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This is an adaptation of a friend's fenugreek chicken recipe. His fenugreek chicken, back when we were living in South Africa, was the first time I ever had fenugreek and the memory of it is what then pushed me, back in Switzerland, to try to get a hold of some for myself. I knew so little about ti at that point though that I wasn't even aware that there were fenugreek leaves, seeds and ground fenugreek. When the friend who eventually sourced it for me and picked it up asked me which I wanted, I had no idea, so she got me all three. I made the chicken again and then launched into my own exploration of the spice. This recipe is more or less faithful to his original recipe for the chicken but simply vegetarian, replacing the chicken with sweet potato and carrot (I do have his permission to post). The substitution worked well but obviously altered the end result. Both vegetables are quite sweet, so the emphasised the cinnamon in the recipe and the sweetness and warmth of the flavours. It also ended up a little different as I used rehydrated Kashmiri chilis instead of green chilis for the simple reason that my local grocery store didn't have any chilis available, so I used what I had on hand. This resulted in a warmer, less acidic heat. Both of these made for an excellent new dish, but I would change at least one of the vegetables and cut down on the cinnamon a little next time if I wanted something closer to the original dish but that is still vegetarian. I am sticking with my friend's units of measurement here, firstly because they are excellent, and secondly as a tribute. Ingredients: 2 sweet potatoes, chopped 3 carrots, chopped 1/2 head of garlic, grated medium chunk of ginger, grated (my friend's recipe specifies 1.2 inches) 4-6 green chilis, finely diced 1 - 1 1/2 medium onions, chopped 40% tsp of turmeric 40% tsp chili powder (I used tandoori powder as my other chili powder is too hot for Little Bit) 1 1/5 tsp salt 3/5 c dried fenugreek leaves, rehydrated in enough boiling water to cover them for 30 minutes prior to use) 30-50g butter 1 tbsp vegetable oil 1 1/5 - 2 bay leaves 1 1/5 tsp cumin, heaped, like Everest 1 tsp coriander, heaped, like Mauna Kea 30% tsp cinnamon (I think I accidentally did closer to 50% tsp this time. oops!) 1 tsp dried thyme, optional Drizzle of cream 1) Heat oil in a deep frying pan over medium heat. Throw in onions, salt, and bay leaves and sweat until just beyond golden, stirring occasionally. Add ginger, garlic and chili. Stir for another minutes. 2) Add remaining spices and stir. Add the fenugreek leaves and some of the rehydration water. Stir. 3) Spread the onion and spice mix out over the base of the pan then place the sweet potatoes and carrots on top and stir. Add butter and thyme. Add a little more tumeric if it all looks a little pale. (the original directions were to do so if the chicken looked like a polar bear, but even under-turmericked sweet potatoes don't look very polar bear-esque...) 4) Once the sweet potato and carrot have had a chance to sauté a bit, add the rest of the water and let it reduce to only a thin coating. Cover, and stir every few minutes. 5) Once the sweet potato and carrot are tender, add black pepper until you can taste it and drizzle over the cream. 6) Serve over rice, and cover when not dishing. If the dish dries out it is nowhere near as tasty. Add more water, butter or pepper as needed. This was a very tasty dish in its own right, but quite different to the original (which I will have to make again soon). This one will stick around as a veggie alternative I think, but they are quite different dishes at the end of the day. A simple substitution this wasn't in the end, but still thoroughly worth doing. The remnants in the pan which didn't get packed away immediately quietly disappeared of their own accord, which is always a good sign...

We kept this one mild as we were going to share with our 9 month old, so do feel free to spice it up

As mentioned in Day 23 of The Challenge We tend to have a light meal for lunch, like soup or salad, and we live around the corner from a farm stall. This happened because of their phenomenal fresh carrots and kale. It took all of 15 minutes to get on the table, as well as prepping for the cauliflower carbonara for dinner, it was packed full of flavours, textures, and colours while being light and easy. I highly recommend this! Just skip the eggs to make this salad vegan. Ingredients: 2 onions, spiralised 2 normal carrots (or one huge one), spiralised on the ribbon setting Kale 2 tbsp olive oil 3 tsp honey 1 tsp nigella seeds a handful of walnuts a handful of sage leaves 2 eggs 1 red pepper 2 stalks of celery 4 sundried tomatoes 1 tsp balsamic vinegar Salt and pepper to taste 1) Cut kale into thirds and steam for a few minutes, until the leaves just start to change colour - not too long as you want to retain some crunch. Place on plates. 2) thinly slice the red pepper and plate with the kale. 3) Heat half of the olive oil into a pan. When it is shimmering, add the onions and sauté until tender and starting to brown. Add nigela seeds and cook for a few more minutes before adding to the kale. 4) Meanwhile heat the rest of the oil in a second pan and sauté the carrots. Add the balsamic and the honey and the sage leaves. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, and plate up. 5) Poach the eggs for 4 minutes, then carefully extract them and place them on top of the salad. Add walnuts, celery sticks and sun-dried tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste and serve. We had this with grapes and tasty bread and local cheese, as well as a home-made mayonnaise. My husband declares to be one of his favourite things I've made.

