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After a big shop for fresh veg (and not quite enough fridge space for everything), craving something quick and easy, but healthy and tasty, I pulled this together and it made a great dinner! And the Wonderbag, as so often happens, helped a huge amount (use a crock pot or slow cooker). Ingredients: 1 tbsp olive oil 2 onions, chopped 1/2 head of garlic, chopped 2 carrots, chopped 2 zucchini, chopped 1 sweet potato, chopped 2 c roasted pumpkin (I pulled mine out of the freezer from the stash I set aside during pumpkin season) 2 tsp zathar 2 tsp sumac salt and pepper to taste 400 g chickpeas 1 c bulgur wheat 1) Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pot and sauté the onions and garlic until fragrant. Add the other vegetables except the pumpkin, and the spices and stir. Allow some of the veg to char a little. 2) Add the pumpkin, the chickpeas, bulgur and enough water to cover everything to about 1 cm above the level of the veg. 3) Bring to a simmer and then place in a Wonderbag or crockpot, or keep over medium heat until the water has largely been absorbed and the veg is tender, about 45 minutes. Serve. So it took slightly longer for the veg to cook than I thought, but this was so tasty, with surprisingly complex flavours given the very little seasoning that went into the dish. It worked both fresh and as a leftover and was very satisfying. I hope you enjoy it too!

A friend sent me a recipe from another blog, agoodcarrot.com, for Turkish rice. The recipe looked good and it occurred to me that I hadn't made any stuffed grape leaves in a while, and that I had the necessary ingredients on hand. Tomorrow's lunch planned! Massive caveat to doing this in the late morning with a teething 1 year old: it takes a while to fold grape leaves! The rice, slightly modified to suit my pantry and tastes, took no time to cook what so ever, but then folding was another story. Moral of this: plan a little further ahead and give yourself more time than I did! They were tasty enough to make up for the delay in lunch though, so no worries. Ingredients: for the rice: 1 onion, chopped 1/2 c raisins, chopped 2 1/2 tbsp dried mint, crushed 3 tbsp olive oil 1/2 c walnuts, chopped 2 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp allspice 2 c rice 3 c water salt and pepper to taste 1 packet grape leaves, washed 1 tbsp olive oil 2 tbsp lemon juice 1 egg, beaten 1) Heat oil in a saucepan and sauté the onions until they are translucent. Add the nuts and toast lightly. Add the raisins, spices and rice and cook for a further couple of minutes on medium heat, until the rice becomes translucent. 2) Add the mint and water and stir, and bring to the boil. At this point, put a tight lid on the pot and then you can either do what I did and put it in a Wonderbag slow cooker, or you can lower the heat and cook until all the water has been absorbed and the rice is cooked (about 20 minutes). 3) Cool the rice! Then fold into the grape leaves: cut the stem off a leaf and place it stem-stump down on your palm. Place a small amount of rice filling (approx. 2 tsp) in the centre and fold in the sides then roll it up to the top. Place seam side down in a heavy bottomed pot. Use torn or small leaves to line the pot. 4) Pour 1 1/2 c water and 1 tbsp olive oil over the top and place a plate on the stuffed bundles to keep them from floating. Heat the pot over medium heat and cook for about 10 minutes. 5) Beat the egg and lemon juice together and pour evenly over the stuffed leaves and cook for a further 2-3 minutes. 6) Serve! These were really tasty! I highly recommend them, provided you have enough time. The rice is very tasty on its own too, so if you don't have time to fold them, just serve it as a side for something else. With some of the left over rice, I made rice balls stuffed with orange peel and raisins with cloves and fenugreek, a couple of days later and served them with a very simple minty tzatziki and lentil sliders.

