before my stomach grew queazy from dairy excess. As I became more focused on what was in my food, making the effort to use whole foods and fully understand what I was putting into my body, I grew more aware of the connection between what I ate and how I felt. It seems bizarre to me now that I had such a love for foods that made me feel so awful. A lot of people feel the connection between a food and a memory, or a certain social context, and block out the bodies physical response to what is being consumed. The expression of our social culture through food is an important link,  maintaining the bond between individual, tradition, and identity. But now that intensive commercial food production inserts itself so mercilessly into our daily lives, we have to remain mindful of who is maintaining this bond and manipulating our hunger. This soft creamy risotto is full of satiating fats that make you feel warm and cosy, without the dairy that disagrees with so many of us. Coconut cream stirred through right at the end gives all of the rich flavour and luxury where it has the greatest impact, in the foreground.  Healthy fats are so important in our diet but we really don't need the amount of fat we often consume on a daily basis, hidden below the surface in processed foods; every element of the meal cooked with its own drizzle of oil, oils absorbed into foods adding the caloric weight without the overtly satisfying flavour that tells our brain we are receiving the nutritional goods. So we add a little more on top. Adding a whole fat source like coconut cream, avocado, nut or seed butter, addresses our primal desire for fats in an honest and upfront way. You can taste each ingredient in it's own right, it's nutritional value laid open to our human instinctual desires for what nourishes you. 

Millet is one of the more obscure grains that you will not find on many tables. When I was little my mother used to give my puffed millet for breakfast. It looked like the tiny babies of those styrofoam balls used as packing material. It squeaked between my teeth and got stuck up around my gums. We used to laugh about the crazy 'bird food' we had in the house, but my mother was well ahead of her time. Feeding her children obscure grains like millet, buckwheat, barley. She was the first person I even saw eat quinoa. I adamantly turned my nose up at those grass flavoured little tadpoles she was having for breakfast. These days however, I never have the same grain two days in a row. Despite all the nutritional controversy, whether to grain or not to grain, I find a colourful variation of whole grains fills me with energy and makes we feel grounded. Millet is a small grain, similar size to quinoa. Once its cooked it breaks down and becomes soft and creamy so it makes the perfect grain for porridge and risotto.

I love risotto because it can constantly be adapted. The vegetables in this recipe can be replaced with whatever you have in the fridge, or whatever turns up in your vegie box. This isn't a recipe that you have to follow to the letter, its more of an idea for you to reinterpret as it pertains to you. The fennel and leek that I have used make for a subtly sweet risotto that can be loaded with herbs for a light spring meal. But it’s amazing with any kinds of crazy mushrooms and extra thyme, or pumpkin, a bit of chilli and some nutmeg. 

This recipe can easily be made with water but the vegetable stock adds an extra level of flavour. Because I live in an apartment with no composting facilities, making vegetable stock gives me something to do with my vegetable waste. I can never bring myself to throw it away. Everything has a a little flavour to impart a pot of simmering water. Like making soup from a stone, the scrappy vegetable ends and sad droppy greens you forgot were in the hidden depths of the fridge, add a little extra magic. I keep a bag of vegetable trash in the freezer until I have enough to fill a pot. Just cover with water and put over a low heat. You will know its ready when your house smells like sweet vegetables. It keeps in the fridge for up to a week or freeze it to take out whenever you need. 

Spring Millet Risotto
​
Two tablespoons of olive oil
One small onion, finely chopped
One small leek cut in half lengthwise and slice thinly 
Half a fennel bulb, thinly sliced plus extra for topping
Two cloves of garlic
One cup of millet
Fresh or dried thyme
Three to four cups of vegetable stock or water
One cup of coconut cream
One teaspoon of salt, plus extra to taste
Black pepper
Juice of half a lemon
Fresh parsley, chopped
Small bunch of kale, ripped from the stems
Fennel tops, chopped