For a vegan or dairy-free experience, swap out the whey or the milk for your favourite nut milk.

As mentioned in Day 16 of The Challenge I heard about this every year on New Year's Eve for years in The 90th Birthday or Dinner For One (do watch it if you have a minute, it is very entertaining), without ever knowing what it was. Then I tried it a couple of years ago and loved it and it has become a staple. It has a good mix of warm spice notes, and a good solid base. There are masses of different recipes out there for Mulligatawny Soup, which made it to Europe during the Raj and is thus a very tasty vestige of the British Empire and colonialism. I tried a number of different recipes and then tweaked to make one of my own. I hope you enjoy! Do leave comments :) Ingredients: 1/4 c butter 1 onion, chopped 1 carrot, diced 1 hot red pepper, diced half a head of garlic, minced 2 tsp ginger, minced 2 apples diced 3 tomatoes, diced 1/2 tsp of paprika (or tandoori powder - I find it adds a richer flavour note) 1 tsp thyme 1 tsp of curry powder of your choice (I used a strong Moroccan one, but have also used an orange curry powder from a market in Munich) 1 tsp cumin 1/2 tsp cinnamon Black pepper to taste - I like to use a lot, but the choice is yours 1/2 c red lentils 2/3 c coconut milk 3 c of chicken broth Roasted nuts to garnish (cashews are my favourite, but otherwise walnuts are very nice too) Fresh coriander to garnish 1) Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat. Sauté the onion, carrot, and pepper for a few minutes until the onion is translucent. 2) Add the garlic, ginger apples and tomatoes. Cook a further few minutes and then chuck in the spices and stir. 3) Add lentils and broth. Bring to a boil then simmer for about a half hour, until the lentils are cooked (red lentils cook quickly, so no need to soak them but you can if you want or if in doubt - over night will be super sure, but a few hours works too.) 4) Blend til about 75% of the soup is smooth, but with enough chunks remaining for texture, then add coconut milk. 5) Add toppings and serve. traditionally this would be with naan, but we've done it with tattie scones, flat bread or regular crusty bread. Any of these work. There is a reason this has become a staple for us. I hope you enjoy it too. We had no James to dish it, but I'm glad I actually looked this one up :) *Note: Don't worry about leftovers. It heats up fine, or you can make Miss Sophie's Soufflés! (Recipe coming very soon!)

Due to Covid quarantining we could not be with all the family for Christmas, so I am waiting on the last 3 days of Christmas cookies until we are all together. And in the mean time, something a little different... It sounds a little strange I know, but give it a chance. The arrival at this dish was a little peripatetic. We had peeled a pomelo for breakfast, excited for Little Bit to try another new food, especially a citrus, and we are both very fond of pomelos. We discovered with disappointment though that it was not very juicy, and was too dry with a bitter aftertaste. Fine then. I'll make it into a smoothie. SO I peeled it and prepped it, then spotted a beet in the fridge and decided that the acidity, mild bitterness and sweetness of the pomelo would play nicely with the earthy sweetness of the beetroot. I therefore peeled the latter and chucked it into the blender with the pomelo. I added some orange peel and some spices for good measure, then had to go do something else and left it there on the counter. The plan for dinner at this stage was spiralised sweet potato in a creamy mushroom sauce. When I came to make dinner though, having spiralised the sweet potato I spotted the almost purple smoothie sitting on the counter, and decided that tonight was a test night. Let's see what happens if we use the almost smoothie as a sauce for the sweet potato spirals, with the mushrooms chucked in. So that is what we did, and with a little tweaking it worked. The bitterness from the unjuicy pomelo still came through, but less so when sopped up with bread, so we decided to have the leftover sauce with cheesy gnocchi a couple of days later and it sang. Ingredients: 1 pomelo 1 beetroot 1 - 1 1/2 tsp dried orange peel 2 tbsp lemon juice 1/4 tsp cloves 1 tsp cinnamon 2 tbsp honey 2 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao Salt and pepper to taste 1) Blitz the ingredients together ( if you prefer a mellower flavour for your beetroot, steam or roast it first. I used raw beet and it worked well though.) 2) Heat slowly in a saucepan, stirring gradually, 3) Add to spirals of veg or to cheesy gnocchi or pasta. The first night the bitterness from the pomelo was a bit much. The dish had promise but needed some tweaking. We found that the starch helped counter the bitterness though and so cooking it with gnocchi, heavier in starch than the sweet potatoes with a less delicate flavour of their own, With a pomelo that was perfectly ripe though, instead of one we needed to use in something rather than just eating, I don't know if we would have encountered the same problem. This is definitely going to stick around though, it was so tasty! EDIT: After making mozzarella of my own for the first time, I used the sauce in puff pastry pockets with the mozzarella and dates. They were beautiful (and tasty!) The sauce also works well as a pink base for pizza.

