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As with the Honey and Cinnamon Scones, these were for an Afternoon Tea collaboration I was invited to take part in on Instagram for International Tea day on the 21st of May. Devilled eggs are simple and tasty, but a lot of people seem daunted by the idea of making them, so I thought it worth including a recipe here. I used my dad's Scotch bonnet hot sauce to devil the eggs, but beyond a bit of a kick, left them pretty mild so Little Bit could have some too. Along with fruit, he is an egg fiend. Ingredients: 6 eggs 1 - 1 1/2 tbsp mayo 2 tsp mustard 1 -2 tsp hot sauce (or more to suit your taste) Salt and pepper to taste Tandoori powder for sprinkling 1) Boil the eggs for 9-10 minutes. Remove from the heat and run under cold water then let them sit in it until cool. 2) Peel the eggs carefully, halve them and pop out the yolks. In a bowl, mash all the yolks together with the other ingredients except tandoori powder. Taste test. 3) Spoon or pipe the yolks back into their wells in the whites. Sprinkle them with tandoori powder. I hadn't had devilled eggs in ages, and was delighted to have some again! I really should entertain more often (pandemics allowing) in order to make these more! Or maybe just have tea time at home with my boys and make these for us...

I love curry. I love its versatility, and the fluctuating meanings hidden behind the word. It can mean something spicy and hot, it can mean something creamy with warmer flavours behind it. The word encompasses dishes from a wide range of different cultures' cuisines. It includes any number of spices and spice combinations, and is an area which holds so much potential for experimentation and play. This curry was born in part of inspiration from a curry of Ottolenghi's from Flavour that I had planned on trying a week ago and then discovered I didn't have all the ingredients for, and in part from what was in the fridge and how I felt like matching things at the time. Ottolenghi's recipe was a lentil coconut curry with paneer stuffed aubergines. I made the paneer for it, and then discovered I didn't have coconut milk. Then I was on night shifts for a few days and we had used a number of the other ingredients by the time I came back around to the idea this week. What we did have though was a wealth of sweet potatoes, some other veg that needed using, and paneer. I roasted the sweet potatoes, added the other veg, brought it all up to temperature then popped the pot in my Wonderbag oven and went on a bike ride. When I came home (10 km on a soft tyre later) it was all ready to go, we just had to make rice for it. The first night I remembered the spring onions I had wanted to put over the top but forgot the paneer, then next night I remembered the paneer but was out of spring onions. Ideally, it would have had both. I also would have liked more red lentils in this curry, but I am terrible at knowing what I am going to put in a dish until I make it, and didn't take a look in the cupboard before starting. When I did come to adding it, I discovered I had only a cup of lentils, so that is all that went in. Ingredients: Approx 10 sweet potatoes 1/2 tbsp peanut oil 1 onion, chopped 1 head garlic, chopped 3 inches of ginger, chopped 1 c cream 1/2 - 1 tbsp garam masala (this one was heavy on the cinnamon) 1 tsp cardammom 1/2 tsp cloves 1 tsp tandoori powder 2 zucchinis, chopped 1 eggplant, chopped 1 small head of broccoli, floretted 1 c red lentils 2-3 c water Salt and pepper to taste Optional toppings: 2 c paneer, cubed 2 tsp oil 2 small spring onions chopped Rice to serve (we had ours with mixed wild rice) 1) Roast the sweet potatoes whole at 200°c for about 30 minutes until soft. 2) Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pot. Sauté the onions, garlic and ginger until fragrant. Roughly chop the sweet potato and add along with the spices. (I kept the sweet potato skins, but feel free to chuck them at this stage). Stir to combine and add a little water. 3) Stir in veg and cream. Add lentils. Add enough water for the consistency to be moist but not wet and not too thick. Bring to a boil then either reduce to a simmer, making sure to stir regularly to prevent sticking, or place in a slow cooker for a couple of hours. 4) If serving with paneer, fry the cubed paneer at medium heat about 5-10 minutes until browned on 2 sides. Serve over rice with a sprinkling of spring onions and/or fried paneer. This curry came out beautifully. I liked the play of textures and colours and flavours. You may have noticed that there isn't much heat to it. Recently, contrary to my wont, I haven't been cooking with much heat in order to be more inclusive of Little Bit who likes a little heat, especially certain types (he happily chews raw ginger) but is quickly overwhelmed by it. Instead most of our food tends to be quite mild these days, then we add hot sauce to it to our own tastes. Our current hot sauce of choice for this is my dad's home made scotch bonnet hot sauce which is quite hot. A teaspoon of that goes quite nicely in a plate of curry. The cream could be replaced with coconut milk and the paneer omitted if you wanted to make this vegan. Currently vegetarian, it could quite happily accommodate some meat if you wanted. Don't feel beholden to the veg I used, that's just what I had on hand. Play with it! This was my second time making paneer. Last time I used yogurt as the curdling agent. This time I used lemon juice. 