As mentioned in Day 74 of The Challenge Have I mentioned that it's pumpkin season? Once or twice maybe... Here is a another new twist on pumpkin soup. This time it was smooth rather than chunky, but sweet and gingery. Tasty and warming, it made for an excellent lunch. Ingredients: 1 small pumpkin, chopped 2 parsnips, chopped 2 carrots, chopped 2 onions, chopped A 6 cm chunk of ginger (approx), peeled and diced 1 tbsp olive oil 1/2 c vinegar 1/2 c red cooking wine 1 tsp urfa biber (Turkish black chilli) 1 tsp fenugreek seeds Salt and Pepper to taste 1) Heat oil in a heavy-bottomed soup pot and sauté onions with the fenugreek seeds until the onions are translucent. Add ginger and cook for a few minutes until fragrant (you should be smelling the fenugreek by now too!) 2) Add the vegetables to the pot and cook for a couple of minutes before adding enough water to just cover the vegetables. Simmer until the vegetables are tender (I put my pot in my Wonderbag slow cooker once it had come to a simmer and went out for a walk in the meantime.) 3) Blitz the soup until smooth. Serve with crusty bread. So tasty and a beautiful variant to the traditional pumpkin spice soup. The carrots and parsnips add some sweetness and the ginger brings a nice heat, while the fenugreek (yes, more adventures in fenugreek exploration!) brings a warm fragrance to the soup. I do like the traditional one, but this one will be sticking around too.

bits. 3) EITHER place in Ice cream churn until thick and nearly frozen, then place in container in the freezer OR place directly in a container in the freezer, relying on the lightness of the whipped cream for the Place in a container and freeze.

If you want to make these keto friendly or gluten free, simply replace the breadcrumbs with ground almond

I suggest calling this a Coupe Raisa, because we have been watching more Star Trek, and that is the ultimate vacation spot in the Federation, it seems, and this is the ultimate unctuous, creamy, fresh dessert with just a hint of acidity. (And thus marking me out as a nerd henceforth). This is a bit of a twist on normal berries and cream. Around here that tends to involve Double Crème from Gruyèree which is so thick it stands up on the spoon. There was some on sale last week, so I picked some up. As it is the middle of winter, berries are only available for substantial amounts of ready money (or credit, but lots of it either way). What we had on hand happened to be blood oranges though, so that is what I did. The White Balsamic Syrup is one I got as a Christmas gift. I hadn't opened it yet, but when I assembled the Coupe Raisa bowls, they looked like they needed it, so I brought it out and it was a hit. So here goes. Ingredients (per person): A generous dollop of Double crème de Gruyère ( in a pinch, mascarpone might do instead) One blood orange Optional: half a banana, sliced 3 dates, pitted and quartered (prunes work, but they are not as good) A handful of roughly crushed pistachios 1/2 tsp cacao nibs A drizzle of white balsamic syrup 1) Layer ingredients in a bowl, starting at the top of the list and working your way down. Serve with a small spoon. Mix up as desired. This was super tasty and I cannot recommend it enough. I loved the bite from the balsamic syrup paired with the cream and the fruit. The cacao nibs and the pistachios added some welcome textural contrast, too. A meringue crumble dup in there could work, but the extra sugar would be simply unnecessary.

Having porridge most mornings of my life, sometimes it's nice to mix it up a little and change the flavours and textures. Here are a few autumn/winter flavours that we've been enjoying over here! Pumpkin Pie Oats: 1 c oats 1/2 - 3/4 c pumpkin (I roast mine then mash it up as the tins are unavailable here) 2c milk 1/4 tsp ground ginger 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp orange peel 1 tbsp chia seeds 3 cloves A generous grating of nutmeg Apple Cocoa Oatmeal 1 c oats 3/4 c apple sauce 1 1/2 c milk 1 tbsp cacao nibs 1 tsp cinnamon (We trialled this one with the quantities of milk and apple sauce roughly reversed, but the oats came out too stodgy and not creamy enough. With proportions this way around, they are creamy and taste almost like apple pie oats). Candied Sweet Potato Porridge 1 c oats 3/4 c sweet potato, roasted and mashed 1/2 tsp cardamom 1/4 tsp tumeric 1/4 tsp fenugreek powder 1 tbsp ground almonds 1 -2 tsp brown sugar Apple Cranberry Oats 1 c oats 2 c apple juice 1/4 c dried cranberries 1 tsp cinnamon sugar For any of these, they can either be assembled the night before and left to soak overnight, or tossed in a saucepan in the morning. Either way, place all ingredients in a saucepan and bring slowly to a simmer. Cook until they have reached the desired consistency (I like mine creamy, but others prefer their past a bit thicker). Add raisins or sugar to taste. Alternatively, place all ingredients in a baking dish and leave to soak overnight. Bake at 180°C for about 25-30 minutes until thickened and golden. If you bake it, a little almond sprinkled over the top is beauteous. We use either whole oats or finer cut ones. My favourites are the coarser ones, but they never cook as smooth and creamy as the finer ones. Either will work for these.

Don't use arborio rice though as we aren't looking for the glutinous texture of risotto but rather for As stated we don't want glutinous rice, and stirring will do that.