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me eight cinnamon stars, seven Basler Christmas Cookies, six Pumpkin and Pineapple Cookies, five Chestnut Rings, four Poppyseed cookies, three peppermint macaroons, two orange date cookies and a freshly baked ginger snap As with the Basler Christmas Cookies on Day 7, these are a Christmas cookie that are traditional locally so I grew up with them, but we never made them at home. This was the first time I made them, and am glad I did so. They are a different type of cookie to many of the others included in this list, but I think, a fitting inclusion none-the-less. The batter was easy to make, but the icing is a bit of a pain to spread on each cookie individually (Thanks to my sister who had the patience to do so!), and as with the Basler cookies, these are supposed to be left to dry for at least 6 hours, if not over night. Unlike with the Basler ones, I actually did this with these (I am not sure what difference it makes), so the wait time can be a bit of a pain. Ingredients: 3 egg whites 1 pinch of salt 1 1/2 c icing sugar 2 tbsp of cinnamon 3 c ground almonds 2 tsp of Kirsch 1) Beat the egg whites with the salt to form stiff peaks. Fold in the icing sugar and set aside about 2 tbsp for the icing. 2) Add the cinnamon and the ground almonds, and the kirsch if using. Mix until you get a stiff dough. 3) Roll out the cookie dough on a sugared surface to about 1 cm thick and then cut out stars using a small star cookie cutter (or a toy from your Little One's shape sorter, as I did...) 4) Ice the stars, placing a dollop of icing in the middle of the star and using the blade of a knife or a toothpick to draw it out towards the tips. (Optional: 5) Allow the stars to dry for at least 6 hours or overnight. I did for these but not for the Basler cookies. Neither seems to have suffered for the different treatment. 6) Bake at 250°C for 5 minutes (take them out while the icing is still white as I clearly didn't do...) These are very tasty! I did miss our the kirsch by mistake ( trying to make a very belated Thanksgiving dinner at the same time and put Little Bit down for bed was maybe not very conducive to following a recipe), and I do think they suffered for the lack of Kirsch. The allowing them to dry for hours is also a bit irritating, but the cookies in the end are well worth it, and very cute. And no one need ever know that I used a toy instead of a cookie cutter ;)

cooked, and in a small saucepan I added a cube of a carrot ginger purée that I made and keep in the freezer

As mentioned in Day 5 of The Challenge This was another experiment. It being mid August, it's been rather hot here the last few days so the desire for a cold soup at lunch was strong. My basil plant is doing tremendously well now that I've figured out where it is happiest on the balcony. It was going wild, bushy and quite tall, so I thought a cold basil soup might be refreshing for lunch. I had no real idea of how exactly to go about it until I started, but start I did and this is what it got me. Just skip the goats cheese to make this soup vegan. Ingredients: Fresh basil, about 5 cups pre-chopping, roughly chopped 1 tbsp olive oil 3 cloves of garlic, sliced 1 onion, chopped 2 carrots, roughly chopped 1 small potato, chopped 1 tomato, chopped 2 cups of spinach Black pepper and salt, to taste 1/2 tsp sumac 2 tbsp lemon juice Thick sliced bread - 2-3 slices per person Goat cheese - 1 slice per bread slice Cherry tomatoes 1) Heat the olive oil in a saucepan and add onions and garlic. Sauté until translucent then add carrots and potato. Allow to cook for a few minutes until softening, 2)Add the tomato, spinach and basil. Add water. Simmer for a couple of minutes then remove from the heat. Blend until smooth. Add pepper and sumac and the lemon juice. Chill 3) While the soup is chilling, prepare the crostini. Put the bread under the grill in the oven at about 200°C for a few minutes, then once the first side is toasted, flip them over. Allow the second side to toast for a few minutes then put the cheese on top and allow to melt and begin to crisp at the edges. 4) Slice the cherry tomatoes in half and place on top of the goat cheese for 5 minutes. Serve warm with the chilled soup with an extra splash of lemon juice or balsamic as needed. As an experiment this worked rather well, although I think in future it might benefit from cooking a bit less and from a reduction in spinach to really allow the basil to shine through better. It was flavourful and refreshing though, matching beautifully with the goat cheese toasts. A worthy use of my basil plant!

