I heard that watermelon rind is edible and that it makes nice jam or chutney so I wanted to give it a try. I celebrated our first watermelon of the season by saving the rind until the melon was all gone and then having a go at chutney. Here is the recipe I came up with. The rind has a mild, but pleasant flavour which I combined with some apple and red onion for a chutney. I did have to blend it a little, which I don't generally do with jams or chutneys as the rind didn't break down much even after considerable simmering. It just stayed in the little cubes I had cut, so blitzing it briefly gave the chutney a more even consistency. Ingredients: Rind of 1 small watermelon, diced 3 red onion, diced 1 apple, diced 3/4 c herb vinegar 1 tsp salt 3/4 c sugar 1 red chilli, diced 2 tsp (or more) red chili flakes - I used pul biber 1) Place watermelon rind in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until almost tender. Add other ingredients and cook for a further 30 minutes or so. 2) Blitz briefly until chunky-smooth (chutney consistency) and taste test. Place in hot, sterile jars while chutney is still hot and seal, allowing to cool. I am really pleased with how this came out. I wasn't sure what to expect nor really what direction to go with it, so proceeded by taste testing and adjusting. The apple went in both for taste and to add pectin to help it all come together. We've tried it with crackers and cheese and a couple of sun dried tomatoes and it held up well! With the next watermelon, I think I am going to try watermelon jam....

We didn't use all of the butternut purée that we had prepared for our Rainbow Lasagna the other day, so when in need of a quick easy dinner, I threw this together to have over pasta. It didn't come out entirely as planned because the Allspice spilled out a little faster than I had anticipated. With a couple of tweaks though, it worked out. Ingredients: 1 tbsp butter 1 tbsp flour 1 1/2c milk 1 1/2 - 2 c butternut squash purée (squash rings roasted until soft, then mashed) 1/2c white cooking wine 2 tsp allspice 1/2 tsp sumac 1/2 tsp thyme Salt and pepper 1) in a saucepan, melt butter. Stir in flour and cook for a few minutes until thick. Add milk in splashes, stirring until incorporated to create a roux. beware of it sticking and burning on the bottom of the pan. 2) Stir in butternut and wine, then spices. adjust consistency with extra milk if you want it a little thinner. We used the sauce in two different meals. The first was over spaghetti with veg on the side. It was tasty, but the acidity from the veg was a necessary component of the meal to balance out the flavours. With the leftover sauce, I mixed in tomato and peas and turned them into pasties for a picnic. These were arguably better than the original pasta the sauce was used for. I simply folded them in pie crust, brushed with olive oil and baked in the airfryer at 195°C for 8 minutes, they came out beautifully. These were perfect for a picnic, still warm in our hands on a chilly day. As a side note, I used peach syrup vinegar (from making pickled peaches this summer) in the pie crust instead of milk or water. The extra flavour layer worked very nicely and added a contrasting acidic note to the sweet flavour of the butternut,

As mentioned in Day 96 of The Challenge Persimmons are a new fruit for me. They are in season around now every year, and I just never picked any up until now. They are wonderful! Delicately sweet and fragrant they are tasty on their own, but they also pair nicely in sweet or savoury dishes. For this one I tried a new tweak to our morning porridge and it was a big hit with all of us! Ingredients: 1 persimmon, chopped 1/2-1 tbsp honey 1 tbsp lime /lemon juice 1 c oats 2 c milk 2 tsp dried coconut 1 tsp vanilla 1 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao (or cinnamon/pumpkin pie spices) A handful of raisins 1) place persimmons in an oven proof dish or on a cookie sheet. Drizzle with honey and pour lime juice over the top. Roast at 180°C for 15-20 minutes. 2) Cook oats, milk, raisins and coconut in a saucepan at medium heat stirring intermittently and then consistently until they form a porridge. Portion the porridge into 2 bowls and top with the persimmons. Sprinkle with cocoa spice or other spice topping of your choice. We love this! We've tried a number of variations, including adding 1 tsp of vanilla extract to the porridge, with fenugreek seeds roasted with the persimmons, swapping out the lime or lemon juice, adding a drizzle of cream etc. It requires NO further sugar at the coconut, the persimmons and the honey make it quite sweet enough.

It is vegetarian, and can easily be made vegan by omitting the cheese.

