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With lots of fresh chanterelles available (they still have moss on them at the grocery store) and autumn coming on, something warm and filling but not too heavy celebrating seasonal produce seemed in order. This time I didn't make the spätzli myself, but the dish came out tasty and colourful! Ingredients: 2 tbsp olive oil 2 onion, chopped 3-4 c chanterelles 1-2 c pumpkin, chopped 1 c ham, diced 1/2 - 3/4 c spinach, wilted 500 g spätzli 1 c mozzarella, grated 1 tsp thyme Salt and pepper to taste sour cream to dollop 1) Heat oil in a skillet. Sauté chanterelles. Allow them to give up their liquid, tip this out, and add the onions. Sauté until translucent and add other ingredients except the sour cream. Mix well. 2) Place in a preheated oven at 180°C until the tops are crispy and the cheese is melted. Dish up and dollop with sour cream. Super simple and tasty, this dish hit the spot! Approved of by Hubby and Little Bit, this one's a keeper. And with all the chanterelles recently, ways of using them are necessary. This dish was tasty with the ham but could also easily do without.

My next batch of cultured cheese from my Artisan Cheese Making at Home book (actually, not mine, it's borrowed from my dad) was a Fromage Blanc. This is like a French version of cream cheese. Initially, it didn't look like the milk was doing anything. I heated it to the desired temperature, mixed in my culture, my calcium and my rennet... and nothing. It looked like milk. I decided to just trust a little and put it away in my cloth oven for the requisite 12 hours, and when I opened it up in the morning, it was cheese! Look at that beautiful cylinder of curds sitting in the whey! I couldn't believe it. I have decided that cheese making requires a little measuring, a little science, and a whole lot of faith. Closing up the pot and leaving it be with no further faff took trust, but I am so glad I did decide to just trust the process! I am hoping that in time and with experience it will feel a little less like a leap of faith each time. Like baking. Everyone says it's a science, not an art, but I am perfectly happy winging it, making up recipes on the fly and not really measuring, and 90% of the time things come out beautifully. Not identically, granted, but I don't cook for identical results. I cook for taste, and my baking comes out very well even though I don't treat it like a science. Maybe someday my cheese making will be the same. For now, though, it is most definitely an exercise in blind trust every time I make cheese. Instead of ladling the curds into the cheese-cloth lined strainer as called for, I decided to take a cue from the local cheese-makers I've seen around here and get the cloth under the lot of curds and whey and then lift it out, draining the whey that way. I always struggle with a little strainer balanced over a bowl and invariably end up with my draining curds dipped back into the whey by accident once or twice. This time, though, bypassing the strainer entirely, my curds were hung directly in their draining sack from the kitchen cupboard, the whey dripped directly into the bowl beneath, and the process was much smoother. I did have a little kitchen helper attempting to get into the bowl of whey to play with it, the ladle, the bottle lid, the funnel or anything else on the counter. This meant I had to transfer the whey directly into its glass bottles almost as soon as it drained to avoid having a huge mess to clean up. Unfortunately, the only cupboard I can set up my draining sack from is the one over the counter that Little Bit has access to, so unless the whole thing happens while he is asleep, this is a regular problem I encounter. The cheese came out very well and was very tasty. I used it in a number of things, including little Börek-like packages of Fromage blanc and herbs in filo pastry. I made these in part to be able to try out my new air fryer which has finally arrived. The cheese also went really nicely in Savoury Autumn Crêpes with pumpkin, bacon and mushrooms, and as a topper for the Sweet Potato Soup. It also made a nice spread for bread. I think I liked this better than the cream cheese I made previously. I have a second batch sitting in the cloth oven again to go in ravioli tomorrow. Let's see if the leap of faith pays off again!

