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!

Sweet potatoes are still inexpensive, which will only last another little while, so I managed to buy up rather a lot of them and then needed to use them (Oh! no! Not the sweet potatoes!) How else to use potatoes than a shepherd's pie. And if a shepherd's pie with sweet potato mash on top, then what to put underneath it? Beans! And then I found some sofrito in the fridge from another recipe, so that helped colour the flavours of the bean mix. Sofrito is a mix of blended onions, garlic, red pepper, green pepper, coriander, cumin and chilli. It is a South/Central American base used in cooking, the exact components and proportions of which vary. I also added beets to the beans. These I figured would help add some depth of flavour which a red meat dish normally has. The result was a little goopy because I was impatient with the bean mixture but very tasty. Ingredients: For the mash: 1 kg sweet potatoes, chopped 2 tbsp butter 1/4 c milk (ish) For the bean mix: 1 c dried red beans (small ones, not kidney beans, although these might work too) 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 c red lentils 2 tbsp olive oil 4 onions, chopped 1 head garlic, minced 2 beets, chopped 3 tbsp sofrito 1 1/2 c passata 1 tsp oregano 1 tsp cumin 1 tsp dried coriander 1 tsp dried orange peel 1 tbsp red wine vinegar Juice of 1 lemon 1 c cheese, grated 1) Soak the beans overnight. (I actually first brought them to a low simmer with the baking soda and then put them in my wonderbag, or slow cooker overnight, and then I brought them back to a boil before adding the other ingredients.) 2) Place the beans on the stove, add the lentils and bring to a simmer. In a separate pot, boil the sweet potatoes until mashable - 20 to 25 minutes (a bit longer if you chop them bigger). 3) In a frying pan, heat the oil. Brown the onions and garlic, then add the sofrito and the spices. Cook for about 10 to 15 minutes, then add to the beans, along with the passata, beets, vinegar and lemon juice. Simmer to reduce until thickened to a spoonable consistency (or less if you don't mind it a bit liquidy). 4) Drain and mash the sweet potatoes with milk and butter. In a large ovenproof dish, place a layer of beans and then spread the sweet potatoes over the top. Sprinkle the cheese over the top. Bake at 180°c for 30-35 minutes until the cheese is melted and golden and the two layers have married and bubbled together. This was really tasty! It needed the beets and the brightening with the lemon and vinegar, but the spicing worked well for what it was and the beans contrasted nicely with the sweet potato mash. There was about twice as much of the bean mix as I needed, so I set the excess aside and we used it subsequently in wraps which it was very well suited to. The beans were a little mushier than I would have liked. I assumed the cook times of kidney beans, which these clearly did not need. I would recommend merely soaking them overnight rather than placing them in a slow cooker, and leaving them alone until you start bringing other bits together the next day. I enthusiastically got them back on the stove too soon and they disintegrated. As a result, the beans could have done with some more texture to them. In addition to cooking the beans a bit less, I am wondering if something like cashews might not go nicely in the bean portion. That is just musing though. I have no idea. If you try it, let me know!

I started making my own apple pectin last year, and have used it a couple of times for jellies (like my Lemon and Ginger Chilli Jelly). Apple pectin is entirely naturally occurring in apples, and in the presence of sugar, it helps gel things. I wondered if it would be possible to use pectin instead of gelatine in other things, like Panna Cotta. I do like panna cotta and like playing around with flavours for it occasionally (like my lemon-topped one, or my savoury lemongrass and coconut one!). I was a little worried that the pectin would both flavour and colour the panna cotta as it is a pink colour. As for the flavour, I decided to run with it and pair it with applesauce. The idea has been bouncing around for a little while and I finally decided to try it. Recipe Cook time: 20-30 minutes + chill time 4 hours to overnight -- Portions: 4 -- Difficulty: Easy Ingredients: 2c cream 2 c apple pectin 3 tbsp brown sugar 1 c apple sauce 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp allspice 1) Pour cream and pectin into a saucepan and heat slowly. Stir in sugar. Bring to a slow simmer and cook for about 15 minutes. 2) Mix the cinnamon and allspice into the applesauce and spoon it into the bottom of 4 or 5 glasses. Gently pour the cream mixture over the top of the apple sauce and chill overnight in the fridge. This worked. Ish. Better than I had feared but not as well as I had hoped. I initially started with 1 c pectin, but while the cream did thicken, it didn't gel. I poured it all (apple sauce included as I couldn't seem to get just the cream) back into a saucepan, and added the third tablespoon of sugar and another cup of pectin. I cooked it again and chilled it again. This time it worked! The cream was the right consistency for panna cotta, and absolutely delicious, with little bits of apple and lots of spice caught in it. The only problem was that the cream was a solid layer on top of a layer of juice. I don't know if it was from the apple sauce or from the pectin, or a little of each, but as soon as we started eating the panna cotta, the juice seeped up and mixed with the cream, and it was all a liquidy mess. Next time, I think I need to reduce both the apple sauce and the pectin a bit further to prevent that. It was still tasty though! So very tasty! Science experiment successful though. Pectin works to gel things other than jellies, as a replacement for gelatine. With some caveats! The other issue with using homemade pectin, scientifically speaking, is that it is not going to be a uniform strength. What took 2 cups of pectin this time might take 1 1/2 or 3 next time, there is no real way to know... I guess I will just have to play that one by ear. Luckily, that is how most of my cooking happens, so I'm ok with that. Also, it didn't turn pink, but was a little coloured by the spices. I will have to try this one again, with reduced ingredients, to see how it goes then. Served in little glasses, I think this could work quite nicely as a party food!

