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I like black pudding, which I know some consider to be an odd statement. (For those who don't know, black pudding is a blood sausage, frequently served as part of a full English or Scottish breakfast - also known as a fry-up. I do like them in that context, but this time when my sister exported some from Wales for me, I felt like doing something a bit different. For some reason, the idea of turning it into a pie, and of adding pumpkin to it occurred to me, and once it had come to mind, I had to put it into action or it would keep buzzing around in my brain. And what better for a cold winter evening than a warming stodge pie? So it was that we tried it out, and it hit the spot! Having tried vinegar in a pie crust a few weeks back and discovering that it works, I decided to take that route again with the crust, reducing the richness a little, and adding some flavour, without sacrificing flakiness. Starting out, I had no idea, beyond very broad brushstrokes, where I was going with this dish, and it only came together in the process of making it.I love it when that happens and things do come together well! Ingredients: For the crust: 2 1/2 c flour 1 c butter, cold 1/2 c apple cider vinegar 2 tsp thyme Nutmeg Pepper to taste For the filling: 2 - 2 1/2 c slab bacon, cubed 3ish c black pudding, cubed 2 small pumpkins, cubed 2 large onions, chopped 3 potatoes, chopped 2 tbsp lard 1 c red cooking wine 3 tbsp tomato paste 1/2 c apple cider vinegar (I used my homemade apple and rosehip vinegar actually) 1 tsp thyme 1/2 tsp rosemary 1 tsp allspice 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp sumac 1 1/2 tsp pul biber 6ish cloves 2 tsp dried orange peel Juice of 1/2 lemon 1/2 leek, in rings 1) To make the pie crust, place flour, thyme and pepper in a bowl. Grate in the fresh nutmeg and mix. Cut in the cold butter and rub into the flour with fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add vinegar and mix until just combined. Chill at least 30 minutes. 2) Spread the pumpkin out on a baking tray and roast at 180°C for about 30 minutes, until it is lovely and soft. Scoop out of the skin and set aside. 3)In a heavy skillet ( I used the cast iron one that was my grandmother and great-grandmother's, that I will be haunted for if I abuse it!), melt the lard. Add the onions, and fry until translucent, then add the bacon, potatoes and black pudding. Cook further. 4) When the contents of the pan appear to need some liquid, add the red wine, the vinegar, the lemon juice and the tomato paste. Stir in the roast pumpkin and the spices. Cook for about 10 minutes. 5) Roll out half of the pastry and line a pie plate with it. Scoop in the filling and lay the leek rounds over the top. Roll out the rest of the pastry, place on top of the pie and crimp on. Cut vents in the centre, and bake at 180°C for about 30-40 minutes, until golden brown. Serve hot with greens on the side. This was delicious and so satisfying. It didn't come out as I had imagined it, with chunks of meat, and gravy. Everything all kind of fell apart and turned into a homogenous filling, but that is ok. It was pure stodge and did need greens on the side to offset the richness a little. We had kale and broccoli done with lemon juice. The only thing I think I might tweak would be the addition of fresh zest, and the use of more bacon. One slice was plenty, but so very tasty!

This is very basic, and hardly deserves to be called a recipe, but so very tasty and filling and the ultimate comfort food. Rather peasanty and a very good use for stale bread. It can easily be either vegetarian or meaty. This particular version is vegetarian, but the addition of either sausage or bacon (or bits of chicken, or you name it) could work very well. It is a cheesy, eggy, bready mess. Add any veg you want and just give it all enough time to soak, then bake it until the top is crispy and the inside is moist and messy. Ingredients: 1 loaf of bread, cubed (you can use any bread you want, but personally I like character in my bread, with seeds and dark flour and things) 1 leek, chopped 1 onion, sliced 2-3 tbsp butter 3 eggs, beaten 1 1/2 - 2 c milk 1 tbsp chives A handful of mushrooms, chopped 50-100 g Gruyère, cubed 2 - 3 tbsp parmesan (or other aged cheese), grated Pepper to taste 1) On the stove, melt the butter in an oven proof dish. Sauté the leek and onion. When they soften, add the mushrooms and then the bread, allowing some of the cubes to brown a little. 2) Beat the eggs and milk together and pour them over the bread and veg. Mix in the chives and the cheese. Leave it all to soak for at least an hour. 3) Sprinkle parmesan and freshly ground pepper over the top. Bake at 180° for 30-35 minutes until golden brown on top. This also works well with slices of bread, laid out like a savoury bread pudding. I haven't had it in a while and it was so satisfying on a cold evening. No fancy flavours, no fancy ingredients but honest and tasty.

