Merry Christmas / Meri Kirihimete

The pav is in the oven.

The kumara salad is ready to go.

The strawberries are being cut.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Last minute Christmas noms: Super Easy Gingerbread Men

I love Christmas. I love the decorations, the carols, the festive cheer, the celebrating with friends and family and of course the baking. Christmas has the best baking.

However, Christmas can also be a rather stressful time of year. Fun good stress but hectic non-the less. Multiple family dos fit in. Dishes to make for said-family dos that feed a crowd and caters for the vegetarian + vegan + dairy-intolerant + gluten-free+ only-eats-meat guests. The yearly internal struggle of wanting to go to midnight mass but it being way past your bed time. The age old present buying dilemma of what to get for the work-colleage-who-you’ve-never-talked-to-but-got-as-a-secret santa / person-who-has-everything / distant-relative-who’s-come-visiting / surprise-last-minute-RSVP-to-xmas??

The answer to all of the above is of course 42 sweets/chocolate/baked goodies!

So any Christmas baking that is quick and easy and stress-free is my kind of Christmas baking.

These Super Easy Gingerbread Men have been my godsend this Christmas. They are indeed dead easy/ fool proof / fail-safe. You get maximum wow points for minimal effort. I mean, you don’t even need a rolling pin. They are also completely addictively delicious. Plus just look at them. Adorbs.

Last minute Christmas noms: Christmas truffles

This year's Christmas has been a last minute kinda Christmas.

Got all the prezzies last minute (just finished today whew). Flying up last minute (Christmas eve, evening). Packing for being away for 2 months, you guessed it last minute (aka have not started, yikes).

Only just finished up the last of these bad boys today and managed to get some good piccies...so very sorry for the last minute Christmas noms posting!

Party Time: Hundreds and Thousands Sprinkles Layer Cake

Nothing says it's party time like 100s and 1000s.  And I've had two awesome reasons to celebrate lately.

1) I passed my finals exams for medicine. Wooohoooo! One more year as an intern left before becoming a real doctor. Beyond exciting.

2) A week ago, I turned the big three-oh. I gotta say, the dirty thirties are awesome!

We had a 3 day non-stop eating bonanza.  I am not even kidding - we did high tea lunch, byo dinner, ice cream and pancakes brunch, all you can eat meat Brazilian churrasco lunch, Chinese banquet dinner, and rounded off with a buffet diy sushi brunch. Food, food, and more food. It was glorious.

All weekend I was surrounded by food, friends, family. New friends, old friends. Breaking bread with the people who had known me the longest and knew me the best. I had never felt more loved or more blessed. The whole time I had just one thought running through my head: this is what happiness is.

{sprinkles = happiness}

You know, I’d always thought that once you had reached 30, you’d be all grown up and do proper adult things. As it turns out some things have most definitely changed:

• most of my friends now have a kiddo or two;
• an awesome Friday night is home with the hubby watching Sherlock; and
• I’ve started using eye cream.

But some things stay exactly the same:

• we all still crack up at dirty jokes;
• we still love giving each other stick; and
• I’m still at uni (sigh).

Not to mention even at the ripe old age of 30 we all still think 100s and 1000s equals happiness and parties. So to mark my 30th, to celebrate passing exams and because I am clearly 30 going on 3, I made a Hundreds and Thousands Layer Cake.

One can never be too old for sprinkles.

Snapshots of exam delirium

It's just over a week until the finals and I'm going a little stir crazy so I thought I'd share some insanity love with you all.

I have so many Exam Time Dinner recipes sitting my on my camera waiting to be posted but I've banned myself from photo editing soooooo instead I'm going to share some of the things that have been keeping me amused this exam period.  It's mainly home stuff because I'm a little bit obsessed with The Block at the moment and it's not procrastinating if it's "necessary".

6 Snapshots of Exam Delirium

1. Highlighters light up my life

What are exams without a good set of highlighters. They're just so pretty and these are even named after me.

Me right now

Studying is no fun.

I would SO much rather be baking. Or cooking. Or doing any number fun happy things like making these fun little posters of the rallying battle cry in my brain at the mo.

Do you know I can't even remember the last time I made a batch of cupcakes?!?  What is life without cupcakes I ask you??

Why did I think it would be a good idea to go back to uni again?
Because I had forgotten the life consuming misery that is exams. sigh.

Ok enough moaning and procrastiposting. Back to cramming (and maybe just a teeny bit of pinteresting).

Black forest chia chocolate pudding and a favour

First, I'd like to ask you a favour.

10 years ago today, my dad turned 48.
For his birthday, he cooked us dinner.  Even though he was really sick.
That's the kinda person he was, always putting others before himself. Always putting us first.

That was the last birthday we got to celebrate with him.  He passed away five months later.

The older I get, the more I appreciate the things he did for us and the person he was.  There isn't a day that goes by that I'm not thinking about him, missing him, and wanting to be more like him.

So today I'm celebrating his memory with you all: those of you who knew him, those of you who loved him, those of you who he never even met - because he was too good a person not to share.

And my favour is this: Let's all do something nice for someone today. Even if it is only a little thing, the world would be a little bit of a better place today, because of you, because of my dad.

Happy birthday Dad.

Every year on Dad's birthday, I try to make something black forest because that was his favourite type of cake. So this year, since I'm on a bit of a health buzz, I made Black Forest Chia Chocolate Pudding. Even though I know Dad would've scrunched his nose at all the hippy stuff.

Procrasticooking: Grilled paneer, edamame & asparagus salad with soy coriander dressing

procrasticooking
prə(ʊ)ˌkrasti /ˈkʊkɪŋ
noun 
    the act or practice of  preparing elaborate meals to delay exam study
    Variant of: procrastibaking 

It's med finals.
It's peak exam stress time.
No sleep. Gallons of coffee.
And of course, plenty of procrasticooking.
A girl's gotta eat right?

I went a little crazy at the butchers last week so we've been having lots of gloriously carnivorous creations recently: slow roasted lamb shoulder, chicken cacciatore, steak with pepper cream sauce, so last night to balance things out, we went green with a Grilled Paneer, Edamame & Asparagus Salad with Soy Coriander Dressing.

If you want a super quick, healthy, mid-week, mid-exam meal - look no further.