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I'm not sure exactly where this one came from. Perhaps from my cookbook Eggs by Michel Roux which features poached egg on creamy mashed potatoes. Except we had sweet potatoes on hand. And Miso paste, and I figured, why not try that out to balance out the sweetness of the sweet potatoes? With crispy garlic and onion for texture, and spring onions for crunch? And maybe some rice, to round it all out? And, well, in case it isn't green enough, how about some roast fennel? Somehow, all these random bits came together into a tasty meal despite coming together piecemeal and not being born of one inspiration. Here it is. Ingredients: About 250g wild rice 3-4 sweet potatoes, chopped 1 1/2 - 2 tsp miso paste 3 tbsp soy sauce 1 1/2 tbsp butter 1/2 head garlic, crushed 8 cm ginger, minced 2 tbsp peanut oil 1/2 head fennel, sliced 1 tbsp peanut oil 1 tbsp soy sauce 1 tsp black sesame seeds Spring onions, sliced Eggs, 1 per person Sesame oil 1) Slice up the fennel, drizzle with oil and soy sauce, and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Place in an oven-proof dish and roast at 180°C for about 25-30 minutes until cooked. 2) Cook rice as per instructions. Boil sweet potatoes until soft enough to mash. Drain and stir in miso paste, mashing as you go. 3) In a small frying pan over medium heat, heat the oil and add garlic and ginger. Fry until crispy, stirring regularly. Set aside. 4) Poach eggs to desired doneness. Plate up, layering rice, mash, egg, sprinkled garlic and ginger crumbs, sliced spring onion and a drizzle of sesame oil. Add a couple of wedges of fennel on the side and serve. This came out surprisingly well. I made a silly and added the miso before draining the sweet potatoes, which made them take rather longer than planned as I had to cook off the water so as not to drain the miso (recipe amended accordingly. Learning from mistakes! Woo!). Other than this, it all came together nicely. There are a number of bits to have on the go at once, which was a bit of a challenge with Little Bit under foot, but that is par for the course these days unless it's just cornflakes for dinner. Let me know what you think if you try this!

As mentioned in Day 96 of The Challenge Persimmons are a new fruit for me. They are in season around now every year, and I just never picked any up until now. They are wonderful! Delicately sweet and fragrant they are tasty on their own, but they also pair nicely in sweet or savoury dishes. For this one I tried a new tweak to our morning porridge and it was a big hit with all of us! Ingredients: 1 persimmon, chopped 1/2-1 tbsp honey 1 tbsp lime /lemon juice 1 c oats 2 c milk 2 tsp dried coconut 1 tsp vanilla 1 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao (or cinnamon/pumpkin pie spices) A handful of raisins 1) place persimmons in an oven proof dish or on a cookie sheet. Drizzle with honey and pour lime juice over the top. Roast at 180°C for 15-20 minutes. 2) Cook oats, milk, raisins and coconut in a saucepan at medium heat stirring intermittently and then consistently until they form a porridge. Portion the porridge into 2 bowls and top with the persimmons. Sprinkle with cocoa spice or other spice topping of your choice. We love this! We've tried a number of variations, including adding 1 tsp of vanilla extract to the porridge, with fenugreek seeds roasted with the persimmons, swapping out the lime or lemon juice, adding a drizzle of cream etc. It requires NO further sugar at the coconut, the persimmons and the honey make it quite sweet enough.

We were having a games night with some friends recently, so I decided to make nachos, as an easy finger-food nibble. Instead of fully loading them, I mixed the tortilla chips only with the Meat Sauce and cheese, and on the side, I had several dipping sauces - guacamole, Carrot Top Pesto, sour cream and this Roast Pepper Dip. Initially, I made this one really simple, with only peppers, garlic, some Kashmiri chilli and some olive oil. The taste test proved it to be rather bland though, so I added some bits. The taste came out quite interesting and unexpected - but tasty. Ingredients: 2 red peppers 1/2 head garlic 1 tbsp olive oil 1/2 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder 1/2 tsp cacao powder 1 tsp sesame oil 1/2 tsp Black Sesame seeds Squeeze of lime juice Salt to taste 1) Roast the red peppers and the half head of garlic at 200°C for about 20-30 minutes, until they are soft and the skin of the peppers is beginning to char. 2) Leave the peppers and garlic to cool for a few minutes, then peel the peppers and remove the cores and the seeds. Squeeze the garlic out of its skin and place these and all the ingredients in a blender. Blitz until smooth. Serve with dippables. I was in a hurry before people arrived and tweaked the dip without giving it much thought, or having time to do it properly, so the dip came out a little differently than I had thought, but tasty nonetheless. It is even better a day or two later once the flavours have married. I might make it a little hotter in future, but didn't want to carpet bomb my friends' tastebuds. Then again, as it currently stands it is tasty too, so pick whatever suits your mood!

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.

As mentioned in Day 91 of The Challenge We first discovered this in out Taste of Persia cookbook by Naomi Duguid a few years ago, but it has since made it into our repertoire. I make it with all sorts of different ingredients, switching up both the toppings and the herbs which are mixed into the yogurt. In this iteration we used thyme, but I like it with mint too, or a mix or herbs. It is also topped nicely by some sumac in addition to the herbs. The topping used here was beets, but carrots, spinach or other vegetables work too. Sometimes I crispy fry the onions instead of sautéing them, thus adding another layer of texturing. Really, this is one you can play around with and make your own. As with many of the recipes I've adopted over the years, it started out Persian, but I don't know how recgonisable it would still be to a Persian. That doesn't stop it being good though! Ingredients: 1 large beet, chopped 1 kg Greek Yogurt 2 tsp thyme A pinch of salt pepper to taste 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil 1 onion, chopped A handful of almonds 1) Drain the yogurt through a cheese cloth for at least an hour. Mix with thyme, 1 tbsp olive oil, salt and pepper. 2) Roast the beets at 180°C for 20-30 minutes until tender. Dry toast almonds in a pan until lightly browned. Sauté onion in remaining olive oil until translucent. 3) Spoon thickened, seasoned yogurt into two bowls and top each with the beets, onions and almonds. Serve. It is as simple as that. It is a beautifully simple lunch, very satisfying, light and yet filling. I love this and only don't have it more often because I am too lazy to think ahead and drain the yogurt sometimes...