Since first trying to candy and then chocolate cover orange peels last spring, I have branched out to ginger and other citrus fruit peels. Ingredients: Citrus peel or ginger strips - generally about 1 c worth 1/2 c sugar plus extra for candying 100 g Chocolate Optional: Cinnamon, cloves spices etc. 1) Place the (clean) orange peel in a saucepan with enough water to cover it and add sugar. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer for about half an hour to an hour until the orange peel is tender but still retains its integrity and a little bite. 2) Remove and drain, spreading out on a drying rack to dry overnight. 3) Place the ones you want to candy in a jar with the sugar, seal and shake, coating them evenly. 4) For the chocolate coated peels, place chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water to create a Bain Marie. Stir regularly as the chocolate begins to melt. Dip strips of orange peel into the chocolate and lay on a cooling rack. (TIP: I find chopsticks very helpful in the dipping process!) The principles hold generally to the orange peels I did last year, but I thought I would share my thoughts and experiences. I have generally omitted the extra sugar shaken over the candied peels at the end, finding it unnecessary. I find that lime peel and lime slices work very well and have an excellent balance of sweetness and tartness to them when candied. I have also tried coating them in white chocolate, which worked excellently. Ginger, of course, works wonderfully. As with the others, I have not added extra sugar on top, but I have coated in dark chocolate, which is very tasty. Dark chocolate with a little orange oil added to it is especially delectable. On one occasion, I simmered ginger, orange and lime together. It worked nicely, but the citrus peel was done before the ginger, which had to go back in the pan for another go. Also, they shared flavours a little, the ginger imparting a little bite to the lime and orange peels. Not a bad experience by any means, but one to be aware of, depending on your intentions for the candy. Grapefruit peel was tremendously bitter. I tried adding a pinch of salt to the simmering syrup as salt counteracts bitterness a lot of the time, but it made for a weird bitter salty candied peel rather than anything else. I set it aside, therefore, and covered it in dark chocolate at a later date, some with a sprinkling of cloves over the top too, and the grapefruit peel was transformed! I highly recommend this form of candy! Orange peel with a little cinnamon over the chocolate works too. Candied lemon works very nicely coated in white chocolate with a little black pepper. It seems a little counterintuitive perhaps, but that is a combo I discovered when playing around with my chocolate tempering and flavouring. The black pepper's sharpness is mitigated by the lemon and the lemon's bitterness is evened out by the black pepper. I faffed about a little with tempering the chocolate properly before coating my orange and grapefruit peels, but I am not convinced of the necessity of this, and so have not included it in the description above. A caveat to bear in mind is that these keep extremely well in an airtight jar IF, and only if, you dry them long enough. If after the candying process there is any moisture left on the peels, it will go mouldy, which would be a shame... When they do keep, I am discovering that having candied peels around for use as ingredients in other things can be very handy, like in my updated Ginger Snaps. I really enjoyed making these (and eating them too) and prepped a whole bunch last week as Christmas presents for my parents. I didn't faff about with tempering all of the chocolate, and I have to say it is an incredibly sticky medium to work with, but it was certainly fun to play around with the different flavours and try different things out.

A friend sent me a recipe from another blog, agoodcarrot.com, for Turkish rice. The recipe looked good and it occurred to me that I hadn't made any stuffed grape leaves in a while, and that I had the necessary ingredients on hand. Tomorrow's lunch planned! Massive caveat to doing this in the late morning with a teething 1 year old: it takes a while to fold grape leaves! The rice, slightly modified to suit my pantry and tastes, took no time to cook what so ever, but then folding was another story. Moral of this: plan a little further ahead and give yourself more time than I did! They were tasty enough to make up for the delay in lunch though, so no worries. Ingredients: for the rice: 1 onion, chopped 1/2 c raisins, chopped 2 1/2 tbsp dried mint, crushed 3 tbsp olive oil 1/2 c walnuts, chopped 2 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp allspice 2 c rice 3 c water salt and pepper to taste 1 packet grape leaves, washed 1 tbsp olive oil 2 tbsp lemon juice 1 egg, beaten 1) Heat oil in a saucepan and sauté the onions until they are translucent. Add the nuts and toast lightly. Add the raisins, spices and rice and cook for a further couple of minutes on medium heat, until the rice becomes translucent. 2) Add the mint and water and stir, and bring to the boil. At this point, put a tight lid on the pot and then you can either do what I did and put it in a Wonderbag slow cooker, or you can lower the heat and cook until all the water has been absorbed and the rice is cooked (about 20 minutes). 3) Cool the rice! Then fold into the grape leaves: cut the stem off a leaf and place it stem-stump down on your palm. Place a small amount of rice filling (approx. 2 tsp) in the centre and fold in the sides then roll it up to the top. Place seam side down in a heavy bottomed pot. Use torn or small leaves to line the pot. 4) Pour 1 1/2 c water and 1 tbsp olive oil over the top and place a plate on the stuffed bundles to keep them from floating. Heat the pot over medium heat and cook for about 10 minutes. 5) Beat the egg and lemon juice together and pour evenly over the stuffed leaves and cook for a further 2-3 minutes. 6) Serve! These were really tasty! I highly recommend them, provided you have enough time. The rice is very tasty on its own too, so if you don't have time to fold them, just serve it as a side for something else. With some of the left over rice, I made rice balls stuffed with orange peel and raisins with cloves and fenugreek, a couple of days later and served them with a very simple minty tzatziki and lentil sliders.