I made this on a whim to change up our lunch menu from soups for a day. I had a vague idea of what I was heading for, but layered as I went and am delighted with the result. The crust was a little experimental, using cottage cheese instead of milk to bind the flour-butter crumbs together. I wasn't sure how the texture or taste would hold up, but they did, really well as it turns out. The filling had a vaguely Mediterranean leaning to it, with some garlic, olive oil and lemon. Ingredients: 1 c flour 1/3 cold butter, diced 1/3-1/2 c cottage cheese pepper 1 aubergine, chopped 1 courgette, chopped 1 tomato, sliced 1 onion, sliced 4 cloves of garlic roughly crushed 1 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp thyme A squeeze of lemon juice 200g feta, crumbled 1) Place flour in a bowl and add diced butter. Rub the flour into the butter until it is all mixed together, forming a crumb like mix. Add pepper to taste. 2)Add cottage cheese and stir in, bringing all the crumbs together to form a dough. Wrap up and chill for at least 30 minutes. 3) Place aubergine and courgette in a bowl and salt generously. Leave for 10 minutes. 4) Roll out the pastry and line a tart dish with it. 5) Place aubergine and courgette in a colander and rinse thoroughly. Place in a clean bowl and toss with feta, garlic, olive oil, thyme, lemon juice and then spread evenly over the bottom of the pastry. Place tomato and onion slices over the top and bake at 180°C for 20-30 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the veg is tender. This came out how I had hoped it would and made an excellent lunch for the three of us. Salting the aubergine and courgette ahead of time drew out some of the liquid, making the tart less wet, and also added a nice aspect of seasoning. The cottage cheese crust, surprisingly baked with flecks of red in it, and was very tasty. I will be making this variant again! Overall this came out well! I hope you enjoy it too!

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.

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...

Here is another new twist on an old favourite. Having made a green curry for dinner, we had left over lemon grass and ginger (although we almost always have ginger on hand so I hesitate to call it left-over). Continuing on our soup for lunch trend, this made its appearance and proved an excellent addition to the repertoire. It can also easily be made vegan by switching the chicken stock to veg stock, too. Ingredients: 2 tbsp peanut oil 4 onions, chopped 1 (largish ) chunk ginger, chopped 8-10 carrots, chopped 1 sweet potato, chopped 2 c chicken stock 3 stalks of lemon grass, chopped salt to taste For garnish: Sesame oil Coriander Sumac 1) Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pot. Sauté onions and ginger until the onions are translucent. Add other ingredients and bring to a boil, then simmer until carrots are tender (30-40 min). 2). Blitz until smooth, drizzle over a little sesame oil, sprinkle with shredded coriander and some sumac and serve. Beautiful and warming. I love this new twist on an old favourite full of delicate (and not so delicate) flavours.

I received a cheese making kit from my in-laws for Christmas and tried it out for the first time today. I made my own ricotta, completely from scratch, using fresh unhomogenised milk from the local dairy. In planning to make this though, I was thinking, great, but what do I make with it. The natural conclusion had to be lasagne, but making my own ricotta, I wanted the flavour of the ricotta to get a chance to shine, and felt that in a traditional lasagne, that doesn't happen. Ricotta is an important component but it doesn't stand out. This being the case, I spent a couple of days musing and came up with a white lasagne recipe that I hoped would allow that to happen, and I am pleased to say that it did. The ricotta definitely came through and had a beautiful creamy flavour, while the whole dish was savoury and moreish and satisfyingly rich without being heavy. I also used the left over whey from making the ricotta as my cooking liquid for the chicken and spinach "sauce", and stuck with butter so the richness is all from dairy fats (a lacto free meal this is not). If you don't happen to have whey hanging around, then just use chicken stock. The chicken (and here is a pretty bit of meal planning) was the left over roast chicken from last night's dinner. It could easily be made either gluten free or keto friendly by omitting the noodles. I used them and enjoyed them, but the courgette slices could do just as well on their own. So here it is: white lasagne. Ingredients: For the sauce: 2 - 2 1/2 c shredded chicken, precooked (either roast leftovers or from somewhere else) 2 onions 5-6 cloves garlic 3 tbsp butter 4 big cubes of frozen spinach or 4 handfuls of fresh (given the season I used frozen) 1/2 tsp oregano 1 1/2 tsp rosemary 1 1/2-2 c whey (or chicken stock) Salt and pepper For the layers: 2 courgettes, thinly sliced along their length, salted and rinsed lasagne sheets (I used spinach ones, non home made this time I'm afraid) 2 c grated mild cheese (I used raclette as that is what I had on hand. Mozzarella would obviously work beautifully too) 1 tbsp melted butter 2 c ricotta, wet enough to be spreadable 1 tomato, sliced 1) Melt butter in a saucepan and sauté the onions SLOWLY over low heat (the butter will want to brown quickly otherwise). Add garlic and cook until onions are translucent. 2) Add chicken, spinach and herbs and stir, cooking for a few minutes then add the cooking liquid, a little at a time (you don't want it too wet! Take it a bit at a time and stop when you feel it is moist but not wet). 3) Brush a lasagne pan or an oven proof dish with melted butter. Layer the courgettes, then some of the chicken mixture, some lasagne sheets, melted butter brushed over the noodles (if you want it rich and decadent, otherwise skip this step), then ricotta and a sprinkling of cheese. (I left my ricotta sheets uncooked. As long as everything is moist enough they will cook in the oven). Repeat 2-3 times depending on your dish size. End with ricotta and melted cheese. 4) Top with sliced tomato and bake at 180°C for 45 minutes. I covered mine for the first 30 minutes, then uncovered for the last 15 minutes. It came out a little wet (I was scared, trying something new, that it would be too dry, and overcompensated!), but this was actually a blessing when reheating it as it was then no longer wet but moist and juicy. Otherwise absolutely beauteous though! Rich and creamy, but with firm flavour from the herbs and garlic, tender, but with some bite. Aside from cutting a little liquid, this is a keeper!

