morning of playing in the snow with Little Bit, we decided to have bacon and eggs for lunch, and for good

Späztle is another traditional Swiss and German food that I grew up with. An excellent comfort food dish for a winter evening.

Fold in the powdered sugar and set aside 2 tbsp for the icing. If using, fold in cacao at this point. 2) Mix in the nuts, cinnamon and kirsch to form a stiff dough.

This recipe comes with fond memories, both of times with them and since starting to make it for myself

It is an incredibly chameleon-like meal, able to shift to fit the mood, your fridge, tastes or dietary

Having worked in the NHS just after he left, it did bring back some memories, some good, some bad.

It is Christmas Cookie season again, and you may have noticed from some of my recent posts that I've been doing some baking. Along with the traditional ones, some of which I've tweaked a little this year) I had the idea, a little out of the blue, of trying to make roast pumpkin cookies. I started out with my snickerdoodle recipe as a base and then went from there, adding and tweaking as I went until I came out with something I could be happy with. Some of the ingredients, like balsamic, may seem a little weird at a glance, but believe me, they work! I added the apple cider vinegar initially as I needed an acid to activate the baking soda and was out of cream of tartar. The balsamic and the amchoor were added after successive trials in an effort to balance out the flavour of the cookies - not too sweet, a little depth, some brightness, and some spice. The recipe below is the result of trial five, I believe. I have made them with three different toppings, and they work plain too, so I will detail all three below and leave it up to you. Ingredients: 1 c pumpkin, roasted to a mush 1/2 c sugar 1 c brown sugar 2 eggs 3 c flour 1 tsp baking soda 2 tsp apple cider vinegar 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar 1/4 tsp almond extract 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp ginger 1/4 tsp amchoor (ground mango powder - skip it if you don't have any) 1/4 c cacao nibs 1/3 c ground hazelnuts Zest 1 orange For the glaze: 1/4 c powdered sugar 1/2 tbsp milk 1/4 tsp (scant!) almond extract For chocolate covered cookies 75 g dark chocolate (or milk, if you really must...) OR: 3 tbsp mascarpone (sweeten slightly if you want, but I liked it just plain) 1) In a bowl, beat together the pumpkin and the sugars until well combined. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well. 2) Gradually add the other ingredients, stirring to form a rather sticky dough. Drop by small teaspoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet and flatten with a knife dipped in cold water. Bake at 175°C for about 8 minutes. Cool thoroughly on a wire rack. 3) To glaze the cookies, mix the powdered sugar, milk and almond extract to form a thick glaze. When they are completely cool, dip the cookies' tops in the glaze and then leave to dry for about 20-30 minutes. To chocolate cover the cookies, melt the chocolate in a Bain Marie, stirring regularly. Remove from heat when the chocolate is all melted and silky to keep it from burning. Dip the cookies in the chocolate and leave to harden for about 30 minutes. If need be, place the cookies on a window sill or in the fridge for a few minutes to help the process along a little. Or: Spread a little mascarpone on each cookie. I am really happy with how these came out. They are a cross between cookies and cake, but after a couple of days become mini-cake bites. I love the balance of flavours in these cookies, the soft crumb and the fact that they didn't come out too sweet. I brought these to a games night with some friends and the consensus was that they are best with the glaze, between glaze and chocolate. Trying them later with the mascarpone though, that might be my favourite variation. If you try them, do let me know what your favourite is!

