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With citrus fruit now in season, one way of preserving them is in a curd - a custard-like jam that keeps in the fridge for about 4 weeks and in the freezer for about a year. It requires eggs and butter, making it rich and creamy, but less long-lived. I have experimented with making various curds at different times, and enjoy them all. Grapefruit curd is a particular favourite. It is also something that always seems like it will be more complicated and difficult than it is. Some recipes call for egg yolks, others for whole eggs. I've done it with both in the past and both work. The curd is maybe a little richer when made with egg yolks rather than whole eggs though. This time, going away a day later for Christmas, I didn't want extra egg whites hanging around, so I used whole eggs. Feel free to substitute though. As you cook until it thickens, I don't tend to change the proportions much, the curd just thickens faster with egg yolks than whole eggs. Ingredients: 5 eggs 1 c + 3 tbsp sugar (250g) 1 1/8 c butter, diced (250g) Juice of 1 1/2 grapefruits, reduced by about 1/3 Zest of 2 grapefruits 1) Place a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, making sure that the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water, forming a Bain Marie. In this, whisk together the sugar and eggs until uniformly combined. 2) Add the zest and the juice and whisk well. Add the butter a cube or two at a time, waiting to add the next cube until the previous ones have mostly melted. Continue whisking and adding butter cubes until all the butter is added and melted, and the curd begins to thicken. (Optional extra step for a smoother curd: Strain the curd when it has begun to thicken, removing the zest and any other bits. I find this unnecessary and don't mind encountering bits of zest, but the choice is yours). 3) Meanwhile, sterilise jars in boiling water for 15 minutes. When the curd has begun to thicken, spoon the hot curd into freshly boiled jars and seal immediately, making sure the rims of the jars stay clean. As the curd cools, it will seal the jars. ( I needed three jam jars for this quantity of curd). The curd should keep in the fridge for about 4 weeks or in the freezer for about a year. Once opened, be aware that it is made with eggs, so consume it relatively quickly. I am pleased with how this turned out, and am planning on conserving more citrus this way as they come into season, so stay tuned for any variations!

Tattie scones are an essential part of a full Scottish breakfast. Browned on the outside, soft on the inside and warm enough to melt the butter a little, I've made them myself since leaving Scotland, but it occurred to me recently, with all the sweet potatoes on sale, that a sweet potato version of these could be tasty. With my sister's recent return from the UK with a delivery of Cumberland sausages and British bacon, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it out. We had a full Scottish breakfast - or as near as possible over here where black pudding isn't available. The Tattie Scones came out beautifully. The sweet potatoes needed more flour to come together than regular ones, but the texture was good and they were a little sweet without being overwhelmingly so. Ingredients: 400g sweet potatoes 2 c flour 3 tbsp butter Salt and pepper to taste 1) Boil the sweet potatoes until soft. Mash in butter (peeling or leaving the peels of the sweet potatoes as you prefer). 2) Mix in flour to form a dough- enough for it to be non-sticky but not so much as to make it dense. 3) Roll out the dough to about 1 cm thick on a clean, floured surface. Cut into large circles (I used a soup bowl) and score quarters on the surface. Melt a little butter on a gridle or frying pan and cook over medium heat on both sides until golden. I am really happy with how these came out. The taste wasn't slap-you-in-the-face different but did certainly have its own twist on the originals. Certainly an alternative which will be making it into the repertoire!

