As mentioned in Day 46 of The Challenge Soup season continues! (Does it ever really stop?) A friend recently gave us quite a large bag full of sage, so needs must... This was a first try at this soup, but it will be sticking around now. Very tasty, quick to pull together and a good twist on the various other carrot-based soups we make. Many thanks to my hubby for putting it together! Ingredients: 1 kg carrots, chopped 2 onions, chopped 4 potatoes, chopped 1 l of veggie stock 1/2 c dried sage 2 tsp honey 1/2 tbsp olive oil Salt and pepper to taste 1) Heat oil in a soup pot and sauté onions. Add carrots and potatoes and allow to char briefly on the bottom of the pan. 2) Add stock and sage and bring to a simmer. Add honey and cook for about a half hour. 3) Blitz til smooth, taste test and serve. This has got to be one of the simplest of soups, but it was warming and satisfying on a cold October lunch. We had it with crusty bread, local cheese and home made Green Tomato Chutney.

It works with bacon or as a vegetarian dish, with tomatoes or other extras over the top, or plain onion

For the next challenge with my sister and my friend, Hibiscus Kook, to make a dish three different ways, and each of us trying something new, we decided on pancakes for pancake day today. Pancake Day, Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, whatever you want to call it, is the last day before Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent. Lent, being a period of fasting, prayer and penance leading to Easter in the Catholic faith, is traditionally a leaner period culinarily. Many know it now as being the period during which people tend to try to give up chocolate, but for many centuries it was, and for many it still is, a period when richer foods are given up until Easter. Shrove Tuesday was therefore a good time to use up eggs and fats which remained, and so pancakes became traditional in the UK. I had grown up celebrating the feat of Mardi Gras, but had never heard it called Pancake Day until I moved to Scotland for University. I was completely mystified, especially as no one could explain the significance of the pancakes, they were eaten for supper rather than breakfast, and most of my friends who celebrated pancake day were in no way religious and weren't going to be observing Lent or Easter. I still don't necessarily eat Pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, and certainly eat them at other times of the year, but once in a while, it is a fun tradition to embrace. My sister's suggestion, therefore, of making Pancakes our next recipe to coincide with Pancake Day suited me to a T. Here are our three different Pancake Experiments, and a bonus Whipped Cinnamon Honey Butter recipe. For my friend, HibiscucKook's recipe for vegan pancakes on her blog, click here. Sahlep Pancakes by me Piggy Pancakes (AKA Hamcakes) and Whipped Cinnamon Honey Butter by my Sister

I absolutely love baked eggs! We've been making them for a few years now after first stumbling on the idea in Michel Roux's cookbook Eggs (awesome cookbook by the way. I hesitated over getting it initially because I figured "how interesting can a cookbook about eggs be?" Answer: really.) Since that initial revelation, we've played around with different configurations, different layers, different pairings. We've done sweet and savoury, some with veggie bases, others with some meat, or others again with both. Some are layered, some are dropped into a mixture, like curry. They are the perfect dish for using up micro amounts of leftovers. The only trick is to play flavours and textures off of each other successfully. We use vegetables (left over or raw), meat, cheese, cream, fruits, bread, spreads, chocolate, nuts... And the list goes on. Almost anything works. We've also cooked the eggs, instead of in ramequins, in a baking tray with corn bread batter or pancake batter as a base, nested in roast veggies before. It is endlessly adaptable. Omit meat and it's veggie. Use keto friendly veg and it's keto. Skip the toast and it's gluten free. Play around with it! This one came out beautifully. I used the last of my home made whey ricotta, some leftover (slightly spiced) stir fried veggies, the last of a pack of bacon and some fresh thyme, served with day old bread toasted up to perfection. The trick is to bake them until the yolk is still runny but the white is set, so keep your eyes on it. I usually place the eggs in a bain-marie in the oven, but not always. It allows them to come out moister, but depending on what you've used and what you're planning, you don't have to. Ingredients: 6 tbsp left over veggies 6-9 tbsp ricotta 3 eggs 6 rashers of bacon 3 thyme sprigs salt and pepper 1 tbsp butter Toast to serve 1) Butter 3 ramequins thoroughly. Spoon 2 tbsp of veggies into the bottom of each ramequin. Next, spoon in the ricotta around the edges of the dishes, leaving a well in the centre. Place a ring of bacon around the tops of the ramequins using 2 rashers each then crack an egg into the well created in each dish. 2) Place the ramequins in a baking dish and pour boiling water into the baking dish deep enough to come mid way up the sides of the ramequin. 3) Place in the oven at 180°C. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until the eggs are set to your liking. Serve with toast. These were rich and decadent. The slightly spiced veg played well off the creamy whey ricotta, and egg and bacon is of course a classic combo. The crunchy veggies and the toast added a textural contrast. It was beautiful and creamy and tasty. This is a must try!