Inherited, I think, from my grandmother, one of my favourite flavour combinations is maple walnut. As I have been playing around with making bagels, I decided I wanted to try to apply that flavour combo to bagels, although I have never seen that before. I didn't however, want to make a sweet bagel, so rather than using maple syrup or maple sugar to impart the maple flavour, I decided to use ground fenugreek, often used as a maple substitute. Ingredients: 2 c whole meal flour 2 1/4 c white flour 1 1/2 tsp fenugreek powder 2 tsp maple syrup 1 1/4 c water 1/2 cube yeast 1/2 tbsp salt 1/2 c walnuts Cornmeal Maple Syrup 1) In a small saucepan, heat the water to about body temperature - it should be warm, but still cool enough that a (clean) pinky finger dipped in it is comfortable for 10 seconds. Dissolve the yeast in the water with the maple syrup and leave for a few minutes. 2) Combine flours, fenugreek and salt in a mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Add yeast and water and stir together, gradually incorporating flour from around the well. When the dough has come together, knead on a clean, floured surface for about 10 minutes until the dough is homogenous and elastic. Towards the end, knead in the walnuts as you go. 3) Place in a clean bowl and leave to rise, covered, in a warm spot for an hour, or until doubled in size. 4) Knock back the dough and divide into 8 roughly even balls. Here you have two options. Either: roll into snakes, then join the ends of these to make rings or: Roll into balls, then poke a thumb through the balls. With your thumb in the hole, gradually widen it, working the dough around so as to have an even, uniform thickness to the dough with a round hole in the middle or: create a ball and push it down over a bagel mould. 5) Place rings on a baking tray sprinkled liberally with cornmeal, cover and place in the fridge for 8 hours or overnight to proof. 6) Remove the rings from the fridge. Fill a heavy-bottomed pot with water. Stir in maple syrup. There should be enough maple syrup for the water to look like moderately strong tea. Place a test ring in the water. If it floats, you are ready to go. If not, dry it off and allow the bagels to come to room temperature. 7) When the water comes to a boil, reduce the heat to bring the water to a simmer. A few at a time, poach the bagels for about half a minute on each side, then fish them out and drain on a wire rack. 8) Sprinkle the baking tray with fresh cornmeal, then place the drained bagels back on the tray and bake at 240°C for 15 - 20 minutes until golden. These came out very nicely, and I was very pleased with the way the flavours came out. This is definitely one to make again, especially with homemade cream cheese and honey, or even just butter, to melt into hot bagels... I was channelling my grandmother and must thank my sister for getting me into making bagels with a gift of moulds for Christmas last year. (I forgot to take a picture of the baked bagels, so here are some everything bagels instead).

As mentioned on Day 79 of The Challenge Fondue is traditional here, and as old as our dear Alps. I always make my in a cast iron enamelled caquelon as is traditional here. Traditionally, it tends to be bread, potatoes and pickles, but nowadays anything goes. Not what you might call traditional, but it works!

Over a year ago, I made mead. It came out a little rougher than I had hoped, but much better than I had feared. I decided at that point to leave it to age to see whether it would improve, and planned also to try mulling it in the winter. For some reason, I never got around to mulling it last winter before finding out that I was expecting a Littler Bit, and therefore no longer drinking boozy things. It was therefore only now, with a Littler Bit happily swaddled in her Moses basket, that my sister, hubby and I decided to try mulling the remaining mead from a year ago. And how glad I am that we did! Don't worry if you haven't tried brewing your own, store-bought mead will work too, so don't let that stop you. Ingredients: 6 c mead 1 tbsp maple sugar 1 tbsp honey 1 tbsp dried orange peel 1 cinnamon stick 6 cloves 1) Place all ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer, and cook for about a half hour or longer to allow spiced to infuse. Drink hot. We very much enjoyed this. So much so in fact, that we are brewing a new batch of mead in order to have some for mulling purposes at Christmas. We did discover that leaving the mulled mead overnight, it was even better on day 2. I may even mull it a day or so early next time.