This year, I accidentally planted lemon mint on my balcony instead of a variety I might be more familiar with and like more, like, say, peppermint or spearmint. Ironically, the lemon mint is one of the few of my plants to have flourished this year. I planted more things too early, then we had late snow and frost which wiped a lot of my plants out. I replanted and hoped for the best. Then the spring was very rainy and drowned a number of them. Then we had hail. Twice. A lot of plants were flattened. In and amongst weather catastrophes, was Little Bit, who delights in tearing up my plants by the roots, or picking the leaves off of them to make mud soup in his paddling pool. Through all this, the mint survived. I was delighted until I made tea with it and discovered that the flavour was not quite what I was expecting. I wondered if there had been black tea left in the bottom of the pot? No. I tried again. It still tasted odd: at once muddier than regular mint and more acidic, but without mint's typical freshness. I left the plant alone for a bit and wondered what to do with it. And then I hit on the idea of a pesto. It took a little tweaking, but it worked out well in the end. I had to add a little water to get the blender to work properly, and then it was too wet as well as needing a grounding note, so I added some stale bread to the blender. If your consistency is ok without it though, skip the bread. I also gradually increased the amount of garlic. As the pesto is raw, I was worried that too much garlic would be overpowering, but the pesto really did need it. Here it is. Ingredients: 3-4 c fresh lemon mint leaves 3-4 tbsp olive oil 1/4 c pine nuts 1/2 head garlic 1/4 c water 1/4 c bread crumbs Juice of 1/2 lemon 1/2 c grated parmesan Salt and pepper to taste 1) Blend all ingredients until smooth. Taste test. I am happy with how this came out. It doesn't taste overpoweringly minty (but then, neither does the parent plant) but has a nice balance to it. We had this first with sandwiches. The minty pesto worked very well on wholegrain seedy bread with cheese and sausage for lunch. We have also tried it with spinach and ricotta tortellini, and it was delicious. Little Bit refused to try it, but then he doesn't like any sauce on his tortellini.

I love yogurt. Until relatively recently, though, aside from Tzatziki, it was a sweet food, usually for breakfast. Even plain yogurt, which is more sour than sweet, I considered a food to be had with oats and raisins, or with syrup on a crêpe. For lunch though? Maybe muesli, but even then, I consider that more sweet than savoury, loaded up as it is with fruit. Imagine my delight, therefore, when I discovered borani, a savoury Persian yogurt dish. The yogurt is flavoured with herbs and spices, salt and pepper and served with vegetables. I started out following recipes for it, but have since gone my own way. I've enjoyed playing around with different veggie toppings and herb or spice combos too. It is no longer what you might call "authentic" but it is tasty! I also love that it is tasty eaten at room temperature, and within reason, it doesn't need to be refrigerated. I found that it worked well as a packed lunch when working in a refugee camp, for example, where we had no microwave and no fridge. Here's our most recent one. Ingredients: 3 c yogurt 1 tsp sumac 1 tsp herbes de Provence 1 tsp Thyme 2 c spinach 1 tbsp butter 2 onions, sliced 2 tbsp olive oil 2 tbsp pine nuts, toasted Salt and pepper 1) Strain yogurt through a cheese cloth until thickened to the desired consistency. Mix with herbes de Provence, thyme and sumac, salt and pepper to taste. 2) Wilt spinach and sauté briefly with butter. 3) Heat oil in a frying pan. Fry onions over medium high heat until crispy. 4) Assemble bowls, first a dollop of yogurt, then some spinach, some onions and a sprinkling of pine nuts. Incredibly quick to assemble and at once refreshing and filling without being heavy, this was the perfect lunch last week after a morning bike ride with Little Bit. It was a lot of steep uphill (and then a much quicker descent) so I was happy to be able to plate up something quick when we got home. I made this using home-made yogurt which we'd left out a little too long, so the flavour had ripened a little. For breakfast, the flavour was a bit much, but mixed with herbs and spices for a lunch borani, it was perfect.

fun of it I decided to form mine into ro-shays - ahem, rochers for those who speak French- , but feel free

I heard that watermelon rind is edible and that it makes nice jam or chutney so I wanted to give it a try. I celebrated our first watermelon of the season by saving the rind until the melon was all gone and then having a go at chutney. Here is the recipe I came up with. The rind has a mild, but pleasant flavour which I combined with some apple and red onion for a chutney. I did have to blend it a little, which I don't generally do with jams or chutneys as the rind didn't break down much even after considerable simmering. It just stayed in the little cubes I had cut, so blitzing it briefly gave the chutney a more even consistency. Ingredients: Rind of 1 small watermelon, diced 3 red onion, diced 1 apple, diced 3/4 c herb vinegar 1 tsp salt 3/4 c sugar 1 red chilli, diced 2 tsp (or more) red chili flakes - I used pul biber 1) Place watermelon rind in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until almost tender. Add other ingredients and cook for a further 30 minutes or so. 2) Blitz briefly until chunky-smooth (chutney consistency) and taste test. Place in hot, sterile jars while chutney is still hot and seal, allowing to cool. I am really pleased with how this came out. I wasn't sure what to expect nor really what direction to go with it, so proceeded by taste testing and adjusting. The apple went in both for taste and to add pectin to help it all come together. We've tried it with crackers and cheese and a couple of sun dried tomatoes and it held up well! With the next watermelon, I think I am going to try watermelon jam....