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Fall is here! And with it all those deliciously autumnal fruits like plums! What better way to celebrate the season on still-warm days than a plum smoothie, a marriage of the end of summer with early fall? Cool but warmly spiced, this smoothie hit the right notes. I don't usually share smoothie recipes as they are so basic, but I really liked the flavours in this one and couldn't resist! Ingredients: 2 c whey 1/2 c hazelnut yogurt 1/3 c raisins 1/2 c oats, 6-8 plums, pitted and roughly chopped 1 fig, quartered 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao A pinch of fenugreek 1/4 c chia seeds Place ingredients in a blender and whiz until smooth. Serve with gingerbread and enjoy! Enjoyed by all of us, although Little Bit was too busy sucking on his gingerbread to finish his smoothie until later...

Third on the challenge of coming up with four different types of ravioli in a week for my sister is the Pork and Apple Ravioli. We had these with a creamy mushroom sauce, just like the Pumpkin and Sage Ravioli on night one, but this time I added some apple cider vinegar and Spiced cacao to the sauce to match the other flavours. These came out really nicely. Ingredients: For the Pasta: 2 1/2 - 3 c flour 3 eggs 2 tbsp apple sauce 1 tsp thyme Pepper For the Filling: 2 tbsp olive oil 250-300 g pork, minced 1 c apple sauce 1 large red onion, minced 1 tsp cinnamon 1 - 1 1/2 tsp tandoori powder 1/2 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao For the Sauce: 2 tbsp butter 1 c mushrooms, chopped 1-1 1/2 c milk 1/4 c apple cider vinegar 1 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao Nutmeg, freshly grated 1) In a large skillet, heat the oil for the filling and sauté the onion. When it is soft, add the pork, cooking until the meat begins to brown. Add the other ingredients for the filling, stirring regularly, until it all comes together. Taste test and put aside to cool. 2) Meanwhile, place flour in a large mixing bowl. Grind in pepper and add thyme. Make a well in the flour and crack in the eggs. Add the apple sauce and mix the flour into the apple and eggs gradually with a fork, to form a soft, elastic dough. 3) Pass fist-sized pieces of dough through progressively higher settings on a pasta maker until as thin as possible. 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 water to a rolling boil. In the meantime make a roux. Melt 1 tbsp butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour, and then add milk bit by bit, stirring well. Add the vinegar and Aloha Spiced Cacao. Sauté mushrooms in the remaining 2 tbsp butter and add to the sauce. Salt and pepper to taste. 5) Boil ravioli in batches for 4-5 minutes at most. Fresh pasta doesn't take long! Drain and serve with some sauce. These were really tasty, and I feel that they were a worthy inclusion in this challenge. I might have done a different sauce for these, except that one of the conditions of the challenge was to try and use only a couple of different doughs and a couple of different sauces, using the fillings for the variation for the most part. As we had these all in a row, I've added some variations, but I do feel that the variations would be easy to add in even with four different types of ravioli going at once. A note on the challenge of making ravioli. I struggle to get them to not stick to each other or whatever surface they are on between making and cooking. The longer they sit, the more problematic it can be. I've tried using flour or cornstarch. I try to avoid plastic wrap as much as possible so that is out. As far as it goes, the corn starch works quite well, probably better than the flour, but it is hard to get good enough coverage to avoid any sticking and tearing in the ravioli. Part of my problem is also my lack of counter space in the kitchen. I have to make these in the dining room on the table and then transfer them, which is easiest done on cutting boards, but then limited space means that it is more tempting to stack them up... If any one has any better ideas, I'm all ears! 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.

