Cafe Adventures: Dear Jervois

While the Ponsonby block proves to be one of the top places to find your café fix, new kid ‘Dear Jervois’ seems to holding up pretty well against the growing number of tough competitors.

Clean, warm, open, with a slight industrial feel, Dear Jervois is a beautiful addition to the Herne Bay café scene, with cute miss matched barstools, old brown oak tables and an edgy black painted brick outside.

Product of the owners from the popular café Little King in Milford, it is clear that they have brought their A-game, serving up a selection of delicious meals from balsamic mushroom cibbatta to raw cabinet desserts, whilst also managing to please any vegan, gluten-free or wheat-free patrons.

Of course it was only a matter of time till a café with such excellent ‘Supreme’ coffee, friendly service and delicious food gained a big reputation, so any curious customers better get in nice and early if they want quick service.

Opening hours: Monday- Friday 7am-4pm : Weekends 8am-4pm

Cafe Adventures: Monday's

So about a month ago I decided to try out a ‘vegan week’ partly out of curiosity (no butter or milk, what do you eat!?) and as a little healthy kick start to my holidays. While it was an interesting week and pushed me to try out heaps of new and nurticious recipes like spirilina bars, muesli and vegan fries (recipes to come!) it also gave me a new appreciation for the importance of nourishing your body with while some and healthy foods. Enter Mondays café, a litte eatery that is gaining huge popularity as the new a addition to the ‘health café’ food scene.

Vegan, gluten free, vegetarian, paleo or just interested in a insanely delicious and guilt free meal, Mondays has you covered with a large selection of cakes, coffee, and lunch options. While of course it is going to leave your wallet slightly lighter than a normal café, the quality and types of ingredients are nothing compared to the general buttered muffins and toasted Panini’s you find anywhere else. They also happen top Stock Raw Kitchen treats, which is my new current obsession!

While Mondays seems to be doing everything right from smiley, helpful staff to quick delicious service their current location is no smaller than a New York shoebox apartment, with seating for 5-6 people at most. Hopefully with their obvious increasing popularity they will think of relocating to a larger area with more space but for now it’s probably best to order to go, and considerer somewhere else for large catch-up coffees with friends.

 I decided to splash out (Kingsland is a bit of a trip from town anyway) and bought a raspberry chocolate slice, coconut water and a spelt and pumpkin bread sandwich with marinated mushrooms, creamy cashew aioli and spinach.

 So if your body is feeling like a healthy pick me up or if you want to know if the rumors are true, take a trip to Kingsland, Mondays and see for yourself!

For any instagram users check them out at @mondayswholefoods. Although word to the wise, make sure you aren’t hungry before following, or you might just find yourself with a craving only Monday’s warm chocolate zuchinni cake can satisfy!

La Cigale French Markets

 Saturday mornings really are the make or break of the weekend, usually dictating how the rest of your Saturday or Sunday will go. Definitely for me it usually starts with a long sleep in, a carelessly thrown together breakfast and an episode of friends.

Although sometimes there is nothing better than getting up early and starting your weekend with some exercise or a healthy breakfast, or in my case doing both by heading down to the La Cigale French Markets. Whether you go to moodily sip coffee with a friend enjoying the warm heaters and a French pastry, or perusing the large colourful range of veges with a fresh juice in hand there really is a little something for everyone.

 While I don’t go as often as I would like, when I heard that Raw Kitchen, a raw healthy baking supplier for the likes of Rad café or Mondays was setting up shop there this weekend I had to go check them out. Unfortunately they don’t currently have a store so I jumped at the chance to check out all of their products without having to travel to Kingsland or Ponsonby.

Vegan 'Snickers Bar' from Raw Kitchen

 And if live street performers, a French fromagerie/bakery and a range of good food from hummus to muesli and everything in-between weren’t enough to convince you to pay a visit, there is always Organic Mechanic. As a person who has had one to many watery tasteless ‘healthy’ smoothies when I saw their chalkboards boasting a range of ‘delicious’ vegan drinks I was somewhat cynical. This was a time I was happy to be proved wrong, chocolaty, thick and smooth its impossible to believe that they only use fruit, veg and seeds!

"Hercules" Berry banana and chocolate Smoothie   

So go check it out Saturday 8am- 1pm, although as a tip beat the traffic and get the best pick of everything by getting there between 8-9.30am

Healthy Blueberry Muffins

Let me be honest with you, I hate math… and science.  Give me a camera, set of paints or pencil and paper then I’m entertained for hours, even days at a time, as long as I can remain a safe distance away from calculators and simultaneous equations.

The addition of ¼ cup and ¾ cup of flour and converting Fahrenheit to Celsius is probably as close as anyone will ever find me to algebra or calculus.

 So today in celebrations of my strong dislike for all things highly mathematical, or academic, I’m going to keep the math reeeeeeeal simple.

Winter day + day off school + fresh warm blueberry muffins = good

Winter day + day off school – fresh warm blueberry muffins = bad

Now that was relatively painless wasn’t it? So lets get to the important part…

Ingredients

•                2 cups whole wheat flour

•                ½ cup bran flakes

•                1/3 cup mejool dates soaked*

•                3 teaspoons baking powder

•                1 teaspoon salt

•                ¾ cup Almond milk/ Skim milk

•                1/2 cup canola or light vegetable oil

•                1 egg

•                Zest of one lemon/orange

•                1 cup fresh blueberries

•                ¼ cup buckwheat and linseed (optional)

•                Raw or turbinado sugar

(Makes 12 Muffins)

* If you have time to prepare, these dates are delicious when soaked overnight in a bowl with a can of light coconut cream. Over a few hours the dates absorb up the cream to create these large, sweet, soft coconutty dates. Although if you are short of time soak them in a bowl with boiling water for a few moments

 Method

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a 12 muffin cup tin with paper baking cups, or grease muffin cups.

In a medium bowl whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

In large bowl whisk together milk, oil, egg and lemon zest. Pour dry ingredients, all at once, into wet ingredients, and stir together until dry ingredients are just moistened (batter will be lumpy). Do not over mix This is the most vital step, as if you just whisk instead of fold the muffins will turn out tough and small.

Fold in blueberries gently. Scoop or spoon the batter evenly into muffin cups, they will not rise too much so fill the cups quite high.

Sprinkle with raw sugar. Bake until golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Immediately remove muffins from pan to cooling rack.