It's been a little while since I made a tart so I thought it was about time. I had fresh rhubarb from my parents' garden, and goats cheese left from my cheese-making efforts, so it all came together piece by piece as I rifled through the fridge for ideas and ingredients. I also have to say that I am excited about pumpkin season starting! And a cross-over of summer and autumn produce to play within one dish? Fun fun fun! Ingredients: For the crust: 1 c flour 1/3 c cold butter, cubed 1/3 - 1/2 c whey for the filling: 1/3 small pumpkin, wedged 4 stalks of rhubarb 1/2 c whey 2 tsp fenugreek sugar ( from a small jar with maybe 1/4c sugar and 2 tsp of fenugreek, shaken until combined. Good on pancakes, toast, crêpes etc.) 1/2 c goats cheese 1 tbsp sage Salt and pepper to taste 1) For the crust, place flour in a mixing bowl and cut in cold butter. Rub flour into butter until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Add whey and mix to form a soft dough. Chill for at least 30 minutes. 2) Place whey, rhubarb, sage and fenugreek sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer for 5-8 minutes or until the rhubarb is tender (the syrup will be pink too). 3) Roll out the crust and line a tart plate with it. Lay the rhubarb on the bottom. Arrange the pumpkin over the top and sprinkle over the goats' cheese. Drizzle the rhubarb juices over it all. Bake at 180°C for 20-25 minutes or until the crust is firm, the pumpkin is tender, and the tart is turning golden brown on top. I really loved the flavours in this tart. Hubby initially was eating it piecemeal and couldn't see it, but then took a bite of it altogether and declared his love for it too. I thought it could have done with a more liberal sprinkling of goats' cheese, but that was the last of it, so no chance of that. I would also maybe try for a thicker rhubarb layer next time. Otherwise, I was delighted with it!

I wanted to play around with using fresh rose petals and thought a risotto might be a way of playing around with the flavours. It didn't come out quite as well as I had hoped, and the rose flavour was fainter than I had intended, but it was a tasty dinner and an interesting experiment, so I thought it worth sharing. Interestingly, the flavours came out more once I added some honey. Ingredients: 3 tbsp olive oil 1 onion, chopped 1 sweet potato, chopped 3 c fresh rose petals, mostly yellow 1 1/2 c Arborio rice 3/4 c whey 2 1/2 c rosé wine 1 c parmesan 1 tbsp honey 1) Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a saucepan and add the Arborio rice. Sauté until translucent then add the whey. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring frequently. 2) Meantime, heat the remaining oil in a frying pan and sauté onion until translucent. Add sweet potato and cook until tender. 3) Gradually add the rosé to the rice as the liquid is absorbed, and continue stirring. 4) When sweet potatoes are tender and just beginning to brown, add rose petals and cook, stirring, until they wilt. Set aside. 5) When the liquid has been absorbed into the rice and it is tender, add parmesan and stir in. Add honey and then vegetables. Serve hot. This one had mixed results. It may be that the combined whey and rosé were too acidic. Or it may be that the parmesan was too strong a flavour for the poor rose petals. Either way, initially, it was a little disappointing. Once we added the honey, it tasted nice, but not spectacular and the rose flavour was not very strong. I'd like to try rose petals in a water-based infusion next as they don't seem to be very lipophilic. In neither the oil nor the milk have they given up particularly strong flavours when fresh. Still a tasty dinner though, and as far as failures go, very definitely edible, although not what I had been aiming for.

