Well, it’s been a bit of a mixed year, hasn’t it? If the Mayan apocalypse doesn’t ruin all our plans for the 25th, I’d like to wish everyone reading this, Merry Christmas!

We had friends over for dinner the other day as part of a pre-Christmas catch up. Put two teetotallers and two vinous aficionados at a table and you would think it’d be a recipe for disaster, but it was so much fun. If it takes an occasion like the holiday season for people to finally get together, then so be it. In light of recent bad news happening around the World, I’m reminded of how lucky some of us are to live happy, (relatively) uncomplicated lives and to be surrounded by loved ones, or at least be connected to friends near and far away.

At the end of the evening, dessert was brought out with a bit of a disclaimer. This recipe was new to me and I didn’t know if it would turn out well. What is it meant to be like, they asked? I’d hoped it would be chewy, gooey, crispy and crunchy.

And it was.

The recipe for the meringue comes by way of the brilliant Ottolenghi cookbook. A sweet way to end a meal, Christmas or otherwise.

Hazelnut meringues :

100g egg whites
180g sugar
generous pinch of sea salt
2 tablespoons chopped hazelnuts
1 tablespoon cocoa powder

Preheat the oven to 110’C.

In a bowl, whisk the egg whites, sugar and salt together just to combine. Warm the mixture in the bowl over a bain marie until it feels warm to touch, stirring at all times. Transfer the contents of the bowl to an electric mixer and whisk on high until the mixture has cooled down and you have a firm, shiny meringue. Swirl in the chopped hazelnuts and cocoa powder.

Place large spoonfuls of the meringue onto lined baking trays. Bake for about 2 hours or until the bottoms of the meringues feel dry.

My childhood Christmas fantasy was always a Northern Hemisphere-tinged version of this ultimate holiday season. Mittens, snow, sleigh bells, mistletoe, roasted chestnuts and dried fruit puddings. It was a ‘traditional’ Christmas that made no sense in Sydney, soaked as we were in sun and sweat year after year as my father, with a paper crown lightly plastered to his forehead by effort, perspiration and steam, plunged a blunt bread knife into the roast turkey.

Even with an air-conditioning upgrade, I couldn’t stomach the idea of all that hot food. We could have been feasting on chilled oysters, prawns, cold ham and salad, followed by sweet cherries and mangoes. And I suspected we often suffered from dry turkey because the beast continued cooking in the blistering Summer heat long after it left the oven. These days, our family celebrates the middle ground. Cold food, plus some hot food that if served even only moderately warm, will be no cause for complaint.

But, for dessert?

People who still opt for the more traditional approach might make a concession especially when it comes to the last course. Stirring crumbled pudding into store bought vanilla ice-cream before setting it in the freezer again is occasionally made a little more fancy with the addition of booze or toasted spices to qualify it as a “recipe”. I must admit, I like this approach. Learning from past experience however, I’ve decided against transporting anything frozen to a family dinner since it often arrives in the form a puddle, forcing me to hastily reinvent my dish as a chilled custard or dessert soup.

This year, if Santa doesn’t bring a heatwave, I will bake. It’ll be a variation on one of my favourite recipes made extra small, extra cute and extra delicious with limes and blackberries – both of which are plentiful and cheap at the moment. Of course, there’s always a plan B, which I shall mention in my next post.

What will you be baking for Christmas?

Chickens, a plot of green, maybe a goat.

Like many friends of mine, I’ve grown wistful for a more home-grown life. Those who know me too well however will probably scoff at my pipe dream. This junior urban warrior did not grow up with grass stains on her knees after all. Plus I scream at the sight of tiny caterpillars, which really does nothing for my gardening cred.

But the current Spring weather has been delivering bucket loads of sunshine and our balcony garden is, for a change, blooming. Never mind that the strawberries are miniscule and mouth puckeringly sour or that the blueberries are ripening at snail’s pace. Against many odds, our withered lemon verbena has sprung back to life and every day, a row of baby fennel gathers girth slowly but surely. Lots of lovely salad greens have become regular additions to our dinner plates. The nasturtium in particular has been very useful. A gift many years ago from a friend, it has now blossomed and withered then risen again from its potted crypt countless times. The gift that keeps on giving.

With some nasturtium trimmings, I made scones for dinner last night, since I was home alone and there wasn’t anyone around to tut disapprovingly at my meal choice. A generous handful of the leaves were snipped and worked into the dough along with buttermilk and a pinch of salt, before portioning and baking. The scones were still good the next day, so I had them for breakfast, cold and smeared with nasturtium butter.

Maybe we are inching towards a greener life after all. I’m already dreaming up names for the chickens.

Cluck Norris, Miss Omelette and perhaps McNugget.