I love my morning porridge, and the Baked Porridge we've been having recently has been very tasty, but once in a while it's nice to switch it up. I don't tend to buy breakfast cereals because the sugar content is through the roof, and instead decided to make my own granola. It's been ages since I last did it, but I am rather pleased with how this came out. Little Bit and I were snacking on it dry when it came out of the oven, and it's been a hit for breakfast in yogurt. The clumps are quite small, but if you want them bigger, just add more of the molasses. Ingredients: 2 c oats 1/2 c almonds, finely chopped 1/3 c walnuts, finely chopped 3 tbsp chia seeds 1/2 c hazelnuts, finely chopped 1/4 c pine nuts, chopped 3/4 - 1 c tahini 1/4 c raisin molasses 1) Mix all ingredients together on a baking tray. Bake at 170°C for 30-45 minutes until toasted and golden brown. Allow to cool and then serve with milk, yogurt or plain. The raisin molasses hadn't been the plan, but I picked it up in the Turkish grocery story strapped to the tahini as though they belong together, so when I put the tahini in, I figured that the raisin molasses might as well follow. It is not too sweet and has a relatively light flavour. I quite enjoy the combo and think it came out well in this, but the granola could work well with honey instead. I plan on playing around a little with different combinations over the next few months for different granolas, so stay tuned!

As mentioned in Day 54 of The Challenge I planted a bunch of tomatoes this year by putting sliced tomato under a thin layer of earth. I ended up with 19 tomato plants on my little balcony. Because of how late they sprouted, we only had a few ripe tomatoes from them. The rest were growing nicely but didn't get the chance to ripen. With the first frost predicted, we harvested them and my dad's remaining green tomatoes and turned them into chutney to avoid having them go to waste. I had never tried this before but was quite pleased with how it came out! Ingredients: 2.5 - 3 kg of unripe tomatoes 3 cooking apples, cored and chopped 3 onions, chopped 1 1/2 c raisins 1 c red wine vinegar 1 1/2 c white cooking wine 1 1/2 - 2 c brown sugar 2 tsp ground ginger 2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg 2 tsp ground cinnamon 1 tbsp chilli flakes ( I used pul biber, Turkish red chilies) 1) Stew the tomatoes, apples and onions in a little water until they disintegrate. Add raisins, sugar and vinegar, then the spices and cook over a low heat. Place a saucer in the freezer. 2) Stir occasionally to prevent the chutney from sticking. As it thickens you'll need to stir more consistently. Taste test to check for sugar and spicing, and feel free to tweak to your taste! 3) Drop some of the hot chutney on the saucer from the freezer. If after a minute if starts to solidify and the top wrinkles and pulls tight, it should gel nicely once cool. If not, then boil it a bit longer or add sugar (or both). 4) To sterilize jars: boil clean jars and their lids for at least 15 minutes. Fill them with the boiling chutney immediately on removing them from the boiling water (canning tongs make this so much easier and makes it less likely that you'll burn yourself, but you can do it with a spoon or a spatula and a dish cloth). Fill to just below the rim, wipe the grooves clean and screw the lid on tight. As the jars and contents cool, the centre of the lid should be sucked down and the jars will be sealed properly. Place the jars upside down on a clean cloth. Label when cool. (The part about putting them upside down is from my German Oma, I don't know what's behind it but it works.) This chutney was a little on the sweet side, which I hadn't expected. There was a slight bitterness to the after taste when it was hot that I tried to compensate for. It is not overly sweet and still has the sour, spiced chutney notes, no more bitterness. It is very tasty, especially with the baked pancakes! I highly recommend this if you have green tomatoes you don't want to spoil!