1.5 l required about 1 and a half lemons' worth of juice. I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out though as Hubby accidentally turned on the heat under the pot as the milk and lemon juice were resting and cheese-ifying. It came back up to a rolling boil before we realised. It did however come out quite well. It was not as solid as last time, and more liquid was released when frying it in the pan, but it pressed nicely under a baking dish full of sweet potatoes and was certainly very tasty on top of the curry.

I was invited this week to take part in a collaboration on Instagram for International Tea day on the 21st of May and to put together an Afternoon Tea. In planning this, scones seemed almost a prerequisite. Continuing my earlier quest for scones that rise well without self-raising flour, at some altitude and without the taste of baking powder, I decided to try the use of some baking powder and some baking soda. Soda needs an acid to activate it, and without whey on hand this time, I decided to try using honey, which somewhat surprisingly is acidic. I didn't use any sugar and instead used about a tablespoon of honey, and my scones came out quite well. They didn't rise as much as I would have liked, so I will try again, increasing the quantities of soda and honey accordingly, but as a first attempt at this, they came out nicely and had a lovely flavour. Given the absence locally of clotted cream, I used Double Crème de Gruyère instead which worked delightfully. Ingredients: 1 1/2 c flour 1/2 c butter, cubed 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1 tbsp honey 1/3 c milk 1/3 c raisins 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1) Place dry ingredients in a bowl. Add butter and rub together with the dry ingredients until they form a crumb-like consistency. 2) Add the honey and milk and stir with a fork, forming a thick dough. Mix in raisins and press dough together without kneading. 3) Roll out on a floured surface to about 1 1/2 cm thick and cut out rounds of the desired diameter. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 180°C for about 12 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm with butter or clotted cream and jam or honey for best results. These were very tasty and had a very nice crumb. I would have liked them to rise by about another 1/2 or 1 cm, but I was quite pleased with them doubling in size. They had a taste almost of cinnamon raisin bagels and were particularly nice with homemade Plum and Apple Jam. Book Pairing: I made these while listening to Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. it is one of the few of hers that I had not previously read. My sister started reading it aloud to me a year ago on skype but we didn't get very far, so I decided to listen to it on my own instead and wrap it up. I found it thoroughly delightful, if a little frustrating in parts, and Austen's biting satire is as entertaining as ever. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Last week I tried mozzarella again for the third time. As you may remember, my previous two attempts left something to be desired. This time I started out with my cousin-in-law's recipe crossed with the recipe from my kit - not knowing what type of rennet she uses I referred to the kit for that. Initially the milk reacted the same as on previous attempts, and while it curdled a little, it didn't form nearly the same amount nor consistency of curds that it should have. I then realised that although her recipe didn't call for it, I probably needed to use calcium chloride as my milk is pasteurised at the dairy whereas hers probably isn't. On a whim I also added another rennet tablet and low and behold, the curds appeared! I don't know if it was the calcium chloride or the extra rennet tablet that did it, but I suspect it was the rennet as I had used calcium chloride on my previous attempts. Initially the curdling wasn't tremendously obvious and I started draining the curds through just a strainer without a cheese cloth. As they went through though, gel-like curds formed in the whey underneath. I therefore lined my strainer with a cloth and restrained all the whey and got a large amount of curds. When submerged in the warm water, they stretched the way they are supposed to and based