My parents' neighbour gave me a massive basket of freshly picked chanterelles, and sweet potatoes were on sale again, so this naturally came out of it. The flavouring was a little non-traditional but felt appropriate to the encroaching autumn, and it was deliciously warm and filling after a long day out and about with friends. Ingredients: 2 tbsp olive oil 3 c arborio rice 7 c whey (approx) 1 tsp rosemary 3-4 sweet potatoes, chopped 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp thyme 2 - 2 1/2 tsp Urfa Biber 2 c milk 1-2 c cheese, grated 3 tbsp butter Salt and pepper to taste 3c chanterelles 2-3 tbsp butter 1) Heat oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add rice and rosemary and sauté until the rice is translucent. Add whey 2 c at a time and sweet potato pieces, and cook over medium-low heat, stirring regularly, until the liquid is absorbed. Stir in spices. Reduce heat and cover. 2) Sauté chanterelles in butter, and add them and their liquid to the risotto, stirring to incorporate thoroughly. Stir in cheese and enough milk to achieve desired thickness and consistency. Add butter just before plating. Some of the flavouring was admittedly because I used a little too much whey in my rush to get it cooking before running off to bathe Little One. I then discovered that it was too acidic and a little flat and so added a bit of this and a bit of that to compensate. It also ended up ready long before Little One, overtired after a long day, actually consented to go down, so I added milk to keep it moist. Flavours ended up all over the place, and initially, I wasn't sure about it, especially when the feedback I got about it was "interesting" and "different", but then pulling out leftovers a few days later, I was pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed the flavour combinations. Some of the leftovers we turned into arancini balls, using them to try out my new airfryer. I made balls of the leftover rice and rolled them in cheese the first night. That got a little messy, so the second time around, I rolled them in breadcrumbs instead, mixing the cheese into the risotto to thicken it a little in the hopes of getting it to hold its shape better. The first batch I stuffed with some of my Fromage blanc too. These were really tasty and I was very pleased with them for a first attempt at arancini, but they were phenomenally messy. I might need to start with a stiffer, less creamy risotto next time.

I was talking to family in Hawaii recently, and it was evening for them, morning for me. They were having corn muffins with dinner, so I decided to have corn muffins for breakfast. Somehow though, on the way to go make them, I ended up deciding that they were going to be oatmeal muffins, and then I was going to add pear. Gradually, what with one thing and another, they morphed into something wholly new, adding a bit of this and a bit of that. As they came out really tasty, I thought I'd share. They are almost not sweet at all, and are very good with an added smear of richness from some butter. Ingredients: 1c flour 1/2c oats 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 c vegetable oil 3/4c brown sugar 1 egg 1/4 c milk 1/2 tsp almond extract 1/4 c unsweetened bakers cacao 1/4 c ground almonds Zest of 1 orange 1 large pear, coarsely grated 1) Mix together dry ingredients. Gradually add wet ingredients, mixing well after each addition. 2) Spoon into muffin cups, about 2/3 full. Bake at 180°C for 30-35 minutes. These were very tasty and made a good breakfast, but... Next time I would increase the oats, maybe decreasing the flour at the same time. I would also up the cinnamon a bit and maybe use Aloha Spiced Cacao to make the flavours pop a little more. I liked that these were minimally sweet, but I might add a small amount more sweetness next time, maybe a tablespoonful or so of honey. Hubby said they were spot on though and didn't need anything.