My sister is visiting to help with the arrival of the Littler One, and we've been on a bit of a baking kick. Well, cooking of a variety of kinds, really. We decided we wanted to do some Christmas baking, with a little flavour experimentation, as well as making old favourites (like Cinnamon Stars, Basler Christmas Cookies, or Christmas Butter Balls). One of the Christmas flavours we wanted to play with was cranberry, After some playing with ideas, we settled on these. The last few blondie recipes (Pear-Ginger and Apple Rhubarb) I've come up with were all a caramelised brown sugar base, so we thought this time we'd try out a white chocolate base instead. Ingredients: 4 eggs 1 c light brown sugar 1/2c butter 200g white chocolate 1/2 c oats 1 1/2c flour 1/2c cranberry juice 1 c dried cranberries 1/2 c walnuts, chopped Zest 1 orange 1) Over very low heat, melt the butter and white chocolate in a saucepan, stirring almost continuously to prevent burning. (The right way to do this is probably over a Bain-Marie, but this works too, and I couldn't be bothered). 2) Beat the eggs with the sugar until light. Add dry ingredients and combine. Stir in the juice, cranberries and zest, and finally, fold in the melted chocolate. Scatter nuts over the top. 3) Pour batter into a brownie tin and bake at 180°C for 25-30 minutes. These came out very tasty. Interestingly, although we enjoyed eating the blondies hot, the flavours had developed more and were better balanced on the following day. There are however a couple of tweaks we might try next time. Firstly, the cranberry flavour didn't come out as strongly as I would have liked. next time I will try starting with double or even triple the amount of cranberry juice and cooking it down to a half cup, thus intensifying the flavour. Secondly, we found the flavour profile very high, lacking in deeper notes. To balance this out, there are a couple of things I want to try. Toasting the nuts and the oats, and maybe increasing the proportion of these might add the deeper note that I am looking for. Another, perhaps subtler way of doing this would also be to melt the white chocolate in the oven, caramelising it a bit and deepening the flavour profile. I feel that this is an advantage to brown sugar blondies over white chocolate ones in that they have this incorporated as a matter of course. . Finally, I found these to be a little on the sweet side, so I might cut the sugar a bit next time, to three-quarters of a cup perhaps. They were also a bit cakier than I like, so I might add a dash of milk and/or reduce the flour by a bit, and pull them out of the oven that little bit earlier. With so many changes and tweaks to try, and so many ideas to try, I wish I worked in a test kitchen!

I had never had vegetarian lasagne before meeting my then boyfriend (now husband).

A few years ago I needed rose petals or rose water for some recipe and didn't have it. My grandmother and I therefore dried petals from the roses at my parents' house, some yellow and some red and put them aside. I haven't used very many since, and seeing their container the other day, it occurred to me that with their delicate flavour, rose petals could make for a very nice ice cream. I had intended to use my sister's no-churn recipe, but then forgot that I was going to do that and added the condensed milk to soon. Instead, I used my parents' old ice cream maker which I have inherited. I don't think it has been used in my life time, or if it has , not since I was very little. As it turns out, it was really easy, and has come out very nicely! Ingredients: 2 c cream 1 c (ish, I just used a full tin) sweetened condensed milk 1 c (ish) dried rose petals (I used mostly yellow, but a couple red ones snuck in there) 1)Mix cream and condensed milk together in a saucepan. Tear up petals and add them. Stir and heat gently until warm, almost at a simmer and remove from the heat. 2) Leave to infuse over night. Cool. 3) Place in ice cream maker and process as per manufacturer's instructions. Freeze. ALTERNATIVELY (which I had planned to do but didn't) without a churner: 1) Place cream in a saucepan. Tear up petals and add them. Stir and heat gently until warm, almost at a simmer and remove from the heat. 2) Leave to infuse over night. Cool. Strain out petals and whip cream to stiff peaks. 3) Gently fold in the petals and condensed milk. Freeze. I am curious to see how different this would be if made with fresh rose petals. In any case it was really easy to whip up and certainly welcome! It is ages since I last made my own ice cream, but I don't think this will be the last for the season! The taste of this ice cream was very delicate and not too strong, but pleasant. It was creamy and not too sweet. All in all, very nice. Beware what you serve it with as some flavours would quickly overpower it. I decided to leave the rose petals in for a little texture, but they could easily be left out, or only half left in if you preferred. EDIT: We had this again the other night with baked apples and a little cinnamon. Well worth it!

Easily tweaked to be vegetarian, too.

A traditional Cheese Tart, or a Tarte au Fromage, is an old favourite. My dad has made it for years, and I absolutely love it, sometimes with a little twist. This time, to cut down the richness a little, I added leek and some of our Carrot Top pesto (well, proto pesto as it doesn't yet have nuts or cheese added). The combo had some zing, and some fresh greenness, and some leeky freshness, as well as all the cheesy richness. I was in a hurry, so I'm afraid that it was a store bought crust, first one in two years, but the tart didn't suffer for it. Ingredients: Crust for 1 tart 2 - 2 1/2 c grated cheese (something mature!) 3 eggs 2/3 c cream 2 /3 c milk Nutmeg, freshly grated 2 tbsp flour 1 tbsp butter 1 leek, sliced 2-3 tbsp carrot tip pesto 1 tomato sliced Pepper 1) Melt butter in a pan and sauté leek over medium until softened but not browned. 2) Beat together eggs, cream, milk, flour and nutmeg. Line a tart pan with the crust. Spread pesto along the bottom. Layer leeks over the pesto, and spread the cheese over the leeks. Pour the egg and milk mixture over the cheese. Lay tomato slices over the whole. Liberally grind pepper over the top. 3) Bake at 180°C for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown on top. Eminently satisfying as a quick easy supper before a walk in the snow, but this would have worked equally well as a lunch, or alongside soup. I was very happy with how this turned out.