on that I decided to make burrata too. What I discovered though was that I had two types of curd. In the bottom of the strainer, below the lovely, smooth, stretchable curds were lumpy gritty ones that were reacting the same way as the ones from my second attempt, dispersing in the hot water instead of melting. I believe that these were formed before the second rennet tablet had time to really take effect. At lunch an hour or so after making the mozzarella, both cheeses were perfect. Taste and texture were both as they should be. Well, not perfect as I've had better - fishing it out of a plastic bag of whey on my lap in a moving car after we picked up fresh mozzarella at a farmers' market in Genoa - but as good or better than even the best store-bought mozzarella I have had. The next day however, both the mozzarella and the burrata were tough. Based on the trouble shooting table in Artisan Cheese Making at Home, I added too much rennet, so next time I will try to use only one and a half tablets and see where that gets me. I will also add the calcium chloride at the very start as I am supposed to, rather than mid way through, after the citric acid and after some but not all of the rennet. I wonder if some of the trouble each time was adding the citric acid first rather than the calcium chloride first. I only discovered this time, when checking the effect of the calcium chloride, that it is supposed to be added at the very start and is used in pasteurised milk to increase calcium ion availability and thus to improve curdling. Even a little tough though, the taste of the cheese was great! We didn't cook with either the mozzarella or the burrata at all but ate it on the side with lunch. I will obviously be playing around with this again and see how it goes, but for a nice meal, it is worth the effort. For bog standard mozzarella uses though, I think I'll stick with store-bought. On a side note, I made this batch of cheese with very wet feet in an increasingly flooded kitchen. Little Bit asked to have water play time at the sink in his observation tower, and figuring it would occupy him nicely while I stretched hot curds, I thought this a good idea. It was. He was delighted, but between his dumper truck and a bucket, he managed to make quite the mess. It took some cleaning up while the cheese cooled in its salt water after wards, and we both needed fresh socks - and he a whole outfit change - but that's ok. In other news, I have contacted a cheese making supply company here in Switzerland, so hopefully I will be getting cultures soon and able to move on to other cheeses....

I started out by trying to make candied lemon rind in the same way that I've been making candied orange peel. I used a little more sugar to simmer the lemon rind though to counteract its' being slightly more bitter than orange peel. When I went to cool and then drain the peels (setting aside the syrup for some other use), I discovered that they should be kept together, rind in syrup rather than just drying the rinds. The combination was really tasty! It was not too sweet nor too bitter, had a strong lemon flavour and the peels had a nice tooth to them without being in the least bit tough. Trying a spoonful, I decided to set it all aside as it was and make panna cotta to have with it. We did that this weekend, and the combination was too good not to share. Ingredients: For the Lemon rind in syrup: Rind of 2 lemons, all flesh removed and sliced into strips 1/2 c sugar (approx) Water (approx 2-3 c) For the panna cotta: 500ml cream 1/4 c sugar (approx. - adjust to suit your own tastes though) 40g gelatine (I used the granulated kind, but check the packet instructions for the one you use) 1 tsp vanilla 1) Place the lemon rind and sugar in a saucepan with enough water to cover them to twice their depth. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 45 minutes, until the rinds are tender and the liquid is reduced to syrup. Cool and set aside. You can make this ahead of time and store it in the fridge in a sealed jar. 2) Place cream and vanilla in a saucepan and heat gently until it reaches a simmer. Stir in the gelatine and sugar (if using gelatine sheets, don't forget to soak these first). Taste test for sweetness and vanilla. 3) Pour into small pots or ramequins and chill for at least a couple of hours or overnight. To serve, spoon the lemon peels and syrup over the panna cotta. I absolutely loved this dessert. The tart peels played off the creaminess really well, and none of it was overly sweet. My only problem was with the gelatine. It caused the panna cotta to be slightly grainy, and it is not the first time I've had this issue with the granulated kind. It didn't happen with the Lemongrass Panna Cotta but did a previous time. I don't know why it does this, whether it is simmer time or something else. On the whole, I prefer the sheets and have since picked some up for next time. Book Pairing: I was listening to China Miéville's Embassytown when I made these. Miéville's novels are delightfully strange. This one centred around language and its effects on thought patterns and ways of knowing the world around us. One race of beings represented can only speak Truth and can only conceive of what they have words for. Through the plot, the differences in language and the way it is used were interestingly explored. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, although the reader was a little irritating. Certain concepts are described using an existing German word which was surprising. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