One of the rare days we didn't have soup for lunch, it was sunny and warm in the sunshine, but there was a nip in the shade with autumn coming on. This was quick and easy to whip up when I got back from running errands, and made for a great light lunch, with enough flavour and texture but no weight. A big hit with Hubby and Little Bit! Ingredients: 1 1/4 c flour (I used about 3/4 - 1 c of white flour and the rest was home ground barley flour. It is less finely milled, but the texture was great) 1 tsp Rosemary 2 eggs 2 c milk oil for cooking For the filling: Roast pumpkin wedges Mushrooms, sautéed in butter Grated cheese Bacon bits Fresh cheese or cream cheese of some kind (I used my homemade Fromage Blanc) 1) Place flour and rosemary in a bowl and add eggs then milk gradually, beating well after each addition, forming a thin batter. 2) Heat a crêpe skillet and oil it using a cloth or paper towel. Pour about 1/2 ladle of crêpe batter in and tilt to spread it evenly over the bottom of the pan. Cook over medium-low heat until the surface becomes matte, then flip using a spatula and cook for a couple more minutes on the other side. 3) Place on a warmed plate with about 1-2 tbsp fromage blanc or other cream cheese down the centre of the crêpe and other ingredients sprinkled over it. Roll and serve. I really enjoyed this flavour combination. We happened to have left-over roast pumpkin as well as the other bits and pieces so it worked out very nicely. The bacon could be left out for any vegetarians joining in this deliciousness, too. On some of the crêpes, we also added a little of our Carrot Ketchup for a little added flavour. I also, for the sake of science, tried a sweet version, with fromage blanc, pumpkin and date syrup (although honey or molasses would work too), and it was scrumptious. We had this for lunch, but it could easily work for breakfast or dinner too!

Continuing on from that initial request for a ketchup recipe, here is another one. This time I decided to do a spiced (but not spicy) carrot ketchup, in part because I had a bunch of carrots on the brink of going off. It turned out really tasty, but slightly less classically ketchuppy than the Tomato Ketchups or the Beet Ketchup. Ingredients: 6 c carrots, chopped 3/4c tbsp apple cider vinegar 5 tbsp brown sugar 1/2 tsp ras el hanout 1 tsp tandoori powder 1 pink onion, chopped 4 cloves garlic, minced 4 cm ginger, minced 1 tsp nigella seeds Salt and pepper 1) Place all ingredients except nigella seeds in a saucepan and simmer until carrots are tender. Blitz until smooth. Taste test, add nigella seeds and reduce until the ketchup reaches desired consistency. 2) Meanwhile, sterilise glass jars by boiling them for 15 minutes. Fill while the ketchup is still hot, seal and leave to cool. We've been having this on all sorts of things recently and it's proved very versatile. Little Bit stays true to his trend of eating condiments as though they were their own foods, but in this case, I'm fine with that.

My sister asked me for four different ravioli ideas for her to make for a dinner with friends, two vegetarian and two meaty. Being me, I thought about it for too long, mulling over different ideas, and then realised that she needed the recipes in five days. That meant a ravioli every day for four days. This was day two ( Day 1 was the Pumpkin and Sage Ravioli). I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge, and it was too long since I had gotten out the pasta machine, but it did also become an exercise in wrangling a toddler during a rather labour intensive meal prep four days in a row. Anyway, this one came out very tasty, and is definitely a good recipe to have stick around! Ingredients: For the Pasta: 2 c flour 3 eggs Pepper For the Filling: 2 chicken breasts, minced Juice of 1 lemon 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar 1/2 head garlic, crushed 1 onion, minced 2 tbsp olive oil Salt and pepper to taste For the Sauce: 6 tbsp olive oil Juice and zest of 1 lemon 3 tsp honey 1 1/2 tsp Pul Biber 1 tsp rosemary 1) Place chicken, garlic, lemon juice and balsamic in a bowl. Mix well, cover and refrigerate. Allow to rest 1-2 hours to marinate. 2) Heat oil in a skillet or frying pan and cook the chicken until just done. Set aside to cool. 3) Place flour in a mixing bowl. Add pepper and make a well in the middle. Crack eggs into the well and gradually mix the flour into the eggs with a fork to form a soft, elastic dough. 4) 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). 5) Heat a little oil in the bottom of a deep pan. In batches, brown the ravioli briefly then add 1/2 c water to the pan. Cover and cook for 5-8 minutes, until ravioli are al dente and the water is gone. 6) In a saucepan, heat olive oil. Add lemon zest, juice and honey. Reduce over low heat until well combined and thickened to desired consistency (if you reduce it too much, add a little move water back to it). Add rosemary and pul biber. Serve ravioli with a good drizzle of sauce. We had a little leftover chicken filling, so we served it up with the ravioli and sauce and cheese grated over it all and had zucchini as a side. This made for a thoroughly enjoyable meal, but a little light on the veg for my taste (the zucchini was a last-minute afterthought as I realised that aside from a little onion and lemon, otherwise, the meal had none). The labour-intensive nature of the ravioli making drove any thought of other elements of the meal out of my mind. If I had a do-over, roasted veg or basil carrots would work well with this, for example. We tried a variety of ways of cooking these, and as it turns out treating them kind of like gyoza worked best. In case you want to try making these but don't have a pasta machine , pasta tree or ravioli cutter, click on the links to get one of your own! As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