As mentioned in Day 91 of The Challenge We first discovered this in out Taste of Persia cookbook by Naomi Duguid a few years ago, but it has since made it into our repertoire. I make it with all sorts of different ingredients, switching up both the toppings and the herbs which are mixed into the yogurt. In this iteration we used thyme, but I like it with mint too, or a mix or herbs. It is also topped nicely by some sumac in addition to the herbs. The topping used here was beets, but carrots, spinach or other vegetables work too. Sometimes I crispy fry the onions instead of sautéing them, thus adding another layer of texturing. Really, this is one you can play around with and make your own. As with many of the recipes I've adopted over the years, it started out Persian, but I don't know how recgonisable it would still be to a Persian. That doesn't stop it being good though! Ingredients: 1 large beet, chopped 1 kg Greek Yogurt 2 tsp thyme A pinch of salt pepper to taste 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil 1 onion, chopped A handful of almonds 1) Drain the yogurt through a cheese cloth for at least an hour. Mix with thyme, 1 tbsp olive oil, salt and pepper. 2) Roast the beets at 180°C for 20-30 minutes until tender. Dry toast almonds in a pan until lightly browned. Sauté onion in remaining olive oil until translucent. 3) Spoon thickened, seasoned yogurt into two bowls and top each with the beets, onions and almonds. Serve. It is as simple as that. It is a beautifully simple lunch, very satisfying, light and yet filling. I love this and only don't have it more often because I am too lazy to think ahead and drain the yogurt sometimes...

As mentioned in Day 20 of The Challenge There are a number of different ways of doing this recipe, but many of those ways seem heavy on stodge and light on veg, so we tweaked a bit. It was filling but not too heavy, perfect for an early autumn supper! Ingredients: 6 big cabbage leaves 6 medium potatoes, boiled and mashed 1 c of peas 1/4 head of broccoli 2 c of spinach, blanched, or 2 cubes of defrosted frozen spinach 1/4 summer squash, chopped 3 eggs 1/2 c cheese of your choice (we used a local soft cheese) 2 TBSP of butter 2 TBSP of chutney of your choice ( we used our freshly made plum chutney) 2 tsp fresh thyme 2 tsp fresh oregano 1 tsp mustard Salt and Pepper 1) Steam the cabbage leaves for 5 minutes. Roast the squash for 10 minutes at 180°C in 1 tbsp of butter in the oven proof dish you will be using for the pie. 2) Mix mashed potatoes, peas, spinach, broccoli, cheese and eggs together in a bowl. Add the thyme, oregano, mustard, salt and pepper and mix well. 3) Add the squash to the potato mixture and make sure that the butter spreads around the whole dish. Line the pie dish with the cabbage leaves, leaving one for the top. 4) Fill the pie, spread chutney over the top and close the cabbage leaves over the pie filling. Dot the top with butter, and bake for a half hour until the top is golden brown. Serve with chutney, mustard or on its own. This was very tasty, I had meant to add carrots, but being the entertainment part of the Dinner and a Show for my baby got to me and I forgot the carrots. It also could have used a touch more salt, but other than that, this one was definitely a keeper. As with most things, I will play around with veg, add bacon occasionally, and maybe alter the seasoning, and I recommend that you do the same. Make it yours!

It works as a vegetarian soup but also with bacon bits.