My sister, who also likes making her own pasta, has asked me to come up with four different ravioli flavours with sauce for a dinner she wants to have with friends. She requested two vegetarian and two carnivorous, all (or most) using the same pasta, and using only a couple of sauces. Leaving things a bit late, as sometimes happens, I played around with ideas, and then finally started making these this week. She is having people over this weekend. This means making (and eating) ravioli four days in a row. Thankfully, Little Bit is a great helper... sometimes. Otherwise, he just stands on a chair asking for "pissy", ie a piece of dough. If I don't give it to him fast enough, he gets his fingers into the dough I've already passed through the rollers and steals some. At least he enjoys being involved! Anyway, this is variation one of the ravioli that my sister asked for. Ingredients: For the pasta: 2 - 2 1/2 c flour 3 eggs 1/4 c roast pumpkin Pepper For the Filling: 2 c pumpkin (approx 3/4 of a small pumpkin), sliced into wedges 2 tbsp olive oil 2-3 tbsp sage Salt and pepper to taste For the Sauce: 3 tbsp butter 1 tbsp flour 2 c milk 1 c mushrooms, chopped Salt and pepper to taste 1) Place pumpkin wedges in an oven-proof dish and roast at 180°C for 20-30 minutes until soft. 2) Meanwhile, place flour in a large mixing bowl. Grind in pepper. Make a well in the flour and crack in the eggs. Add the pumpkin purée and mix the flour into the pumpkin and eggs gradually with a fork, forming a soft, elastic dough. 3) Remove the pumpkin from the oven and remove the skin. Place flesh in a bowl and mix in the sage and salt and pepper. 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) 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. Sauté mushrooms in the remaining 2 tbsp butter and add to the sauce. Salt and pepper to taste. 6) Boil ravioli in batches for 4-5 minutes at most. Fresh pasta doesn't take long! Drain and serve with some sauce. We all really enjoyed this. The mushrooms definitely contributed, but the dish would also work well with plain cream sauce. A lemon sauce (like in variation 2, coming soon), would also work well. Otherwise, no tweaks, no complaints. We all loved the combinations of flavours, with the sweetness from the pumpkin and the creamy sauce and the savouriness of the sage. Night one was a success! 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.

Sweet Potatoes are normally really expensive here, so when the price drops, I buy up loads of them. Usually, being a tuber, they last pretty well. This time though, that meant using up 4 kilos of sweet potatoes fast. After putting a couple in a few other dishes and still having a mountain of them to use, I chopped off the ugly bits and made soup. As often happens, I didn't have a very clear idea when I started of where I was heading with this soup, but I am really happy with where it ended up, so thought I'd share. I had thought maybe I would go a big veggie soup direction, or maybe cream of sweet potato soup, or something coconutty. The Fromage Blanc was the last from my most recent batch of homemade cheese, and the chives were the only ones that poked their heads through this year. The pot looked rather like a bald man's head with only a few green hairs sprinkled around. I used chicken stock as I had some from a recent chicken dish, but veggie stock would have worked well too. It all came together very nicely though! Ingredients: For the soup: 2 tbsp olive oil 3-4 onions, chopped 4 cm ginger, diced 2 - 2,5 kg sweet potatoes, chopped 4 c chicken stock 1 tsp Urfa Biber 1 tbsp nigella seeds 1 - 1 1/2 c corn Salt and pepper to taste for the red pepper paste: 1 red pepper 1 red chilli pepper 2 tbsp olive oil 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar 1 onion, chopped For the fromage blanc 3/4 c fromage blanc (or cream cheese) 2-3 tbsp fresh chives 1/2 tsp garlic powder salt 1) Place red pepper and chilli in the oven, whole at 200°C for 20-30 minutes, until the red pepper is soft and starting to char. 2) In a heavy-bottomed soup pot, heat olive oil over medium heat and sauté onion and ginger. 3) Add sweet potato and stock. Add water until the sweet potatoes are just covered and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 20 - 25 minutes until sweet potatoes are soft. 4) Using a hand blender, blitz soup until it is most of the way smooth. Add corn, Urfa and nigella seeds. 5) Meanwhile, remove peppers from the oven and blitz in a blender with the onion, olive oil and vinegar. (I used olive oil left over from preserving my Cabécou Goat's cheese). 6) In a bowl, mix the fresh cheese, chives, garlic powder and salt. 7) Serve the soup hot, with dolloping options of fresh cheese and red pepper paste. I am really happy with this soup. Having the fresh cheese and the red pepper paste on the side meant we were each able to spice it up or make it creamy according to our own tastes. This also continues the trend of keeping spicy things on the side so that Little Bit can eat the same meal as us. He wanted corn from the tin while I was cooking, so I ended up needing more corn than anticipated, but then he offered me 5 kernels for the soup. Individually of course. He was very proud of his contribution too! The fresh cheese was very tasty, and I enjoyed the creaminess as it melted into the soup, but the soul also works really well without it. The red pepper paste is tasty in its own right, and I am happy to have it around for other purposes too. I like happy accidents in cooking!