I don't think I've made rösti since last year when my Non-Traditional 6 Veg Rösti was my first post on here when I started the blog. I don't know why I haven't made it since, as I do like. it. So many other things to make and to try out, I suppose. And a Challenge early on not to make the same thing twice that lasted 100 days. Anyway, looking at the contents of the fridge and trying to figure out what to make for dinner, the zucchinis and apples, as well as some left-over boiled potatoes from a raclette with friends, suggested this to me. It didn't come out perfectly in the first instance as I forgot to salt the zucchini first. This draws out the excess liquid and also leaves them less bitter. Not having done so, the dish was a little wet. In a hurry to get dinner on the table so as not to delay Little Bit's bedtime, I didn't give it as long as I normally would have done to crisp up. Don't make my mistake! Crisp it! The leftovers though, I heated in the air fryer and they were delightfully crispy. Aside from this minor setback in execution the first night, I loved the interplay of the different flavours - the sweetness to the apples, and the salty ham, and the chanterelles. All of it came together very nicely! Ingredients: 1 - 1 1/2 c boiled potatoes, coarsely grated 2 apples, coarsely grated 2 courgettes, coarsely grated 2 onions 4 tbsp olive oil 1 tomato, sliced, 1 c bacon bits or ham 2 tbsp butter or lard (I save bacon fat whenever I cook bacon) 2 c chanterelles, chopped 1 tsp rosemary 1 tsp thyme 1 c cheese, grated (I used Gruyère) salt and pepper to taste Optional: 1 fried egg per person 1) Heat oil in a frying pan and sauté onions until soft. Set aside. Fry bacon briefly until cooked through and beginning to brown. 2) Mix all ingredients except tomato and chanterelles. Place in a greased oven-proof dish or a cast-iron skillet. Arrange sliced tomato over the top. Dot with butter or lard. Bake at 200°C for 35-45 minutes until cooked through and beginning to brown. 3) Use the remaining 2 tbsp olive oil to sauté the chanterelles. Drain the excess liquid and arrange them over the top of the rosti. Serve, and place a fried egg on top of the portions for anyone wanting them (personally, that's the way to go!). I briefly placed the chanterelles on top of the rösti and popped it back in the oven, but I am not sure this added anything to the dish, so I skipped that step above. It could easily be made vegetarian or vegan by skipping the ham (tasty but non-essential) and swapping the lard for butter. I do enjoy a traditional rösti, but all too often I find it too stodgy and heavy, and just too greasy. Also, depending on where you have it, it is almost nothing but potato. I love playing around with this dish as there is so much that can be done with the basic idea, carrying the essence of the dish forward but reducing the stodge and the grease, adding different flavour notes and different colours - not to mention nutritional value! It is an endlessly adaptable dish if you allow yourself to be unbound from strict tradition...

