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Next on this winter's odyssey of marmalade batches is a lime one (and yes, I say "a lime marmalade" as I plan on making another one), and for this one, I decided to add gin and almond extract. Not sure exactly why I decided on this, but I am glad I did. I am afraid that with night shifts and a teething toddler (how many molars does one kid need?!) who is now in a big boy bed (woohoo for sleep disruptions again!) I opted for the easy, lazy method again. Ingredients: 1,5 kg limes (about 20 limes), halved 1,5 l water 3 c sugar 2 tsp almond extract 1 c gin 1) Squeeze the limes and place them and the water in a large heavy-bottomed pot. Bring to a boil and cook for about an hour until the limes have softened and the contents of the pot has begun to reduce. 2) Blitz and add the other ingredients. Continue cooking until the marmalade thickens to desired consistency. Taste test to check for sweetness and gin content. 3) Boil jars for 15 minutes to sterilise them, then spoon the hot marmalade into the jars. Wipe the rim clean, seal and place upside down on a tea towel to cool. This came out really well. No tonic in the jam, but it still tastes like a G+T (sort of) so I am sticking with the name. Unfortunately, the almond flavour doesn't come across much, but the lime does, and it proved a very popular spread when I brought a jar up to my parents' house for the weekend. Let me know what you think if you try it!

As mentioned in Day 47 of The Challenge I love stir fires! They are simple, adaptable to whatever is in the fridge, tasty, with endless different flavours to jazz them up. I like the range of colours and textures, the ability to make it vegetarian or meaty, or in this case shrimpy. (It was time to introduce shellfish to Mini Me, so it was shrimp week. Although initially suspicious of them he loves shrimp now!) Ingredients: 2 onions, chopped 1 head of garlic chopped 1 red and 1 yellow pepper, chopped Half a head of broccoli, cut into florets (floretted?) 10 shrimp 1 tbsp peanut oil 1 tbsp soy sauce 1/2 tbsp rice wine vinegar 2 tsp sesame oil 1 tbsp black sesame seeds 2 tbsp chili flakes (or pul biber*, as my chili of choice often is) 1) Heat oil in a wok. Add the onions and garlic and stir for a couple of minutes. Add the rest of the veg and stir fry at high heat for about 5 minutes. 2) Add the chili flakes, soy sauce and rice wine vinegar and tuck the shrimp in with the veg and cook for about 4-5 more minutes until the shrimp is just cooked. 3) Sprinkle sesame seeds over the top just before the shrimp are done cooking. Serve hot over rice. A touch of sweet and sour or sweet chili sauce is not necessary but does not go amiss... I hope you enjoy this as much as we did! Mini Me even decided he preferred the leftovers for breakfast instead of porridge (better than porridge?!) * This is an affiliate link to help you find what you need to make the recipe. You will not be charged any more by using this link but you will be helping support more delicious recipes!

This one is half cheese journey and half recipe. I was asked for it by a colleague though, so here it is. Yogurt making is not massively new to me. I have done it a few times, and have enjoyed trying out different starter yogurts and seeing the effect different ones have on the final yogurt. It is very easy to do an the result is satisfying. If the yogurt is not as thick as you'd like, simply strain it. Then you have yogurt as well as whey to use. The key to this as far as I am concerned, is to use a good quality milk. Mine was quite thick, with an almost flan-like consistency, but we strained it a little anyway. Ingredients: 2 l milk 3/4 - 1 c yogurt with active cultures 1) Place milk in a saucepan and heat over medium until it is warm but not too hot. You should be able to dip your pinky finger in and leave it for a count of 10 without being uncomfortable. 2) Add the yogurt to the milk and stir. Cover the saucepan and place in a warm spot to ripen over night or longer. A spot in the sun, by the fire or by a radiator are great. I usually put mine in my Wonderbag cloth oven as it maintains the temperature over a long period without using any energy and without risk. 3) Strain as needed. I particularly like home-made yogurt for dishes like borani where the flavour of the yogurt itself is key. Depending on the starter yogurt used the end-yogurt may be more acidic or sweeter. Play around with it and figure out which you like best!

Back in the autumn, my dad shared a video with me by Pro Home Cooks on making your own vinegar at home. I was intrigued, and after checking out a few more websites and how-tos, I decided to try it out. I then checked out instructions from a couple of other places and launched into it. I used only dried fruits as these apparently have a lower incidence of white mould forming on top. I made six different kinds of vinegar, using cranberries, raisins, apples, lemon slices, rosehips and one combo vinegar of apple and rosehips. I filled the bottles about a third to half-full bottles with the fruit and then filling the rest with water. I covered them with cloth, so as to allow the bottles to breathe but keep debris out and stirred them (almost) every day. And that was it. At the 3 week mark I filtered out the fruit, and at the 60-day mark, I capped the bottles. Once or twice I had issues with a little mould on the top, which I skimmed off. Other times, it was hard to tell what was mould or what was the mother of vinegar forming. I only hope I didn't skim the mother at any point! Interestingly, it was the lemon vinegar with which I had the greatest mould challenge, even right up until the end. Each of my six vinegars now has a distinctive colour, smell and flavour. I am leaving them to mature a little before really launching into using them, but will do so soon! SO far they've been used a little on salad but not for much else yet. I want to try the same method with other things too. Supposedly vinegar can be made from carrot peels for example. We'll see how it goes!

