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As for many people, Macaroni and Cheese is a comfort food. I've grown up with it and don't usually mess with it too much. I do like adding different vegetables to it though, cutting down on the carbs and cheese with a little bit of extra green. Spinach and broccoli are particular favourites. Making it the other day though, I realised that I was out of white cooking wine for the roux. I had already planned on adding pumpkin and apple to the mix, so decided to go all out and make the roux using apple sauce. Unfortunately I also was low on cheese (no points for advance planning and preparation!) so it was under-cheesed, but aside from that, the seasonal twist worked really well! Ingredients: 1kg spiralli pasta 2-3 c pumpkin, chopped 1 onion, chopped 3 apples, chopped 2 tbsp butter For the roux: 3 tbsp butter 3 tbsp flour 1 1/2 - 2 c milk 1 1/2 c apple sauce 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar 3ish c cheese, grated 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao 1 1/2 tsp Pul Biber 1/2tsp sumac 2 tsp dried orange peel Pepper to taste 1) Boil the pasta until almost al dente. Place pumpkin, onion, apple and butter in a baking dish and roast at 180°C while prepping the rest of the ingredients. Check and stir occasionally. 2) In a saucepan, melt butter. Stir in flour to make a paste. Add milk gradually, stirring well after each addition (adding it too fast will lead to a lumpy sauce). 3) When all the milk has been incorporated, add the apple sauce and start incorporating the cheese bit by bit. Add the vinegar (even a splash more if necessary to get a smooth sauce) and the spices. 4) When all the cheese is melted, taste test, then mix the pasta, veg and sauce together in a casserole dish. Bake at 180°C for 35 - 45 minutes, until browned and crisped on top to your liking. I love this variation on macaroni and cheese. It could do with a little improvement next time though. I needed more cheese, and although it looked like I had masses of veg when I put it in to roast, I think it could do with more. I would aim for equal parts pasta and veg next time. We had it meatless this time, but it could work really well with some little bits of bacon. Otherwise, though, I was delighted with the texture of the sauce and the flavours of the dish as a whole. The boys loved it too, which is always important!

I also added a couple of simple twists to the recipe. To try to emulate this, I added some baking powder to my regular recipe. to make this more regularly. * This is an affiliate link to help you find what you need to make the recipe You will not be charged any more by using this link but you will be helping support more delicious recipes

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.

thought about it for too long, mulling over different ideas, and then realised that she needed the recipes Anyway, this one came out very tasty, and is definitely a good recipe to have stick around!

This is one of those recipes that wasn't planned beyond "We need food. What's in the fridge?"

As mentioned in Day 33 of The Challenge It is pumpkin season again! We picked up a big Georgia Candy Roaster Pumpkin from a road-side stand (also excellent as dessert just roasted with a little olive oil and cinnamon! If you want to be decadent add butter and brown sugar to the hot orange mess and pour cream over the top, but it honestly doesn't need it! I think this will be my dessert for as long as the pumpkin lasts.) As the evenings have turned cooler, we decided to make a pumpkin chilli, with pumpkin replacing the role of the tomato. It worked well but was missing something, so we added a bit of tomato to the leftovers the next night and it was beautiful. Sweet and hot with just the right touch of acidity to balance it, and the deeper flavour notes from the beans. Ingredients: 1/3 of a large pumpkin 3 tbsp of olive oil 3 cups of assorted beans, soaked and ready to go ( we used adzuki and pinto beans) 3 onions, chopped 2 heads of garlic, chopped 2 red peppers, chpped 2 spicy(ish) white pepper 4 chilli peppers, chopped 8 mushrooms, chopped 2 tsp orange curry powder (or another of your choice. This is an interesting one we picked up in a market) 1 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao 2 tsp Urfa biber (Turkish black chili) 2 tbsp lime juice 2 tsp cumin 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp cloves 1 tsp ground ginger Salt and pepper to taste (500ml of tomato passata) 1) Roast the pumpkin chunks with 1 tbsp of olive oil at 200°C for about a half hour until soft. Mash with a fork and set aside. 2) Sauté onions and garlic in the remaining olive oil in a large heavy bottomed pot. Add spices and stir. 3)Add peppers and chilis and cook until almost tender. Pour in beans, pumpkin mash with all the roasting juices, the lime juice, and about a cup of water. if using tomato passata, now is the time to add it. Salt and pepper to taste. 4) Cook for an hour or more until flavours are married. Serve hot with corn bread or over rice. Garnish with fresh coriander if you have any. Served with fresh corn-muffins, it hit the spot both ways and was tasty, warming and satisfying but not overly heavy. We are just disappointed that with the Challenge in play, we won't be able to make this one again during pumpkin season (unless we cheat and call a time out). We kept this one mild as we were going to share with our 9 month old, so do feel free to spice it up further!

Recipe Cook time: 20-30 minutes + chill time 4 hours to overnight -- Portions: 4 -- Difficulty: Easy

And then I found some sofrito in the fridge from another recipe, so that helped colour the flavours of

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.

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.