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!)

I was looking for something hot for lunch, that would be satisfying but not heavy or overly caloric. With a head of broccoli in the fridge, I hit on this when I saw pastry in the store. I picked up some fennel to pair with it and quark for a base. Once home again, I popped the veg in to start roasting while I made the pastry dough and then assembled it. The whole thing took 20 minutes to prep and then a few more to finish baking, and we had a quick easy lunch ready to go. It would have been quicker still had I bought the pastry, but I rather like making my own. This one I made with whole meal flour too, so it came out of the oven with a rather rustic look to it. Things would have been even quicker had I not had help from someone in an observation tower... Ingredients: Crust: (you can use a store bought crust if you want, but this is also very quick and easy, I promise! It is better if you have a half hour to let it chill before rolling it out, but it still works if you don't) 3/4 c flour 1/2 c cold butter, cut into pieces pinch of salt 1/4 (approximate) milk Tart: 1 head broccoli, floretted 1 head fennel, roughly chopped 1 tbsp vinaigrette of your choice (we used one from a local monastery using vin cuit, a local molasses made from boiling down pear juice) 1 egg 1/3 c quark 1 tsp sumac Salt and pepper to taste 1) Place broccoli and fennel on a baking try and drizzle with the vinaigrette. Bake at 200°C 15 minutes. 2) In the mean time, place flour in a large bowl. Add the butter and mix with finger tips until a crumb like mix is achieved. Add milk and salt and mix with a fork to form dough. Let rest (if you have time) 30 minutes in the fridge. Knead briefly and roll out on a floured surface. 3) Line a tart plate with the pastry. Mix the quark and egg and spread on the bottom of the pastry. 3) Spread the veg over the quark and egg and then sprinkle with sumac, season, and bake at 200°C for a further 15 - 20 minutes until the crust is brown and the veg tender. I was very happy with this. It was tasty and hit the spot perfectly. The only tweak I would make in future would be to crumble feta or ricotta salata over the top of the tart before baking. Book Pairing: I was listening to the tail end of Jane Austen's Lady Susan while I assembled this. It is the first Austen I have strongly disliked. The main character was manipulative, conniving and egocentric. The epistolary form of the novella doesn't leave a huge amount of room for other characters to be fully developed and I can't claim to have enjoyed it. The reader also probably played a role in my dislike as I found the American accent rather jarring. Despite loving Austen generally, I cannot recommend this one and I'm glad it was only three hours long! As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

As mentioned in Day 84 of The Challenge This is one of my favourite tarts (and for any of you who've been paying attention, I make a lot of tarts). The first time I made it was just before we were going to go away on a trip for a week, so I made mini tartlets and brought them with us so as not to have the onions rot while we were away. Sitting on our (very short) flight all I could smell was the onion wafting down from the over-head compartment... Maybe not my most socially conscious move ever, but by then it was too late. Anyway, they made for a really tasty picnic lunch on our adventures and I've been making this tart, in normal or mini form, ever since. Feel free to omit the tomato or bacon, add spinach, cut the cumin and replace it with some nutmeg or add cheese. All of these options work! Ingredients: 1 pie crust (for pie crust recipe, see here) Half a dozen onions, sliced 100g bacon, sliced 2 tbsp butter 1/4 c flour (scant) 2 eggs 100ml milk 200ml cream (I don't always use cream, sometimes I do it with just milk) 1/2 - 1 tbsp cumin 1 tomato, sliced salt and pepper to taste 1) Line a pie dish with the crust and poke with a fork. 2) Melt butter in a frying pan and fry the bacon with the onions until they are translucent. 3) Mix flour, eggs, milk, cream and cumin. 4) Spread onions and bacon on the pie base. Pour the egg and milk mix evenly over the onions. Place tomatoes on top. Salt and pepper to taste. 5) Bake at 190°C for 25-30 minutes. Serve hot or cold, as a main or a side. It holds its own either way, and I love it! Great finger food for little bit too!