I love Brussel sprouts but only discovered them a few years ago. Since then though I have been playing around with different ways of cooking them and exploring various dishes that could include them. This is the first time I've tried to make them into a soup, and I must say, aside from being a little too acidic (cut the white wine next time), it came out very well and was very tasty. Removing the potatoes would work and replacing the croutons with toasted almonds instead would make this keto friendly. For carnivores, crispy bacon bits over the top could work well too. Skip the bread and the recipe is gluten free. As with most things, there is room for variation within the general idea. Have fun! I know that Brussel sprouts get a bad rap sometimes, but I hope you will look past that and give this soup a chance! Ingredients: 3 tbsp olive oil 2 onions, chopped 1/2 head of garlic, chopped 500 g of Brussel sprouts, halved 3 potatoes, chopped 1 tsp sumac 1 tsp zathar a splash of white cooking wine 1/2 c apple cider vinegar 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar 50 g gruyère cheese, grated 1/2 c milk 1 tsp rosemary 1/2 tsp cocoa spice Salt and pepper to taste 3 rolls (I used olive bread and nut bread) 1 sweet potato, cut into fat matches 1 tsp fenugreek seeds orange peel apple, sliced 1) Heat the 2 tbsp of olive oil in a cast iron skillet and sauté the onions and garlic. When these are fragrant, add the Brussel sprouts and cook a little longer over high heat until the leaves char a little on the outside. 2) Add the potatoes, sumac, salt and pepper, zathar, wine and vinegars. Put the whole roasting pan with all in the ingredients and braise gently at 180°C for about 30-40 minutes, until the Brussel sprouts are tender. 3) Meanwhile, cut your bread into cubes and place onto a baking sheet with the sweet potato strips, the fenugreek seeds and orange peel. Pour over 1 tbsp olive oil and toss to coat. Toast in the oven alongside the braising veggies. Remove and set aside when the sweet potato is tender and the croûtons crispy. 4) Remove from the oven and blitz until smooth, adding in the cheese and blitzing it in too. Gradually add the milk, rosemary and cocoa spice, stirring until incorporated. Taste and adjust. It may be a little sharp, but that is fine because: Add croûtons and sweet potato over the top and serve the apples for dipping. This made a very tasty, satisfying and novel winter lunch. After the initial part, it required minimal attention and came together quickly at the end. As I said in the introduction it was a little too acidic, so I would cut the white wine next time, but the acidic side of the soup paired well with the earthy tones of the sprouts and the sweet potatoes, the whole contrasting nicely with the sweet salty crunch of the olive bread croûtons.