I decided this summer to take an online Domestika course in chocolate flavouring and texturing. During the course I'm supposed to learn to make 3 different architectural textures: marble, terrazzo and granite. For now, all the work is with white chocolate, and I've so far made two attempts. The first exercise was in trying out different ingredients to flavour the chocolate and learning to temper it. Tempered chocolate is hard, smooth, glossy, and snaps when broken. Untempered chocolate has a grainy texture, melts in the hand and doesn't snap when broken, as well as looking less glossy - think of chocolate which you've left in the car and found later, melted and reset but not quite right. Tempering has been a bit of a challenge. The first time I failed outright. I knew I had failed before even mixing in the flavours though. I was using a seeding method, where solid chocolate, with the correct crystalline structure, is mixed into a batch of completely melted chocolate. This cools down the melted batch and reintroduces the structure while melting the seed chocolate. I melted the chocolate to the correct temperature and then started introducing the seed chocolate to cool it off, before discovering that I hadn't left enough chocolate to use as seed. I wasn't able to cool the melted batch down enough through seeding so knew that when it cooled on its own it wouldn't be tempered. I decided to go ahead anyway and flavour it, figuring that carrying out with some of the testing even if part had failed. My next attempt went better, but I am not certain that I quite got it right. I'm not sure though, and white chocolate is harder to tell about - for me anyway. I think it came out pretty well though. I've now tried a number of different flavours, some of which have worked better than others, and others have worked best in combination with another flavour. I tried: Orange Black pepper Grapefruit Mint Rose Petal Black sesame Tumeric Amchoor, or mango powder Kaffir lime leaves The best one, by general consensus, is, surprisingly, black sesame. Grapefruit was a little bitter and the black pepper was too sharp, but combined they were great and evened each other out. Rose petal was very delicate. Mint and orange were predictably good. Overall, I am quite happy with some of my flavouring. The colours weren't as strong as I would have liked though, so I need to work on that. Watch this space for future attempts!

I don't know where this craving came from, but I recently decided I wanted chow mein. Something with lots of veg and lots of flavour. It's the first time I made it, so I looked around at other recipes but none was really what I wanted, so I made my own up as I went along, and it came out great. Below I've listed the ingredients I've used, but the veg is definitely able to be substituted with whatever you have on hand or would prefer. The meat can also be swapped out entirely for a vegetarian version of this dish, or swapped for something else that you'd rather. Here it is! Ingredients: Marinade: 3-4 tbsp Oyster sauce 3 tbsp peanut oil 4 tbsp soy sauce 2 tbsp cooking sake 1 chilli, chopped 1/2 head garlic, minced or crushed 3" ginger, minced 1 Tbsp brown sugar 1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch 3/4 c chicken stock For the Stir fry: 2 tbsp peanut oil 300-400g pork, cubed 2 onions, sliced 1/2 head garlic, minced 1 yellow pepper, chopped 2-3 carrots, chopped 200g mushrooms 1 - 2 head bok choi shredded 1 bunch coriander, chopped 1/2 c cashews, toasted Noodles, cooked 1) Mix together all the ingredients for the marinade and stir in pork cubes. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, but the longer the better. 2) In a wok, heat the peanut oil and fry onions on medium-high heat for a few minutes. Add garlic and fry for another 2 minutes, but don't allow the garlic to brown. 3) Using a slotted spoon, remove the pork from the marinade and add to the wok. Cook, stirring regularly, until the pork is cooked about halfway through, then add the veg except for the bok choi. Continue to fry for a few minutes, then add the marinade juice and stir. Cover the wok and lower the heat, allowing the carrots to cook until tender and the pork to cook through. 4) When the carrots are about 1-2 minutes shy of being done, add the bok choi and the noodles and mix well. Serve topped with fresh coriander and toasted cashews. I really enjoyed this and am happy with how it came out. I feel that we hit the right flavour notes. as with most things recently, I would normally have made it hotter, but Little Bit's spice tolerance isn't very high. Feel free to add more heat, or add a couple of drops of hot sauce once it's served up so everyone can have it at their desired heat level. As with a lot of the food I make, I enjoy the versatility of a dish like this. Tweak the ingredients and it can be vegan, vegetarian or carnivorous. Use gluten-free noodles and soy sauce and it is gluten-free. Play around with heat or tweak veg to suit your tastes, a dish like this offers so much possibility! Certainly though, as is this was very popular with the three of us!