I only discovered rose-hips two years ago, My brother-in-law mentioned them as one of our rose bushes wasn't being pruned. My grandmother and I started harvesting them and turned it into a whole enterprise, cleaning them and prepping them. Rose-hips are the fruit of the rose which grows from the base of the bud after the flower becomes overblown - if it is not pruned. They grow wild as well as on domestic rose bushes and can be a treat along a walking trail. They are bright red when ripe and vary in size and shape, some being squat spheres, others being more ovaloid. Prepping them involves removing the seeds and small hairs attached to the seeds as these used to be used as itching powder - less than pleasant if left in food. Removing the seeds and hairs involves either turning the rose-hips into purée by soaking in boiling water then passing through a food mill or a sieve, or deseeding and drying. Both are a bit of work, the latter more so, but worth the effort I find. On their own, rose-hips are quite tart, and are very high in vitamin C. I like the idea of using a food that we had harvested from our garden. More local and organic would be hard to find. It was also a fun time spent together, just the two of us harvesting and processing buckets of rose-hips. Some of these we made jam with and some we deseeded and dried (excellent in porridge with apple juice and cinnamon). Only last year did I start expanding what I used them in, both sweet and savoury, This was an experimental soup, no recipe, just taste test and tweak as needed. Ingredients: 600ml Rose-hip purée 600ml water 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped 1 onion, roughly diced 1 knob of ginger, minced 3 carrots, roughly chopped 2 small-medium potatoes A handful of spinach or Swiss chard or some such 1 tsp honey 2tsp olive oil 2 tsp chilli flakes - I used Turkish Urfa biber -Smoked chilli flakes. A handful of fresh basil Salt and pepper to taste 1) Heat oil in a small saucepan. When it starts to shimmer add onion, garlic and ginger. Stir them and cook until they start to crisp. The browned garlic, onion and ginger add a nice-counter balance to the tartness of the rose-hips. 2) Add the potato and carrot and stir for a minute before adding the rose-hip purée and water, then the rest of the ingredients. Be sure and taste test as perfect tart-sweet-heat balance for me may not be right for you. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve with crusty bread and enjoy! As an experiment this worked rather well. It was refreshing but flavourful, especially on a hot day, with mild heat and a well rounded flavour, hitting heat, tart and sweet notes.. We have soup most days for lunch and this provided a tasty variation to most soup bases. I hope you enjoy!

This started out as a trialled tweak of the Orange Date Cookies back in the autumn. In a taste test of the two, we liked the Orange Date Cookies better on certain characteristics. The rest of the Grapefruit Prune Cookie dough was put in the freezer and forgotten about. About a month ago though, craving some cookies, we pulled it out and had a few cookies, and it turns out that although very different to the Orange Date Cookies in taste and texture, they are nevertheless very good in their own right. I therefore set out to try to recreate the recipe and the tweaks I had made at the time. I ran out of molasses though, so this batch was half honey and half molasses. I have put a few away in the freezer again and will try a fully molasses batch soon to compare them. In the mean time though, friends we visited for the weekend were willing to be guinea pigs for us and approved the cookies, as did both their little one and Little Bit. Ingredients: 1 c butter, softened 1/2 c white sugar 1/2 c dark brown sugar 1/2 c oat flour ( I blitzed oats in our coffee grinder for these) 1/3 c molasses OR 2 1/2 tbsp molasses and 2 1/2 tbsp honey 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 2 eggs 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp cloves 1 tsp ginger 2 c flour 1/4 c dried grapefruit peel 3/4 c prunes, chopped 1) Cream butter and sugar in a bowl. Add oat flour and molasses (and honey if using) and mix well. Soak grapefruit peel in a cup of hot water. 2) Stir vanilla and eggs into butter mixture, then gradually add dry ingredients. 3) Drain grapefruit peel, and add with prunes to the dough. Mix well. Drop onto greased cookie sheet by teaspoonfuls. 4) Bake at 180°C for 8-10 minutes until golden on top. Cool for a few minutes then enjoy warm! These turned out very well. They are softer and spread more than the orange date cookies. I find them closer in texture, and sort of in taste, to ginger snaps than tollhouse cookies, Hubby finds them to more closely resemble oatmeal cookies. It's like trying to decide which facial features a child got from each parent though, and in reality the cookies are their own thing, not bastard versions of anything else. To make them a little firmer and have them spread less, I might try adding an extra 1/4 c of flour next time. They also came out darker than I had anticipated. Initially I though I had let them go too long, but let the next batch go less time and they were actually less good. Tanner it is then! I was then worried that they would be too hard and crisp, but not at all. They stayed moist over the next couple of days and were lovely and soft without being sticky. Overall though, I am delighted with these. Let me know what you think! Book Pairing: While baking these I was listening to Dante's Inferno. I read it before, years ago, but find that it stands up very well to a second reading.... well, listening. Dante and Virgil found themselves dealing for passage from circle to circle with the demons who guard Hell, as they pass souls in a a flaming pit. Dante's imagery is very evocative and he is an enjoyable narrator, I only wish I knew more about some of the historical figures he encounters as it would be easier to follow some bits. The verse nature of the book does well in audio version but the downfall of the medium is that I don't have access to text notes. Oh well.

