This week in Bite: A nice up of tea and a freshly-baked bran muffin

Okay. We've managed to get the kids settled back in to their school/daycare routine, those heading to uni are almost sorted and those in the workforce are already looking forward to the next break. We're all deserving of a cup of tea and yes, thank you Aaron, I will have a freshly baked bran muffin with mine. They have always been a favourite and I can't quite recall when or why I stopped making them, but it has been too long, so we're bringing them back, with slight enhancement (yes they've gone vegan!).

It's also an expensive time of the year so you might want to start thinking about some cheaper cuts of meat - ask your butcher for lamb flaps to slow cook for Allyson Gofton's pulled Mexican spiced lamb. Make good use of all the well-priced seasonal fruit and veg and snap up those plums for Peter Gordon's awesome plum chutney.

To help with the filling of those lunchboxes Michael Meredith from Eat My Lunch shares a couple of recipes – his favourite

egg and avocado sandwich

and a

roasted vegetable frittata

.

I like to continue my holiday-style cooking through January and February and am looking to the Small Luxury Hotels of the World for inspiration with a heady Malaysian curry, a ceviche to put you beachside at St Barts and crayfish meatballs lakeside at Eichardt's in Queenstown.

Tea breaks and holidays aside, there is dinner to make and tonight it's sweet and juicy lamb cutlets (a good way to make a more expensive cut go a long way) with roasted carrots and beets.

Also in Bite this week:

Know your pomegranates
18 ways to set your 2018 on fire: a series
Magnesium in the diet