During the 12 days of Christmas Cookies last year, Day 5 was Chestnut rings (" on the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me five chestnut rings"). I was very happy with how those came out, but I had hoped for more of a roast chestnut flavour which they didn't have. I've been meaning to try these again since, tweaking some bits to get that roast chestnut flavour to come out, but only got around to it now. (I know, I know, Christmas cookies in September? But chestnuts should be allowed anytime in my book.) To try and get the flavour I was after this time, I roasted both whole chestnuts (given the time of year, these were from the freezer) and the chestnut (vermicelli) paste. I also tried two different textures, rolling some and leaving others rough and spiky. Finally, i tried half the batch lightly salted and the other unsalted to see what difference it would make. IN the end, I think my favourites were the ones that were rough and salted. All four variants were good though. Ingredients: 1/2 c butter, softened 3/4 chestnut paste 1 1/4 c brown sugar 1 c chestnuts 3/4 tbsp vanilla extract 3 tbsp milk 1 egg 3/4 tsp baking soda 1 3/4 c flour 1/2 tsp salt 1) Roast chestnuts and chestnut paste at 200°C for about 30-45 minutes until dark. The paste will taste almost caramelised. I roasted the paste in a little covered pot to keep it from drying out. The whole chestnuts don't need to be covered though. 2) Cream butter, chestnut paste and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the wet ingredients and then the dry and mix well. 3) Chop the chestnuts into pieces. Incorporate into dough. Drop by teaspoonsful onto an ungreased cookie sheet either smoothing out the balls or leaving rough) and then bake at 190°C for 8 minutes until golden brown. I was really happy with these! The salt was necessary as it helped bring out the flavours and accentuate everything else a little. I only added a very little and not much was needed. They did taste like roast chestnuts this time. The flavour was obviously less pronounced than in whole roast chestnuts, but that is to be expected. I skipped the cinnamon and don't think it was missed. I will still keep the other recipe too, but this is a nice alternative to have up my sleeve!

I really liked the first Rose Cake recipe I came up with in versions 1 and 2, but I wanted to try again using fresh petals. To try out two different ways of incorporating the rose into the cake, I split the butter cake batter and tried two versions. In version 3, I soaked the petals (mostly red this time) in the milk and then strained them out and continued with the batter normally. For version 4, I blitzed red rose petals into the milk before incorporating this into the batter. This turned out to be the best version, so it is the one I am including below! For these cupcakes, I made a butter frosting, incorporating rose petals blitzed with milk into a normal butter frosting. It was beautiful! This frosting also worked very nicely with lemon cupcakes, too, just, you know, if you're in that kind of a mood. Ingredients: For the cake: 1 3/4 c sugar 2/3 c butter 2 eggs 2 3/4 c flour 2 1/2 tsp baking powder 1 1/4 c milk 1/2 c fresh rose petals, roughly chopped For the frosting: 1/2 c butter, soft 1/2 - 3/4 c cream cheese, soft 1c (ish - this boils down to taste) powdered sugar 1/2 c fresh rose petals, roughly chopped 3 tbsp milk 1) Blitz together milk and rose petals. Let sit for 30 minutes to allow the rose flavour to infuse the milk. 2) Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. 3) Mix flour and baking powder together, and add alternately with milk, starting and ending with flour. Mix well and pour into a prepared pan or cupcake tins and bake 30 -35 minutes at 177°C. Remove and cool on a wire rack. 4) Place butter and cream cheese in a bowl and beat until fluffy and homogenous. Gradually add the powdered sugar, taste testing until you like it. 5) Blitz rose petals with milk until smooth. Incorporate into frosting. Frost cake or cupcakes. I added slightly too much milk to my rose petals, so the frosting came out as more of a drizzle than a frosting, but it was very tasty just the same. The cake was light, fluffy and moist with a very nice crumb and a delicate rosy flavour. It was slightly bluish though because of the colouring of the rose petals once blitzed. I do want to try it with yellow rose petals for comparison, but so far, I am more than happy to stick with this.

