I hope all those who celebrate had a happy Christmas and those who are vegetarian or vegan did not get too frustrated by relatives asking if they were sure they didn’t want any of the Christmas ham.

The new year is rapidly approaching and it’s always a good time to take stock of progress from the year before and what can be improved for the coming year.  I achieved my 2015 goal of becoming a better cook and bringing more fresh food into my eating and moving towards a plant based diet.  The recipes on this blog have been part of my journey working to fit healthy eating into a busy lifestyle.  I have found sharing them to be helpful for me and hopefully have been useful to those of you reading.

However I have missed making my weight loss goal for 2015 by a significant margin.  I have lost weight and the changes in my diet have left me with more energy and feeling healthier.  But I’m still significantly heavier than I should be and my weight loss has slowed right down.

My sweet tooth is the culprit here.  I love chocolate, I love cake and it’s not that rare for me to end up eating two slices of cake a day, or a brownie for afternoon tea and a bar of chocolate on the train home. Completely avoiding sugar works for a little while, until I get frustrated and end up eating an entire packet of Cadbury’s dairy milk.

Summer fruits are out in full force here in Australia, which has inspired me to set a healthy dessert challenge.  Every week in January I am going to be sharing my progress finding healthy desserts that can be made in 7 minutes.

Not so much with the healthy, but here are some dessert ideas that can be made in under 7 minutes:

• 5 minute microwave berry cobbler from Domestic Fits
• Single serving apple crisp from Pinch of Yum, and
• Microwave lemon delicious pudding

Do you have a go-to healthy dessert to satisfy sweet tooth cravings?