As mentioned in Day 96 of the Challenge Trouvez la VF en commentaire I love making home-made pasta. It seems like a lot of work, but my sister actually worked out that when making pasta for just herself, it was faster to make her own than to wait for store-bought dried pasta to cook. It cooks in no time if you're eating it fresh, dries well to save for later or you can cook it to just under done and reheat in the sauce of your choice later, thus melding the pasta and sauce flavours perfectly. In the last year or so I have gotten into sometimes replacing the egg in pasta with vegetable purée. Beets are one potential replacement. I love making pasta with beets! The colour is fantastic and the taste comes through wonderfully, earthy and sweet. The beet pasta paired perfectly with the broccoli sauce, both in terms of colour and flavour, and the garlic shrimp made it all pop. Ingredients: For the pasta: 1 beet, steamed until soft then puréed 3-4 c flour 1 tsp thyme salt and pepper to taste For the broccoli sauce: 1 head of broccoli, floretted 3 cloves of garlic, crushed 1 tbsp olive oil 1 onion, chopped 1 tsp oyster sauce 2 tsp rice wine vinegar 15 shrimp (for 3 people) 3 chillis, chopped 6 cloves garlic, crushed 2 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp black sesame seeds 1) Put 3 c of flour in a bowl and create a well in the centre. Put the beet purée in the well and gradually mix the flour into the beet to create a soft, elastic (pink) dough. Knead in crushed thyme 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 salted 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) For the broccoli sauce, heat the oil in a saucepan. Sauté the onions and garlic until translucent then add the broccoli, oyster sauce and rice wine vinegar. Cook until the broccoli is tender but still dark, then blitz until smooth. 7) For the shrimp, heat oil in a frying pan. sauté the chilis and the garlic. Give them about 2 minutes then add the shrimp. Gook for 3-4 minutes until the flesh is white and tender, add the sesame seeds, and serve over the top of the beet pasta and the broccoli sauce. This came out really well! The only thing I would tweak for next time would be to reduce the chilli in the shrimp a little to let the other flavours shine through a little better. Otherwise, beautiful! 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.

This is another belated Christmas recipe (although generally a wintery one so I don't feel too bad. Leckerli ( Swiss German for Little tasties) are a Basle gingerbread which is especially prevalent around Christmas time. It is quite chewy, sometimes with candied orange peel or nuts, always spiced. I love them. Always have. They are sweet, but not overwhelmingly so, and I find it hard to have only one or two squares. This year there was a ridiculously large bag on sale in the store for a ridiculously good price, so we got it. We were making good progress on the bag (Little Bit's reaction on trying leckerli for the first time was "Mmmm. Mmmmm. Mmmmm"), but then the 12 Days of Christmas Cookies started, and we stopped eating the leckerli because 1 type of cookie a day coming out freshly baked negates the need for store bought sweets, no matter how good. Fast forward to day 9 of the 12 days of Christmas Cookies, and we celebrated a rather belated Thanksgiving dinner (working around work schedules and Covid made planning interesting). Somehow the subject of Eggnog came up with one of my sisters, and when I said I had never tried any, she sent me a recipe. We tried it after Thanksgiving dinner and I really liked it. Somehow while cleaning up, the idea of a bread and butter pudding using leckerli for the bread occurred to me, and then it occurred to me to do this using eggnog as the egg mix. So we tried it. Ingredients: 2-3 c (ish) of leckerli, enough to fill a small baking dish 4 egg yolks 1/2 c cream 1 1/4 c milk 1 tbsp honey 1 tsp vanilla 1 tbsp cinnamon Fresh ground nutmeg, A lot. 1 tbsp butter 1) Grease a baking dish with the butter and line it with leckerli, layering them to about the level of the top of the dish. 2) Place all other ingredients in a mixing bowl and whisk until it froths. 3) Pour this over the leckerli until almost the rim of the dish, and leave to soak for an hour or two until they have a chance to absorb some of the liquid. 4) Bake at 180°C for 20-30 minutes until it is set. 5) Serve with cream, whipped cream or eggnog, perhaps spiked with a little rum. This came out well on the leckerli side of things but I was a little disappointed to find that the delicacy of the eggnog didn't come through. Perhaps this is because it is too similar in composition to the regular make up of the egg portion of a normal bread pudding. The spicing of the eggnog didn't come through either, unable to stand up to the stronger flavour of the leckerli. . I will certainly be making this again, but keeping it simply to a leckerli pudding rather than a leckerli and eggnog one. Perhaps to be served with eggnog alongside it though?