My dad brought by some rhubarb from his garden the other day. They are the biggest and longest rhubarb stalks I have ever seen. As well as standard sweet rhubarb dishes, I wanted to use some to make something savoury, and so decided to try a risotto. It was cool and rainy and so a perfect risotto day, too. While assembling it, the rhubarb component was quite tart, but it balanced out with lots of ginger, carrots and some honey, I wanted the risotto itself to be quite creamy so I cooked it mostly with milk. Grabbing something from the fridge though, I noticed a lonely log of goat's cheese on the shelf and thought that would pair quite well, so it went in too. Ingredients: 1-2 red onions, chopped 1 tbsp olive oil 1/2 head of garlic, sliced 2 carrots, diced 2 long sticks of rhubarb, diced 3 inches of ginger, diced 2 tsp honey 2-3 tsp sage Salt and pepper to taste 1 tbsp olive oil 1 1/2 - 2 c arborio rice 2-3 c milk 1-2 c water Lots of pepper 1/4 c goat's cheese Toasted walnuts to top 1) In a deep sauté pan, heat the olive oil. Add onions , garlic and ginger and cook until fragrant. Add other ingredients and cook on medium heat until carrot and rhubarb are tender. 2) In a saucepan, heat the olive oil. Add rice and cook until rice becomes translucent but do NOT brown. Add 1 c water and cook, stirring almost constantly, until mostly absorbed. Add about half the milk and cook, stirring still, until almost absorbed. Add the rest of the milk and cook further (20-25 minutes in total, roughly). If when this has been absorbed the rice is still a little under done, add the last of the water. Add pepper and goat's cheese and stir until melted. 3) Serve rice topped with rhubarb mix and toasted walnut halves. This was super tasty! The veg was a little softer than I would have liked because poor planning meant I didn't have all the ingredients at the start and so ended up cooking it for a little longer than intended. Other than that though, I would not change anything. We did discover though that Little Bit doesn't eat goat's cheese. Oh well. He had the veg and some frozen blueberries instead.

Don't be fooled by the way the bananas look when they come out of the oven either. They are pure caramel goodness!

Ravioli recipe number four for the Ravioli Challenge that my sister set me. This has a different pasta to the others, but a simple filling and it sticks with the lemon sauce from the Lemon and Garlic Chicken Ravioli on day 2. The first batch of these had purple basilic from my balcony mixed din with the Fromage Blanc (homemade!), but thanks to Little Bit's gardening efforts there wasn't much of that. The rest was made (unfortunately) with dried basilic. I also experimented with a little garlic powder in some of the filling. I used date syrup in the sauce, but I suspect that honey or molasses would do just as well, the flavour would just be a little different. Ingredients: For the pasta: 3 beets, roasted until soft 3 c flour 2 eggs For the filling: 2 1/2 c fromage blanc or other cream cheese A large bunch of fresh basilic, minced (purple if possible. In a pinch dried will work too Salt to taste (Optional 1/2 tsp garlic powder) For the Sauce: Zest of 1 lemon Juice of 1 lemon 4 cloves garlic, crushed 2 tsp date syrup 2-3 tbsp olive oil Salt and pepper to taste 1) Mash roasted beets as smooth as possible. Place flour in a large mixing bowl, make a well in the centre and crack in the eggs. Beat them into the flour gradually, then add the beets and mix to form a soft, elastic dough. 2) Make the filling: mix the cream cheese with the basilic (fresh or dried), the salt and the garlic powder if using. 3) Pass fist-sized pieces of dough through progressively higher settings on a pasta maker until thin. Use a ravioli mould to make hollows in the sheet of pasta and place 1/2 tsp of filling in each. Place a second pasta sheet over the top, seal and cut. (Alternatively use a ravioli cutter). 4) Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the ravioli and boil for a few minutes before draining them. Careful: fresh pasta cooks fast! 5) Make the sauce: Over low heat, mix all ingredients together. Stir and allow to cook for a few minutes. Drizzle over the top of the ravioli. I really liked the flavour combos in this one (like I didn't in the others?). They seemed fresh and zesty and not too heavy. Four types of ravioli in a week was a bit of a challenge, especially with Little One around, but it was fun and really interesting to challenge myself to come up with the different flavour profiles while sticking within the parameters my sister set me for the challenge. And having sat and thought on ravioli quite a lot for a week, I have a few more ideas I want to try out! Watch this space! In case you want to try making these but don't have a pasta machine , pasta tree or a ravioli cutter, click on the links to get one of your own! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.