This is a dish that was inspired by something similar-ish we had on our trip to Ticino in the autumn. It was creamy and sweet yet savoury. I wanted to recreate that and so made it up as I went along and am very happy with how it came out! I had whey left over from making ricotta (that I used in the White Lasagne) so I used that as the cooking liquid. Whey itself is salted and a little acidic while also still being dairy, so it brought some of all of that to the dish. It was less creamy and rich than making risotto with milk (which was desirable, given the caramel chestnuts), and less acidic than using white wine, and less salty than store bought stock. Instead it brought a lovely balance of all these flavours. If you don't happen to have extra whey on hand, I would use some milk and maybe a dash of lemon juice at the end. Given the season, the chestnuts were frozen, but they worked well nonetheless. Ingredients: 300g Arborio rice 2 onions, chopped 1/2 head of garlic, chopped 2 tbsp olive oil 1 l whey 0,5 - 1 l water 1 tsp sumac 1 tbsp butter 1 c parmesan pepper 250g chestnuts 2 tbsp butter 1/3 c ground almonds 1/3 - 1/2 c sugar 2 tsp molasses 1 c water 1 c milk 1/4 tsp cloves 1/2 tsp ginger 1) Heat oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan and sauté onions and garlic for 3-4 minutes, then add rice. Stir until rice begins to go translucent as well. Add whey. Stir almost constantly (this is what allows the rice to release its starches, and keeps it from burning). 2) In a separate saucepan, melt the butter and stir in chestnuts, allowing them to cook through slowly for about 2 minutes, add the almonds, sugar, molasses, spices and water and cook, stirring regularly. Add milk when the caramel has started to form, and taste test for sugar. Remove from heat and cover 3) Once all the liquid is absorbed by the rice, add the water gradually, not adding more than necessary. Add sumac and pepper and stir. Once the rice is cooked and has thickened, add the butter and cheese. Stir. 4) At this point, either add the chestnuts into the risotto and stir it in, mixing thoroughly before dishing, or serve the rice and spoon chestnuts and caramel over the top. Depending on how vigorously you stir, the chestnuts might start to fall apart, but this is ok. The consensus on this from my sister, hubby, Little Bit and myself is that it was a success. I thought that the caramel chestnut concentration could be higher, and that the proportion of those could be increased by half. My sister and hubby didn't think so. Beyond this though, it was well balanced, creamy and very very tasty! I highly recommend this to anyone who can be bothered stirring a risotto and is in the mood for comfort food.