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.

In early December, a very good friend of mine was visiting us and we made Christmas Butterballs to celebrate. True to form, I didn't double-check my pantry first and it turned out that we were missing the necessary walnuts. I gave my friend the choice between almonds and hazelnuts to replace the walnuts. Her response was unequivocal. Hazelnuts! They are her favourite, and although ubiquitous here, since moving to the US, they are less common and harder to find. We made the Butterballs with the hazelnuts, and all enjoyed them greatly, but this got me thinking. A lot of our Christmas Cookies require almonds, but how much difference do these make to the actual taste and substance of the cookies. I enjoyed the hazelnut butterballs but missed the originals, whereas Hubby and my friend both liked them better, so clearly it does make a difference, but how much? So I decided to try the Cinnamon Stars, which have ground almonds as their base, using hazelnuts substituted in for the almonds. And then as I thought about it further, hazelnut and cacao seemed like such a natural pairing that I decided to try some chocolatey ones and some regular ones, each variety with and without icing. Ingredients: For the plain ones: 3 egg whites a pinch of salt 1 1/2 c powdered sugar 3 c ground hazelnuts 2 tbsp cinnamon 2 tsp kirsch For the chocolate ones: 3 egg whites a pinch of salt 1 c powdered sugar 1/2 c cacao 3 c ground hazelnuts 2 tbsp cinnamon 2 tsp kirsch 2 tbsp sugar for rolling 1) Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt to form stiff peaks. Fold in the powdered sugar and set aside 2 tbsp for the icing. If using, fold in cacao at this point. 2) Mix in the nuts, cinnamon and kirsch to form a stiff dough. Roll out 1 cm thick on a sugared surface and cut out shapes. 3) Lay out on a cookie sheet (preferably greased or with a silicone sheet) and ice with a little dollop of the icing. 4) Allow to rest for 5 hours or overnight. Bake at 250°C for 5 minutes. So the consensus was that these were good, and the hazelnuts worked well for this, including with the cinnamon, but... All the cookie cutters are at my house and we are at my parents' so these are all round, despite the name. Small wine glasses are perfect for this. I do recommend a silicone sheet because the plain batch I allowed to cool on the cookie sheet for a couple of minutes, and they were cemented to the tray. Also, I believe that this oven runs a little hot. Pulled out at time, and the second batch at 4 minutes, both batches were a little darker than would have been ideal. Next time, I would do them at 240°C for 4 minutes like the Basler cookies. I also rolled mine out too thin which compounded the problem, so I do recommend making sure they are thick enough. Further, the chocolate ones were too chocolatey and the cinnamon paled into insignificance behind it. the chocolatey ones worked better with the icing as the extra sugar balanced out the flavour of the cookie while the plain ones were better uniced and definitely did not need extra sugar. I would like to try these with only 2 tbsp or 1/4 c cacao instead of a full third of the sugar content - make them hazelnut and cinnamon biscuits with cacao and not chocolate biscuits with a bit of cinnamon and some hazelnuts for texture.

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

Ingredients: 1.5 l milk (I use whole fat, but feel free to use skimmed or semi-skimmed if necessary,

Switzerland has its own soft drink that I haven't encountered anywhere else. It is a whey-based drink called rivella. I am not big on soft drinks but do enjoy the occasional rivella. With my cheese-making journey, I suddenly discovered that at times I had a lot of whey on my hands. While I found other uses for it (In soups, in porridge, in lasagna, in blondies or in risotto for example. Just type Whey into the search bar to see other things I've done with it.) I thought I might try out a homemade version of Rivella. Having toyed with the idea, we were then in the grocery store and a soda stream was on sale. We picked it up on what I thought was a whim so that I could try making whey, but it turns out that Hubby has been wanting one for ages. In the end, I'm glad that's the case as he's used it way more than me, but I still get to try my experiment. Ingredients: 2 c whey 2 c water 1/2 c brown sugar 2" ginger, grated 1 lime/orange/lemon, juiced 1) In a carafe, mix all the ingredients except water together. Place in the fridge and allow the flavours to marry overnight. 2) The next day, strain out the grated ginger bits. Fizz some water and add to the whey mix. Serve chilled. This was so good! Really good in summer, but a good drink anytime. All three of the citrus variants worked, but the best were lemon and lime, orange a bit less so. I might play around with the orange flavouring in future, and maybe cut the sugar and add cloves to it. Either way, all three disappear in no time whenever I make it. The more acidic the whey, the better this works. Beware to properly strain out all the curds though! Book Pairing: When making this, I was listening to Doctor Zhivago on Audible. I had heard a lot about it over the years, mainly about how great it was, and even had a friend named after Lara in the book because of how much her mother loved it. I enjoyed it, and found it beautifully written. I did however find that it was a better piece of anti-Soviet propaganda than it was a novel. There were just too many coincidences and beyond them, the plot didn't hold together great. As a piece of propaganda though, it was fantastic. Supposedly, the CIA helped to first get it published because of that aspect of it. I would recommend it, but not necessarily for the reason I always heard it recommended, as this great love story. What are your thoughts on Zhivago? Propaganda or novel? Did you like it? As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.