Now, I know this is a weird one. It is as odd an idea as it sounds, but hear me out. They actually worked quite well. Done the first way, no one could tell they were turnippy. They were moist, tender spice cookies. Here's how I arrived at these. I've been cooking with Little Bit since he was tiny. He has a toy kitchen of his own, and he frequently "cooks" for us and has us try his meals. Sometimes they are things he has seen us make, sometimes not so much (like strawberry and banana soup). I want to encourage his creativity and interest in cooking, so I like to try out his ideas. Sometimes they are a direct request to cook together, like "Mama, we can make pear sorbet", sometimes just an idea in play, like "Mama, smell my turnip cookies". Either way though, I try to honour them and make his ideas a reality, and show him that they are viable. So hence the idea of turnip cookies, from my 3-year-old asking me to smell his turnip cookies. I don't know if he really registered that it was an unusual idea, or when a few weeks later, we bought a turnip and made the cookies, I don't know if he made the connection between the two. Cooking to my 3-year-old's imagination is an interesting challenge though, which I enjoy taking up. I spent a couple of weeks turning the idea over in my mind and playing with flavours I could pair with the turnips before settling on these two variants. The first batch, I had wanted to be almond and spice cookies, and so they were, but less almondy than I wanted as I discovered that I was out of almond extract when I went to start baking. I played around with different proportions of different sugars to achieve the flavour I wanted in the first batch, too. The second batch is a heavily adapted spiced molasses cookie from Claire Saffitz's book. As for the turnip itself, I wasn't sure how best to include it. Raw, like grated carrot in a carrot cake? Or precooked somehow? And if precooked, then in what way? I ended up going with the pre-cooked idea, first boiled and mashed, then roasted and blitzed. In terms of just eating the turnip, the roasted one was beautiful, but in terms of the cookies, the boiled ones were more subtle. The roasted ones somehow developed a strong negative turnip flavour from somewhere that wasn't apparent at every bite, but often enough that it bugged me a little. I would therefore steer clear of that method and boil the turnip for both cookie variants. I decided against the raw, grated ones as I wasn't sure how bits of turnip would work, rather than being smoothly incorporated into the cookie dough. Recipe Cook time: approx. 1 hour -- Portions: about 30 cookies -- Difficulty: Easy Almond and Chocolate Spiced Turnip Cookies Ingredients: 1/2 turnip (small) for 1/2 - 3/4 c boiled and mashed turnip 3/4 c butter, soft 3/4 c light brown sugar 1/2 c white sugar 1/4 c dark brown sugar 2 eggs 1 1/4 c ground almonds 2 1/4 c flour 5 cloves, ground (5 is Little Bit's favourite number. Very important!) 1/2 tsp ground ginger 1 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp cardamom 1/4 tsp cumin 1 tsp bicarb 1 tsp vinegar syrup (from pickled peaches) OR 1/2 tsp molasses and 1/2 tsp vinegar 100 g dark chocolate chips 1) Boil the turnip until fork-soft and mash. Cool. 2) Cream the butter and sugars together in a bowl. Beat in eggs, then the turnip. 3) Mix in the dry ingredients and combine well. Add vinegar and chocolate chips. 4) Place teaspoonfuls of cookie dough on a lined cookie sheet and bake 8-10 minutes at 180°C. Molasses Turnip Cookies Ingredients: 1/2 turnip 2 tbsp butter 3/4 c butter, melted 1 1/2 c dark brown sugar 2 eggs 1/4 c molasses 1/4 c liquid honey 1/4 c milk 3 3/4 c flour 1 tbsp baking soda 2 1/2 tsp ground ginger 1/2 tsp finely ground black pepper 1/2 tsp allspice 1/4 tsp cloves 1/2 c oats 2 tsp apple cider vinegar (Or homemade rosehip vinegar) 1) Cut the turnip into cubes and roast with the butter at 180°C for about 20-30 minutes, until fork-soft. Cool. 2) Cream the cooled, melted butter with the sugar. Beat in the eggs, then the molasses and honey. 3) Blitz the cooled turnip with the milk until smooth and add to the batter. Mix thoroughly. 4) Stir in the dry ingredients, mixing well, then add the vinegar (this is important both for the flavour balance and to activate the baking soda). 5) Roll dough into 1" balls and place on a lined cookie sheet. Bake at 180°C for 10-12 minutes. Both of these cookies turned out very nicely indeed, although, as stated above, I would stick with boiling and mashing the turnip for both recipes, as the roasting brought out some less desirable flavours. On the whole, I wouldn't know which of the two I liked better. Everyone I shared either with (and not just sycophantic family members who have to tell me they're good) said that they enjoyed both cookies. Each time, I waited until after they had been tasted to divulge the tuber secret, just to avoid a placebo or nocebo effect. Overall, odd as turnip cookies sound, I can't work out what it should be any odder an idea than carrot cake, or red velvet for that matter, which was traditionally made with beets. Side note, I've started using a silicone baking sheet mat instead of greasing cookie sheets. I find it works across different types of cookies and therefore doesn't waste the extra butter or shortening. Feel free if you prefer to grease your cookie sheets or to use baking paper instead. Swaps and substitutions: In both recipes, the different proportions of white to brown sugar can be played around with, although be aware that this will affect the texture and flavour of the cookies. Try preparing the turnip different ways - raw, boiled, roasted - and see how it differs. See how the difference between smooth incorporation and pieces (I would recommend small pieces) of turnip affects the flavour profile. As with the sugars, the proportion of honey to molasses can be played around with in the second recipe. It shouldn't affect texture too much, but it will change the flavour balance a little - darker and deeper with more molasses, lighter and more golden with a higher honey proportion. Try adding some almond extract - only 1/2 tsp or so to the first recipe, as I had intended (and plan to do at the first opportunity). As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.