This year, I accidentally planted lemon mint on my balcony instead of a variety I might be more familiar with and like more, like, say, peppermint or spearmint. Ironically, the lemon mint is one of the few of my plants to have flourished this year. I planted more things too early, then we had late snow and frost which wiped a lot of my plants out. I replanted and hoped for the best. Then the spring was very rainy and drowned a number of them. Then we had hail. Twice. A lot of plants were flattened. In and amongst weather catastrophes, was Little Bit, who delights in tearing up my plants by the roots, or picking the leaves off of them to make mud soup in his paddling pool. Through all this, the mint survived. I was delighted until I made tea with it and discovered that the flavour was not quite what I was expecting. I wondered if there had been black tea left in the bottom of the pot? No. I tried again. It still tasted odd: at once muddier than regular mint and more acidic, but without mint's typical freshness. I left the plant alone for a bit and wondered what to do with it. And then I hit on the idea of a pesto. It took a little tweaking, but it worked out well in the end. I had to add a little water to get the blender to work properly, and then it was too wet as well as needing a grounding note, so I added some stale bread to the blender. If your consistency is ok without it though, skip the bread. I also gradually increased the amount of garlic. As the pesto is raw, I was worried that too much garlic would be overpowering, but the pesto really did need it. Here it is. Ingredients: 3-4 c fresh lemon mint leaves 3-4 tbsp olive oil 1/4 c pine nuts 1/2 head garlic 1/4 c water 1/4 c bread crumbs Juice of 1/2 lemon 1/2 c grated parmesan Salt and pepper to taste 1) Blend all ingredients until smooth. Taste test. I am happy with how this came out. It doesn't taste overpoweringly minty (but then, neither does the parent plant) but has a nice balance to it. We had this first with sandwiches. The minty pesto worked very well on wholegrain seedy bread with cheese and sausage for lunch. We have also tried it with spinach and ricotta tortellini, and it was delicious. Little Bit refused to try it, but then he doesn't like any sauce on his tortellini.

I love yogurt. Until relatively recently, though, aside from Tzatziki, it was a sweet food, usually for breakfast. Even plain yogurt, which is more sour than sweet, I considered a food to be had with oats and raisins, or with syrup on a crêpe. For lunch though? Maybe muesli, but even then, I consider that more sweet than savoury, loaded up as it is with fruit. Imagine my delight, therefore, when I discovered borani, a savoury Persian yogurt dish. The yogurt is flavoured with herbs and spices, salt and pepper and served with vegetables. I started out following recipes for it, but have since gone my own way. I've enjoyed playing around with different veggie toppings and herb or spice combos too. It is no longer what you might call "authentic" but it is tasty! I also love that it is tasty eaten at room temperature, and within reason, it doesn't need to be refrigerated. I found that it worked well as a packed lunch when working in a refugee camp, for example, where we had no microwave and no fridge. Here's our most recent one. Ingredients: 3 c yogurt 1 tsp sumac 1 tsp herbes de Provence 1 tsp Thyme 2 c spinach 1 tbsp butter 2 onions, sliced 2 tbsp olive oil 2 tbsp pine nuts, toasted Salt and pepper 1) Strain yogurt through a cheese cloth until thickened to the desired consistency. Mix with herbes de Provence, thyme and sumac, salt and pepper to taste. 2) Wilt spinach and sauté briefly with butter. 3) Heat oil in a frying pan. Fry onions over medium high heat until crispy. 4) Assemble bowls, first a dollop of yogurt, then some spinach, some onions and a sprinkling of pine nuts. Incredibly quick to assemble and at once refreshing and filling without being heavy, this was the perfect lunch last week after a morning bike ride with Little Bit. It was a lot of steep uphill (and then a much quicker descent) so I was happy to be able to plate up something quick when we got home. I made this using home-made yogurt which we'd left out a little too long, so the flavour had ripened a little. For breakfast, the flavour was a bit much, but mixed with herbs and spices for a lunch borani, it was perfect.