As mentioned in Day 38 of The Challenge This can be vegetarian, as this was, or with ham and bacon, but

As mentioned in Day 41 of The Challenge Vegetables stewed with prunes and warm (rather than hot) spices served over couscous. What better for a rainy autumn afternoon? Especially not knowing how well the friend coming to lunch tolerates spice... Ingredients: 3 red onions, chopped 2 tomatoes , diced 3 carrots, chopped Half a head of garlic, sliced 6 celery sticks, chopped 400g chickpeas 400ml vegetable broth 1/2 c tomato passata 100 g prunes, pitted and chopped (or apricots could work) 1 cinnamon stick 1/2 tsp ground cumin 2 tsp tandoori powder (I like the light heat and the warmth of this spice, but you can use paprika if you'd rather) 1 tsp of Aloha Spiced Cacao (or cocoa powder) 3 tsp urfa biber or chilli flakes Salt and pepper to taste 1) Put a heavy oven proof dish in the oven without its lid, and heat to 180°C. 2) Chop your veg and add to the preheated dish. Add spices and stock, replace in the oven and allow to cook 1 - 1 1/4 hours until vegetables are almost tender (I like the carrots and celery to have a little bite left) and flavours have blended. Taste test and serve over couscous. Super simple, tasty and easily adapted to different veg, chicken or different levels of spice. It diffuses a lovely smell through the house, and on a cold afternoon warms you from the inside.

For World Environment Day on June 5th I was invited to take part in a collaboration making plant based, sustainable meals, and this is the one I came up with. Everything , or very nearly, was locally sourced from local farmers or foraged by Little One and I. After a visit to a local farmer, where I picked up yellow carrots, I started playing around with ideas of what I could make using those. Then there was local barley from the mountains on sale in the grocery store, so I decided on a tart, grinding the barley for the crust. For the other components of the tart I decided to go pick nettles for a pesto, which eventually ended up being nettle and dandelion, and to make ricotta with milk from the local dairy. I found other edible wild flowers too, so those were incorporated into the plan. I am really glad that I agreed to take part in that collaboration as otherwise I wouldn't have necessarily put all these components together, and it was really fun and came out super tasty! Ingredients: For the crust: 1 c barley flower (I ground up whole barley in the coffee grinder) 1 1/4 c whole meal flour 1/4 - 1/3 c cold butter 1/3 c milk For the pesto: 3-4 c nettles, washed in vinegar and then steamed til just wilted 1-2 c dandelion leaves 2 cloves garlic 2 tbsp olive oil 1 tbsp vinegar juice of 1 lemon a little water Salt and pepper to taste For the tart: 7-8 yellow carrots, quartered or eighthed lengthwise 1 c pesto 1/2 - 1 c ricotta OR Goat cheese 1-2 tsp wild thyme 1 1/2 - 2 tbsp honey 1 tbsp olive oil salt and pepper Wild flowers to top: Clover Wild thyme Wood sorrel 1) Make the crust: Place flour and barley flour in a bowl and cut in the butter in small dice. Rub butter into the flower with fingertips until a crumby mixture forms. Add milk and mix until just combined. Chill 30 minutes. 2) Make the pesto. Place all ingredients in a blender and blitz until smooth. Taste test. Dandelion leaves can be a little bitter, so add some lemon juice to counterbalance this if necessary. 3) Assemble the tart. Roll out the crust to the size of your tart plate, and line the bottom of the dish with it. Spread the pesto over the base and then arrange the carrots over the top radially. Dollop the honey and drizzle the olive oil over the carrots. Mix the wild thyme into the ricotta and then spread the ricotta over the carrots. Salt and pepper to taste. Bake at 190°C for 35-45 minutes, until the crust is golden and the carrots are tender but not soft. 4) Allow to cool a little and arrange the wild flowers over the top (optional). This was beautiful! All the flavours balanced each other beautifully, with the bitter dandelions and sweet carrots and honey and the acidic lemon and the creamy cheese. The tart was hot, the flowers fresh, the pesto deep, the lemon bright. And the colours truly popped! Eating it, it occurred to me that goat cheese could work very nicely on it, so when we heated it up on day 2 I added some and it did indeed work very nicely. Otherwise, more ricotta could be nice but is certainly not essential. I was really interested to see how the crust would come out. I don't often cook with non-wheat flours, and some I have used, like rice flour, I am not a fan of. Grinding my own grain into flour was certainly a first too. It came out very well. A little toothier than regular crust because there's only so fine I can get flour in a coffee grinder, and a little sweeter. It was a bit darker too, and I must say that it came out looking a little rustic (which matched the wild flowers, so that's fine.) The only potential change I would make otherwise would be to begin roasting the carrots ahead of time, or parboil them next time to kick start their cooking process. Otherwise, I am thoroughly delighted with this dish, as were Hubby and Little One.