It was rainy and cold and after nap time I was reading Little Bit a classic from my childhood, Happy Winter by Karen Gundersheimer. In it is a recipe for a fudge cake that the little girls in the story make with their Mama. My first idea was to make that cake with little Bit and then go stomp in puddles while it baked, coming in to hot cake. It needed to bake too long for our available time slot though, so I considered brownies instead, and it occurred to me that we had pear and ginger on hand to put in them. I like pear brownies, but the pear flavour doesn't shine as much as I'd like, so I decided on blondies instead. These were beauteous and gooey and gingery. They are definitely going to be sticking around (and very sticky they were too!) Ingredients: 1/2 c butter, melted 1 c brown sugar 1 egg 1 tsp vanilla 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/8 tsp baking soda 1/2 c walnuts, chopped 1 c flour 1 pear, diced 1 finger of ginger, diced 1/4 - 1/2 c sugar 1/2 c whey/milk 1) Place the diced ginger in a saucepan with enough water to drown them by a couple of centimetres and add sugar. simmer gently, reducing the liquid. As it reduces, add a splash or two of milk or whey, allowing it to caramelise with the sugar. Stir regularly! 2) In a large bowl, cream the brown sugar and butter together. Beat in egg and vanilla. Slowly add the dry ingredients and mix well. 3) Stir in the pear and walnuts. Add enough milk or whey to make the batter thick but pourable. Stir in the ginger with its caramel syrup. 4) Bake in a prepared baking tin at 175°C for 30-35 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. These were beautiful! They were sticky with a layer of gooey caramel on the bottom. The ginger and pear came through very nicely. I might reduce the sugar a bit next time, using some of the sugar that would go in the batter to candy the ginger, and I would use a few more nuts, but otherwise, am I delighted with these! The timing of the baking was perfect too! We came in wet and muddy from stomping in puddles, and the blondies were ready for us to eat by the fire once we were dried off. Maybe a little richer than I needed, but tasty and moreish... and healthy because of the pear, ginger and nuts, right?

This is another recipe guest-starring Hubby. We had some mango in the fridge and he was inspired. He also wanted to try something a little different from our standard coconut based curries and play with a different flavour and spicing profile. It was very tasty and all of us loved it so I thought I'd share! We do get growled a lot by Little Bit if he knows we have mango that we aren't dishing fast enough, and we had to guard our plates to keep and mango bits for ourselves, but that aside, it was a lovely dinner. Ingredients: 1 tbsp peanut oil 2-3 onions, chopped 1 large knob of ginger, julienned 4-6 carrots, copped 3-4 sweet potatoes, cubed A handful of runner beans, chopped 700g chicken breast, cubed 500g mushrooms, sliced 2-3 spring onions, sliced 2-3 limes, juiced 1l coconut milk 2 mangoes, cubed 2 tsp cinnamon 2 tsp cumin 2 c chicken stock Salt to taste rice to serve Dried coconut to serve 1) Heat oil in a large wok. Sweat the onions and ginger until fragrant. Add carrots and sweet potato and stir until they begin to soften. 2) Add the rest of the beans and mushrooms and cook for 2-3 minutes. 3) Add coconut milk and chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Cook for 5-10 minutes then add the chicken and simmer for a further 5 minutes and then add the spices. 4) Continue cooking until the chicken is cooked and the veg is tender. Add lime juice. 5) Serve over rice with mangoes, spring onions and dried coconut. This curry was lovely and mild with warm flavours. My only suggested tweak for next time would be to toast the coconut before adding it, and maybe throwing in some lime zest in addition to the juice. I have to say that since trying to tone down the heat of food for Little Bit's benefit, I have come to appreciate the existence of hot sauces more. I added a little of my dad's home made Scotch Bonnet hot sauce to this, but don't over-do it on the heat or you'll lose the nuances of the warm flavours.