As mentioned in Day 40 of The Challenge I love making my own pasta. My pasta maker is one of my favourite kitchen toys. I started making fresh pasta a few years ago with my dad, for lasagne or carbonara or ravioli. I got my pasta maker as a house warming gift and love pulling it out. For a long time I stuck with traditional fresh pasta, made with flour and eggs, then last year I started replacing the eggs with different vegetables. It gives the pasta a cool colour, and impregnates it with flavour without losing any of the richness. It works with pumpkin, carrot, beet, sweet potato, each with its own profile and different sauces or dishes to match them to. Some work better than others for the texture, so sometimes, the addition of one egg is necessary. Seeing as it's pumpkin season, I decided to use some roasted pumpkin for the pasta. I only started using nettles this year. I've heard for years about how good it is nutritionally, and it grows all over around here. I've been curious, but only got around to it this summer. I made the pesto earlier this summer and froze the extra, so for yesterday's dinner we made the pasta and simply heated up the pesto, sautéing it with onions before mixing it with the fresh pasta. Skip the parmesan to make this recipe vegan. Ingredients: Pumpkin pasta: 1 1/2 - 2 c roasted pumpkin, mashed 3-4c flour 1 1/2 tsp sage Salt and pepper to taste Nettle pesto: 4-5 c nettle leaves, de-stalked and washed ( I recommend gardening gloves!) 1 head of garlic, peeled and crushed 1 tsp olive oil 1/2 cup walnuts 1/2 c olive oil 1/2 c parmesan (for this one I added 1/2 c roasted beetroot, but it is just as good without). 1 tbsp olive oil 2 onions, chopped Parmesan for grating 1) Put flour in a bowl and create a well in the centre. Put the pumpkin in the well and gradually mix the flour into the pumpkin to create a soft, elastic dough. Knead in crushed sage and salt and pepper to taste. 2)Dump it out onto a clean, floured surface and knead for a few minutes. Make sure it isn't too sticky as otherwise it will gum up the pasta maker, or it will get sticky when cooked. If it seems to sticky, knead extra flour into it. (If you don't like all the kneading make sure the dough is floured on the outside and pass it through the first setting of the pasta maker a few times. It will work the dough for you.) 3) Once the dough is ready, cut off a piece the size of half a fist and pass it through successively higher settings on the pasta maker. Different machines have different settings, but just to give you an idea, I stopped at setting 5 for this one - thick enough to have some bite, thin enough to be delicate and not clumpy. 4) Once you have it to the desired thickness, pass your sheet of dough through the fettuccine cutter and the hang to dry on a pasta tree, rack or the back of a chair. Just make sure the surface is clean and that the pasta won't stick. At this point you have the option to dry the pasta completely and store it, or to cook it right away and have fresh pasta. 5) To cook the fresh pasta, bring a pot of water to the boil. Put pasta into the water a couple of portions at a time. Cook for a couple of minutes and drain the pasta. Be careful! Fresh pasta cooks much faster than dried, so it won't take long. An extra 30s and you will be eating mush. 6) Meanwhile for the pesto, heat 1 tbsp of oil in a frying pan. Sauté the garlic and add the nettles. Traditionally the garlic is left raw, and you can for this too, but I like the softened sweeter flavour of the garlic to contrast with the nutty flavour of the nettles. To not be stung by nettles they need to be either steamed or sautéed, so I figure, kill two birds with one stone. 7) When the nettles are wilted, tip them and the other ingredients into a blender or a mortar and pestle and grind until it forms a smooth paste. Taste and adjust any seasoning. 8) Sauté the onion in a large pan, and then add the pesto to it to warm. Add the cooked pasta, and if it looks dry, a couple of spoons of the pasta cooking water. Grate cheese over the top, salt and pepper to taste, and serve! This came out beautifully! possibly some of the best pasta I've made. It was almost better without the pesto, just with butter, much as I like this pesto. It is a little labour intensive, but it is a labour I love and truly enjoy, especially with a buddy. The turning certainly provided a show during Little Bit's dinner! In case you want to try making these but don't have a pasta machine or pasta tree click on the links to get one of your own! As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

After a morning of playing in the snow with Little Bit, we decided to have bacon and eggs for lunch, and for good measure (hiking in the cold takes energy!) I decided to throw in some pancakes. Getting the milk from the fridge, I noticed the last of a tub of cottage cheese that needed using, and decided to use that instead. I also used a tin of peaches (it is winter, so no fresh ones), including the juice. Some spicing later and we got to try it out. The batter on its own came out very tasty and I will definitely be making these again, and the added bonus of the peaches was great! Note: If you don't have cottage cheese, use about 1/2c milk and 1/4 c of peach juice instead and you should get a similar result (without the creamy melted pockets from the curds). Ingredients: 1 1/2c flour 3 tbsp sugar 3 tbsp melted butter 3 tsp baking powder 2 eggs 3/4c cottage cheese 1/2 - 3/4c peach juice (from the tin) 1 tsp ginger 1/4 tsp cloves 1 tin of peaches, sliced 1) Mix the dry ingredients together, then one by one add the liquids, stirring well after every addition. Add the amount of peach juice to get the pancakes to the right consistency (wet enough to dollop, but not runny). 2) Heat a griddle pan or frying pan and melt butter. Add 1 large spoon of batter per pancake and cook on medium heat. 3) When small bubbles start appearing and the pancake is able to lift gently from the pan with a spatula, lay out a couple of slices of peach (or a peach half if you so choose) in the wet batter, then flip the pancake and cook until done. The inner consistency around the peach slices was slightly wetter than pancakes normally are inside, but they didn't suffer for it. The juicy peach slices worked well with the spiced batter, especially alongside a poached egg and some bacon. I wasn't sure how the cottage cheese would do in the pancakes, but it mostly melted away, just adding creaminess to the batter. I found that a small drizzle of maple syrup worked particularly well over the top, but they stand up equally well without any dressing up whatsoever! And Little Bit loved them too...