As mentioned in Day 39 of The Challenge We haven't had this one in a while, but the local farmer we frequent had beets again so with autumn cool coming on, this was the perfect choice. Ingredients: 4 large beets, chopped 3 carrots, chopped 2 onions, chopped 3 potatoes, chopped 1 tbsp olive oil 1 litre of beef stock 1 c apple cider vinegar 2 tsp thyme salt and pepper to taste 1-2 tsp sour cream per serving 1) Heat oil in a large soup pot and sauté onions until translucent. Add carrots, potatoes and beets. Stir allowing them to sauté for about 5 minutes. 2) Pour in broth and cider, just to a little over the level of the vegetables and add seasoning. 3) Simmer until the root vegetables are tender, then blend to desired smoothness. i like it almost fully blended, but it is also good chunky. 4) Taste test and adjust vinegar or seasoning. Serve hot with a dollop of sour cream. Not too heavy, but warming and autumnal, with a rich colour and rich flavour highlighted by a vinegary tang, I love borscht.

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.

As mentioned in Day 87 of The Challenge Butternut and chestnut seasons intersect! This was entirely experimental. I saw the title of this recipe elsewhere but didn't look at the recipe and then couldn't remember where I had seen it, so I made it up. I had no idea how this would turn out, but it was beautiful. The balance of sweet to acid with a little spice went very nicely. Ingredients: 1 butternut squash, halved and with the seeds scooped out 500g chestnuts, parboiled and peeled 3-4 tbsp olive oil 2-4 onions chopped 1 apple, chopped 1-2 tbsp apple cider vinegar 1 tsp sumac 1/8-1/4 nutmeg 1/4 tsp cloves 1-1 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp fenugreek seeds 2-3 c chicken broth 1/3 -1/2 c cream 2 tsp thyme Salt and pepper to taste Toasted pumpkin seeds to top 1) Place butternut, chestnuts, apple in a heavy skillet or a roasting pan ( I used my cast iron skillet) and drizzle with 2-3 tbsp of olive oil and the apple cider vinegar to achieve good coverage. Sprinkle the sumac, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and fenugreek seeds over it all and roast for 45 min-1 hour, until the butternut is tender. 2) Sauté onions in the remaining olive oil in the bottom of your soup pot until translucent and even a little charred. Add the contents of the skillet and mix it up ( the butternut should break up easily. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes, allowing the flavours to meld. 3) Blitz until smooth, then taste test, adjusting any of the spicing or the vinegar. Salt and pepper to taste, and add cream to your taste too. I do recommend some, but how much you do is up to you. Serve and sprinkle with thyme and pumpkin seeds. I absolutely loved this and I am so glad I tried it! The roasting at the start lengthened the cook time a little, but then pulling the soup bit together went really quickly, so it's six and two threes really compared to other souping. The truly lengthy bit is peeling the chestnuts if you use fresh ones, but then I find it quite zen to settle into a task like that. The other option is to use frozen ones that come pre-peeled. In any case, this soup hit all the right notes for me (and hubby and Little Bit) and I hope it does for you too.