I've been making brownies for as long as I can remember. My mom used to bake them with my sisters and me when we were little, using them to teach us fractions and to occupy us in one place, with one mess - and once they were baked, to teach us self-control. and moderation. I used to think that brownies were an all-afternoon affair. And then I discovered that in actual fact they take all of 5 minutes to mix and then a half hour to bake. Given this, I am not sure why brownie mixes exist, but then I make everything from scratch. In high school, I went through a phase of making brownies multiple times a week with a friend. The recipe I grew up with is excellent, but it was then, and afterwards in University, that I began playing with it, adding fruit here, or a spice there, or tweaking the ingredients slightly. With a teething baby, I needed something easy to make and chocolatey the other night, so I decided to make brownies. It being blood orange season, one thing led to another and... Ingredients: 4 eggs 2 c sugar 1 c oil 1/2 c cocoa 1 3/4 c flour 1/4 c blood orange juice (the juice of 1 blood orange, really) Orange peel of the orange you juiced, the pith removed and sliced into thin strips. 1 tsp (generous) of vanilla 1/4 - 1/2 c milk 1 blood orange, thinly sliced 1) Beat the eggs and sugar together. Add oil, and combine. Add the cocoa and flour and stir. Add orange peel. 2) Mix in vanilla and juice. When WELL combined (you don't want to curdle the milk) stir in the milk. Start with a small amount and add more until you get the desired consistency. 3) Pour into a brownie pan, or a cast iron skillet will do very well, which is what I used. Arrange orange slices over the top and bake for 25-35 minutes at 175°C (or until done but still gooey in the centre). These are the best brownies I have ever made. The flavours, intensity, texture and consistency were all perfect, both when they were fresh out of the oven and the next day. I baked them in my heirloom skillet, which belonged to my grandmother and great-grandmother. I have been promised that I will be haunted by them both if I mistreat the skillet. Well, I think in this case they would have enjoyed it, so the haunting is not set to begin yet! Book Pairing: This recipe I associate with listening to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. It is about Savannah, its society and characters (of which there are some fantastic ones!) and an Occurrence during the author's time there. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this (and can't wait to see the movie now), and while making the brownies, I was listening to the very end of the book. Coming to the end of a good book is always bittersweet, and this was. It is satisfying getting to the end, but then where does that leave you? You've left the people and places behind and emerged out the other end. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

half tin of tomatoes and some mozzarella also needing to be used up led to these two variations on traditional