Heat the olive oil in a medium pot and add the onion, leek, fennel, and garlic. Let this fry on a moderate heat until you can smell the garlic and vegetables are glossy, soft and translucent. 
While this is cooking start to heat your vegetable stock in a pan, or if you are using water you can just boil the kettle. It doesn’t have to be boiling but using cold liquid arrests the cooking process so the warmer the better. 
Add the millet to the pot and continue to fry for another five or so minutes. Browning the millet like this adds an extra toasty depth to the finished risotto. 
Add the thyme to the millet mix and continue to cook for a few minutes until the thyme is beautifully fragrant. 
Add the liquid to the risotto about half a cup at a time, stirring until most of the liquid has gone, and then continue adding more liquid. After the first three cups add the coconut cream and the salt.
Depending on the temperature of the stove and the size of the pot, you may need more water. Taste the risotto at this point, if there is still a little crunch to the millet go for the extra cup, or if you like a softer risotto you can add even more. 
Once you’ve found the consistency that you like, stirred through a few twists of cracker pepper, a splash of lemon juice and a handful of chopped fresh parsley. 
Chop half of the kale and stir through the risotto. 
Leave the rest of the kale in roughly torn pieces and mix with the extra sliced fennel and a drizzle of olive oil. Massage this salad until the kale is glossy and the fennel is soft. 
Spoon the risotto into bowls with a handful of the kale and fennel to garnish, sprinkle over the chopped leafy fennel tops and a little more cracked pepper. 
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The green tops of the leek, ends of the onion, tough stalks of the fennel bulb, and the stalks from the herbs and kale can all be put in a pot of water and gently simmered for the next few hours, while you enjoy your meal, to make fresh stock to replenish your stores. 

 ​When I first started to teach myself to cook, baking was my world. I loved the golden brown pastries, the artistically arranged fruits, jars filled with cookies, and elaborated iced cakes. Looking back it seems much more likely that I just loved that sneaky sugar. But I still find a lot of satisfaction in baking. It's one of the lost arts; the home baker who sends time lovingly creating the snacks and sweets that bring so much happiness. The gaudily wrapped “treats” (is it really a treat when it’s so damaging to your health?) are produced only to create wealth for big companies, with no care about the consumer past the point of sale.
 I come from a traditional farming family, growing up on meat, three veg, and shortbread. Granny always had a stocked biscuit tin or a cake hidden away in the bread bin. Or scones lying around the kitchen to be had with whatever homemade jam was the freshest. We could turn up unannounced and there would always be something sweet and homemade lying around to have with our tea. My only problem is that, unlike Granny, I don’t have a continuous stream of shepherds, children, friends, and grandchildren bustling through the house eating all these delights. That task falls on just the two of us. Luckily these wee cookies are made from entirely wholesome ingredients. I actually ate some of the spare cookie dough with a little almond milk for breakfast the next day. It was delicious, like a thick, chewy bircher. 

​These cookies are sweet and spicy, with a little heat in the background from the fresh ginger, which works wonders on your digestion and circulation. Almonds provide vitamin E, which is great for your skin, hair and nails. The good fats and protein in the nuts makes these cookies the perfect sweet snack to keep you satisfied without an intense sugar rollercoaster or the heavy dairy and refined flour. Veganising traditional baked goods is as simple as cracking the code the replacing the key components with plant-based ingredients. Bonus, they generally add a lot more nutritional value that the refined basics in the supermarket baking aisle. The holy trinity of baked goods is sugar, fat, and starch. Traditionally this is white sugar, butter, and white flour. 

​The sweetener can easily be replaced with honey, maple syrup, coconut sugar or black strap molasses. Taste these products before you use them in your baking because each on adds a different type of sweetness. I’ve used honey in this recipe because its mellow and light, plus I love the raw honey that we have been getting lately. I know that honey isn’t considered vegan, but I started writing about the reasons I choose to eat honey and it got a little out of hand. That will have to be it’s own story.  
Tahini acts as the fat to make these cookies golden and crisp. It is an amazing source of magnesium, iron and calcium, and is 20% protein, making it a much more powerful addition to your treats than traditional butter. Because it is a paste of the whole sesame seeds it has the fibre that you do not get in refined oil. If in doubt always use the whole seed, nut, grain, legume, fruit or vegetable, they are balanced in a particular way for a particular reason. We can mess with the form, texture, and look, but as soon as you mess with the composition, it’s an unknown quantity for your body. 
I have used whole oats as the starch to bring all of the ingredients together. This is what creates the density and, along with the tahini, the crispy edges and soft centers. You could also use any of the weird and wide array of whole grain flours available, but the rough cut oats add a very satisfying chunkiness

 
One cup of almonds, blitzed roughly
One cup of whole rolled oats
Two tablespoons fresh ginger, grated
Quarter of a teaspoon of cinnamon, ground ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, and ground cloves
Quarter of a teaspoon of salt
Two tablespoons of raw honey
Three tablespoons hulled tahini
Half a teaspoon of vanilla
 
Blitz the almonds in a food processor quickly to a rough crumble.
Mix the almonds, oats, ginger, dry spices, and salt.
Add in the honey, tahini, and vanilla. Mix together with a wooden spoon until a soft dough forms.
It will feel slightly crumbly but it will come together in your hands as you shape the dough into small round cookies.
Bake in a 180 degree oven for 10 minutes or until the cookies are golden.

These will last a week in the cookie jar, but only if it's slightly hidden. They are incredibly moreish. 
​Xx