Going on shift for the next two days, I was looking for something to make that would provide plenty of leftovers to make things as easy as possible. I lighted on lasagne. There was beef mince in the freezer and pasta sheets in the pantry. Easy. And then I discovered that we didn't have very many tomato tins. One in fact, and a small one at that. To go to the store and replenish, rethink the meal entirely, or improvise? I decided to improvise, and remembered that we had frozen roast pumpkin in the freezer from when pumpkins were in season. Perfect. The recipe took some tweaking to accommodate the different flavour profile of the pumpkin, but that was hardly an insurmountable challenge. To tweak the flavours, I used red onions instead of white and used some warmer spices, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, coriander and garam masala, to complement the pumpkin flavours. In order to then balance things out, red cooking wine and balsamic vinegar were splashed in. That done, assembly was quick and easy. Also, have I mentioned that I love being able to make my own ricotta? Without any on hand, I could decide to make lasagne at the drop of a hat and have ricotta ready within 45 minutes. Hurray! I used some of the whey in lieu of other cooking liquids to keep the sauce moist enough too, so double yay! The cooking of the sauce happened slightly differently than I would normally, because Little Bit needed some wrangling. I added the tomato before the meat, but it came out ok anyway. Ingredients: 2 tbsp olive oil 2 red onions, chopped 1 head of garlic, chopped 500g beef mince 400g tinned tomato 1l (roughly 4 c) roast pumpkin 2 tsp thyme 1 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp cloves 1/2 tsp ginger 1/2 tsp coriander 1/4 tsp garam masala 1/2 tsp urfa biber 1 - 1 1/2 c red cooking wine 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar 1 c whey (or stock, or water) Salt and pepper to taste 1 1/2 c ricotta 1 zucchini, sliced thin. lasagne sheets 100 g cheese to go on top (use what you wish or have on hand!) 1) Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pot and sauté the onions. When they are starting to soften, add the garlic and stir for a few more minutes until fragrant. 2) Add the tomatoes and spices and stir for a few minutes. Add the meat and allow it all to simmer together until the meat is cooked. Add the pumpkin, wine and balsamic, bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Taste test. If it is too thick for assembly, add enough whey/stock/water to compensate and bring it to the right consistency. 3) Begin layering: courgette, pumpkin sauce, lasagne sheets, ricotta, repeat. I only had two layers of courgette, after that I spread the sauce directly on the ricotta. I had enough for 3-4 layers, finishing with pasta, sauce and then cheese. 4) Bake at 160°C for 2 hours (we had a weird scheduling issue this evening so I left it in long and low) or 180°C for about 45 minutes. I wrote the first part of this post while the lasagne was in the oven, waiting rather impatiently for dinner. Having now had some, I am sated and can also confirm that this worked out superbly. It is sweeter than regular lasagne, which was to be expected, and a perfect comfort food , but in a slightly different way to its more usual counterpart. I didn't add any extra butter or cheese as I normally would, but it did not need it at all. It was rich and creamy and sweet, while still remaining savoury. It would work well as a vegetarian lasagne too, and I would be tempted next time (because there will be a next time) to use additional courgette layers instead of pasta. I loved this and hope you do too! Let me know your thoughts! Book Pairing: I was listening to Mr Midshipman Hornblower by CS Forester while making this. I am enjoying it, but it is sort of the Boys Own version of the Aubrey-Maturin series. I had listened to Dark Voyage by Alan Furst just before and had thoroughly enjoyed being back at sea. I briefly considered starting the Aubrey Maturin series over, but then decided to try out the Hornblower series instead. I am enjoying it, but I don't know if I'm enjoying it enough to listen to the whole series. We shall see. Forester's characters are much less fully rounded than I had hoped and, aside from the eponymous character, there aren't very many that appear as more than passing figures for a chapter.