Continuing on from that initial request for a ketchup recipe, here is another one. This time I decided to do a spiced (but not spicy) carrot ketchup, in part because I had a bunch of carrots on the brink of going off. It turned out really tasty, but slightly less classically ketchuppy than the Tomato Ketchups or the Beet Ketchup. Ingredients: 6 c carrots, chopped 3/4c tbsp apple cider vinegar 5 tbsp brown sugar 1/2 tsp ras el hanout 1 tsp tandoori powder 1 pink onion, chopped 4 cloves garlic, minced 4 cm ginger, minced 1 tsp nigella seeds Salt and pepper 1) Place all ingredients except nigella seeds in a saucepan and simmer until carrots are tender. Blitz until smooth. Taste test, add nigella seeds and reduce until the ketchup reaches desired consistency. 2) Meanwhile, sterilise glass jars by boiling them for 15 minutes. Fill while the ketchup is still hot, seal and leave to cool. We've been having this on all sorts of things recently and it's proved very versatile. Little Bit stays true to his trend of eating condiments as though they were their own foods, but in this case, I'm fine with that.

preserving them is in a curd - a custard-like jam that keeps in the fridge for about 4 weeks and in the freezer Feel free to substitute though. The curd should keep in the fridge for about 4 weeks or in the freezer for about a year.

I made Jerk Chicken for the first time recently, from a recipe in my Spice Bible cookbook, and it worked out really well. One of the next recipes in the book was for sweet cardamom mango. I liked the idea, but instead of sticking with the recipe and having it for dessert, I took the idea and went my own way, turning it into a side to have with the Jerk Chicken. As the mango was a very tasty side, I thought I would include it. Ingredients: 2 tbsp butter 1 mango, peeled and sliced 2 tbsp tomato purée 1/2 shallot, sliced 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp cardamom powder 1/2 tsp ginger 1 black cardamom pod, crushed 1 1/2 tbsp brown sugar Juice of 1 lime 1) In a small frying pan, melt the butter. Add the ingredients, and stir, cooking until combined and mango is beginning to caramelise, about 8-10 minutes, then serve warm as a savoury side dish. And it was that simple. We also had coconut and raisin rice with the mango and the chicken, and the whole meal was a hit (except with Little Bit, who, having said he was excited, decided he didn't like coconut, chicken or cooked mango for the purposes of this particular dinner. And then promptly went back to liking them again afterwards... The joys of toddlerdom!)

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...

Continuing on my citrus adventures for this winter, I present you with lime curd. Using the same base recipe as my Pink Grapefruit Curd in December, but obviously replacing the large pinky yellow orbs for smaller green ones. And more of them too - by a ratio of about 4. If you recall, I discussed in my pink grapefruit recipe the fact that there are recipes using both whole eggs and egg yolks for curd. In December, because of other, non-cooking related circumstances, I used whole eggs. This time though, I decided to really test the hypothesis, so I made two batches of lime curd, one using egg yolks, and the other using an equal number of whole eggs. Both worked, but because of accidents of... shall we call it life? ... I had some light issues with both. The egg yolk version was interrupted about 6 times by phone calls, so a quiet, chill time that was perfect for it suddenly was not and there was a lot of stop-and-go cooking, involving bringing things back up to temperature, then walking away again etc. The second time, I thought I had picked a good time to make it and had everything prepped along with dinner prep. But then things became rather more complicated than anticipated with Little Bit, including just after adding two of the eggs, so I ended up with little bits of egg white solidifying in the curd. Not ideal! Whisked with the rest of the eggs as they were added though, it came out better than I had hoped. Ingredients: 200 g butter 200g sugar 6 limes, juiced and zested 5 eggs / 5 egg yolks 1) Over a bain-marie, combine the butter, sugar, lime juice and zest and heat gently until the butter has melted, Whisking to combine as it all heats up so that an emulsion is formed. 2) Add the egg 8 (whole or yolks) and whisk continuously over gently heat until the mixture thickens. 3) Meanwhile, sterilise clean jars in boiling water for 15 minutes. When the curd has thickened, spoon into jars, wipe the rim and cap tightly. Place upside down on a clean cloth until cool. So first things first, both of these taste amazing! The egg yolk version thickened less than the other, despite taking a lot longer, but then, I am not sure if that was due to the interrupted nature of the cooking, or down to the yolks or something else. The other has those unfortunate tiny bits of egg white. Both taste equally rich and creamy and the zesty lime flavour comes through equally well in both. (In the centre picture above, I tried a little of each on one piece of bread, for real side by side taste testing). All in all, I stand by my statement from the introduction to my Pink Grapefruit Curd recipe saying that both work and it is up to you whether you want to use whole eggs or egg yolks. And it is especially right about now, after an experiment like this where both parts were interrupted and affected by life in general, this makes me wish even more that I were able to make use of a test kitchen...

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.