Having decided a while back to start experimenting with using sahlep, I started playing around with different flavour combinations and potential recipes in which to try it out (like my Sahlep Pancakes, or my Sahlep Custard). A particularly good flavour to match with sahlep, in my opinion, is cinnamon, so while I do have other flavour combinations in mind to try, many of my ideas pair up sahlep and cinnamon. I am not sure where the idea of trying macarons came from, but it has been kind of present in the back of my mind for months. Sahlep is a hot drink made from ground orchid tubers in warm milk, often with cinnamon too. It has been drunk since Roman times at least, and Paracelsus even wrote about it, considering it to be a strong aphrodisiac. I have no knowledge of any such properties but have always really enjoyed it as a special treat. Today it is still drunk across Turkey and Greece. Sometimes it comes in the form of pure orchid root, and sometimes it is mixed with powdered milk. It is the latter variety that I am able to find here. I tried a first iteration of this recipe with my sister when she was visiting after Littler Bit's birth, and we were delighted with it. The recipe seemed good, but our macarons fell down on execution. It was her first-ever try at making macarons and my second, so seeing as they are notoriously difficult, I don't feel too bad about it. They were tasty but came out flat and gooey inside, and had to be scraped from the silicone baking mat. We figured we had either over-beaten the egg whites or under-baked the cookies. In that first iteration, I also trialled using a small amount of cooled sahlep cooked in milk in the buttercream filling to give the sahlep flavour, but found that the filling was too goopy and didn't come out right. For this next trial, therefore, I tried making sahlep butter ahead of time, allowing it to cool, then softening it to make the buttercream filling. This time, while my execution is still not perfect, it is getting better, and the finished product is not too far off the mark, and oh so good! Recipe Cook time: 1.5 hours -- Portions: 20 cookies -- Difficulty: Medium/hard Ingredients: For the cookie portion: 3 egg whites a pinch of salt 1 c ground almonds - blitz finer if need be. Must be very fine! 1/2 c maple or light brown sugar 2 - 2 1/2 tsp (generous!) of cinnamon For the buttercream filling: 1/3c butter 2 1/2 tsp sahlep 1/3 c maple powdered sugar (or you can use light brown sugar, but blitz it so the granules don't crunch!) 1) For the buttercream filling, melt the butter over low heat in a small saucepan. Stir in the sahlep and cook for a few minutes, stirring to incorporate. Cool completely and set aside. 2) Place egg whites and salt in a very clean, dry bowl. Whisk until you achieve a thick foam - just shy of soft peaks. Add the maple or brown sugar and beat until you achieved a thick, stiff consistency. 3) In a separate bowl, sift the powdered sugar, ground almonds, and cinnamon. Fold into egg whites. 4) Pipe in circles 2.5 - 4 cm in diameter onto baking paper, and place on a double baking sheet. Bake at 160°C for 8-10 minutes, then allow to cool completely on a wire rack. 5) In the meantime, back to the buttercream. Cream sugar into sahlep butter. Spread or pipe on one-half of the macarons, and then sandwich with a second one. Enjoy! I am very pleased with these! I wasn't at all sure how the sahlep butter would go, and I am very pleased with how it worked out. I have never used sahlep raw and so wasn't sure how it would go if I just added it cold (although apparently it can be consumed raw and is used as an ingredient in things like ice cream which aren't cooked - by the by, that is an excellent idea. Sahlep ice cream!). I do think that the sahlep flavour was a little strong in the final butter ( I thought the opposite was more likely to be the case), so I would reduce it to 1 1/2 to 2 tsp of sahlep for the butter next time. I would also increase the cinnamon content a little, maybe to a full (generous) tbsp rather than sticking with tsp measures. Aside from that though, I am very happy! The larger ones collapsed a little at the end of baking, and I am not sure why. My technique still needs some practice. They still weren't flat though, or too gooey in the centre, so I am not going to quibble. They could just have been a little taller and firmer. They also had a little border... I have seen quite different cooking times in other recipes, from 7 to 25 minutes, so I'm not sure if maybe I should be leaving them in for longer. Maybe my batter wasn't firm enough? Hard to tell. I was just so wary of over-beating like last time... More experimentation and trial are still necessary in this particular domain! Little Bit and Hubby definitely didn't mind. They very happily dug in and hoovered up a bunch before supper. ("Mama, I want a macaron. I am going to steal one. Not waiting until it's cool!" on repeat from a certain someone....) The base recipe for this, before much alteration, came from Michel Roux's Eggs. It is, surprisingly for being centred on one simple ingredient, an excellent cookbook. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

It is dead easy to make and super flavourful, and a traditional food from this area.

After delving into making my own versions of mayo and ketchup, I figured it was time to start making my own mustard too. After reading a few different methods and about mustard making generally, I decided to give it a shot. At its root, making mustard requires mixing ground mustard seeds with water. The colder the water, the sharper the mustard will be. Allowing the mixture to chill in the fridge overnight is supposed to do away with the bitterness from the mustard seeds. That's it. Anything else is extra, and all down to personal choice and flavouring. Here's what I did. I opted for warmish water as Little Bit really likes mustard but not if it's too strong. I made two different flavours: mix spice and orange tarragon. Ingredients. 2 c yellow mustard seeds 3/4 c warmish water 1/2 c apple cider vinegar 2 tsp olive oil salt to taste For the mix spice variant: 1 tsp mix spice a pinch of brown or maple sugar For the orange tarragon variant: 1 tsp dried orange peel 1 1/2 tsp dried tarragon 1) Coaresly crack about 3/4 c mustard seeds. Set aside. More finely grind the remaining mustard seeds. How finely ground these are and how many are left coarser will affect the final texture of your mustard. Combine all the mustard in a bowl. Add salt and water. Stir. Add vinegar and olive oil, then refrigerate overnight. 2) Check the texture of the mustard and taste test. Add a little more water or vinegar as necessary. Then divide the mixture in half and add the remaining ingredients for each variant to one-half of the mustard. Allow to sit overnight again for flavours to develop. 3) Taste test and serve. To test these out, I made Clair Saffitz's brioche pigs in a blanket, along with a fresh batch of Beetroot Ketchup and some rosehip vinegar mayo. I was thoroughly pleased with these two mustards, and delighted to have finally gotten around to making my own. I can't believe how easy it was! I even got help grinding up my seeds in the mortar and pestle from Little Bit, who was very proud to have helped. The whole time I was making these, I was thinking of my grandmother who passed three years ago. Ahe loved mustard and took great delight in finding and trying new flavours and varieties. This is something we had talked about doing together but never got to. To try making your own, order mustard seeds for yourself here, and if you need a mortar and pestle for it, click here.