Hubby used most of a chicken making pho this weekend, which naturally generated rather a lot of nice, rich chicken stock. What else to do with beautiful rich stock than risotto? (I do feel that I am mildly predictable on that score at times). We also had giant mushrooms in the fridge, which are quite a rare find in the grocery store. Maybe it is having read Babar Learns to Cook a few too many times recently to Little One, but the large mushrooms immediately told me to stuff them. Both seemed like good ideas, so I decided to couple them up and serve the mushrooms on the risotto. Unsure what to stuff the mushrooms with, Hubby pointed out that we had a very lovely, if somewhat lonely, aubergine in the fridge, so that became the stuffing. The rest, as they say, is history (well, half of it is anyway. the other half is waiting to become a very tasty leftover dinner sometime in the next couple of days, at which point it too will become history.) Ingredients: For the Risotto: 2 tbsp olive oil 1 onion, chopped 4-5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped 300 g arborio rice 2 1/2 c chicken stock a pinch of saffron 1 tsp (ish) dried orange peel 1 - 1/2 c parmesan 2 tbsp butter Salt and pepper to taste For the Mushrooms: 5 large stuffable mushrooms 1 tbsp olive oil 1 red onion, chopped 1/2 head garlic, sliced 1/2 aubergine, cubed 200g chopped tinned tomatoes 1 c red wine 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon 4 cloves 1 tsp rosemary 1/4 c millet Salt and pepper to taste 1) Start the risotto. Heat olive oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Sauté onions and garlic for about 3 minutes, then add the rice. Stir occasionally, allowing the rice to become translucent in the oil. 2) Add the saffron and orange peel and about half of the chicken stock. Stir regularly, and keep it on medium heat. When the liquid is most of the way absorbed, add the rest of the stock and continue stirring. 3) Meanwhile, heat the oil for the mushroom filling in a small frying pan. Sauté the onions and garlic. While they are starting to sweat, cut up the aubergine and the mushroom stalks. After a couple of minutes, add these and the rosemary to the pan. Stir, cooking over medium heat. 4) Cook the mushroom filling for about 5 minutes, then add the chopped tomatoes, about half the wine, and the spices. 5) When the tomato mix has reduced a bit. add the millet and the rest of the wine. Cook for a further 5 - 10 minutes until the liquid is most of the way absorbed. When this has happened, fill the mushroom cups with the tomato mix. Set aside. 6) Use 1 tbsp of the butter to grease an ovenproof dish. Stir most of the parmesan, finely grated, into the risotto, and test a grain of rice. If it is almost cooked, make sure there is still a little liquid, adding a little stock or water if necessary, and pour into the prepared dish. Place the mushroom cups on top and spoon remaining filling around the cups on top of the risotto. Dot with the remaining tbsp of butter and the remaining cheese, either thinly sliced or grated. 7) Bake at 180°C for about 20 minutes, until the cheese is melted and golden, and the rice and mushrooms are fully cooked through. Serve piping hot. I wasn't sure how all the flavours would play together, but I needn't have worried. It was a big hit with all of us and I look forward to the leftovers. The mushrooms had a lovely nutty depth of flavour, while the warm spice notes of the sauce, contrasted with the acidity of the tomatoes created a nice balance. A minor problem though, that hubby assures me isn't an issue, is that the risotto was perhaps a little bland. I specifically didn't want to over flavour it and have it compete with the mushrooms, but it could have had a little more going for it. It was nice and creamy though. This could easily be made with vegetable stock, making this vegetarian, and for a fancier look, it could be cooked in individual ramequins. All in all, though, I am very happy with this one.