This is now the fifth or 6th time I've made ricotta (I think) and I'm loving how easy it has become. I much prefer making whole milk ricotta, which I recognise isn't really traditional, but the yield is much better and I like how rich and creamy it is. Also, a lot of recipes I've found for whey ricotta involve adding cream afterwards, so I figure I'm splitting the difference in making it directly with whole milk. I actually made ricotta twice last week, once using the recipe from Artisan Cheese Making at Home by Mary Karlin for the first time, and then again using the recipe I have been using from the kit I got. The quantities of ingredients were identical, but the difference was that Karlin's recipe called for heating the milk with the citric acid already added, whereas the kit's method is to heat the milk and then add the citric acid. I found that the recipe from the kit worked better and I will be sticking with that. The curds were bigger, allowing me to drain them in the ricotta basket rather than having to strain them through a cheese cloth, and they were also softer. The ones from Karlin's recipe had a slightly gritty feel to them they were so small. The whey from the kit method also came out thinner than the other which remained a little milky looking, meaning that more of the proteins were used in the cheese. This showed in the yield which was also better from the kit. I used the first batch of ricotta to make Aubergine Dumplings Alla Parmigiana from Ottolenghi's Flavour and a ricotta and Spinach Tart. (Little Bit was very helpful in the tart making. It only took about four times as long as normal to make it. We have gotten him a Montessori observation tower, so he can now be at counter height, which he loves. He either plays with salt dough on his own counter while I cook or he helps me cook -and helps himself from the pot. He loves it! There is a lot less frustration now.) The second batch I used to make a Pumpkin Lasagne (recipe available tomorrow! Look out for it. It was really tasty!) Within 45 minutes of deciding to make the lasagne I had ricotta ready on the counter, which is so great.

I wanted something light and asparagus is in season, so what better way to celebrate that than to have asparagus soup? I've never made it before, but played it by ear (it is a cream soup, so not too difficult), and it came out very nicely. We had a very rich chicken stock from a recent chicken meal, which contributed nicely. Served with a dollop of yogurt or quark and a drizzle of olive oil, it made a beautiful lunch! Ingredients: 1 tbsp olive oil 2-3 onions, chopped 1/2 head of garlic, chopped 1 1/2 kg asparagus, tailed and chopped 4 c chicken stock 1 c milk 1 tsp sumac Salt and pepper to taste Olive oil to drizzle Yogurt to dollop 1) Heat olive oil in a heavy bottomed pot. Sauté onions for a couple of minutes and then add garlic. Fry until softening then add the asparagus and chicken stock. 2)Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for about 20 minutes, until the asparagus is tender. 3) Blitz until smooth, then add the milk, sumac and salt and pepper. Stir then taste test. 4) Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and a dollop of yogurt. I was very happy with this. We had it with lovely soft rolls which were still hot from the oven when we picked them up. The yogurt and olive oil added some richness and a nice touch of acidity, without impinging on the asparagus' right to the spotlight. The only disappointment was that the asparagus' nutty flavour didn't come out quite as fully as I would have liked. Next time I will try this roasting the asparagus until tender rather than simmering, then chop it up and soupify it. Either way though, this is a keeper!