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As mentioned in Day 20 of The Challenge There are a number of different ways of doing this recipe, but

I was talking to family in Hawaii recently, and it was evening for them, morning for me. They were having corn muffins with dinner, so I decided to have corn muffins for breakfast. Somehow though, on the way to go make them, I ended up deciding that they were going to be oatmeal muffins, and then I was going to add pear. Gradually, what with one thing and another, they morphed into something wholly new, adding a bit of this and a bit of that. As they came out really tasty, I thought I'd share. They are almost not sweet at all, and are very good with an added smear of richness from some butter. Ingredients: 1c flour 1/2c oats 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 c vegetable oil 3/4c brown sugar 1 egg 1/4 c milk 1/2 tsp almond extract 1/4 c unsweetened bakers cacao 1/4 c ground almonds Zest of 1 orange 1 large pear, coarsely grated 1) Mix together dry ingredients. Gradually add wet ingredients, mixing well after each addition. 2) Spoon into muffin cups, about 2/3 full. Bake at 180°C for 30-35 minutes. These were very tasty and made a good breakfast, but... Next time I would increase the oats, maybe decreasing the flour at the same time. I would also up the cinnamon a bit and maybe use Aloha Spiced Cacao to make the flavours pop a little more. I liked that these were minimally sweet, but I might add a small amount more sweetness next time, maybe a tablespoonful or so of honey. Hubby said they were spot on though and didn't need anything.

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.

After our last batch of mascarpone, we tried out mascarpone with meringue, banana and Aloha Spiced Cacao, which was decadent and scrumptious in the extreme. That was my starting point for this. We then picked up fresh dates, and somehow the image of them paired with mascarpone and meringue, or meringue and mascarpone - I am not sure which elements I put together first - and I had to try it. With fresh dates, I naturally had to add in an orange drizzle, and then when making it for a sister who doesn't eat dates, the walnuts joined the party. A drizzle of Cointreau over the top was my dad's idea. Like most things therefore, it was a multi-step process, and I am very grateful for the family helping to bounce ideas around. I made mascarpone specially for this using lemon juice again instead of citric acid and leaving it to curdle for several hours and then to drain overnight. The mascarpone came out really well, and I am glad of the speed and ease with which I was able to make it. I feel at this point that mascarpone has been fully assimilated into my repertoire. I have not been sweetening mine at all and I've been enjoying it like that, with a slight acidic note to it. After Easter and the requisite feasting which follow (including the post-Lent binge), we didn't need another dessert, but in the interests of science - and a need to find out how this would taste- everyone threw themselves on the sword of this dessert, for which I am most grateful. We're still trying to come up with a name for this, so suggestions are welcome! Ingredients: 4 meringues 300 - 400 g mascarpone (roughly 2-3 tbsp per person) Juice and zest of 1 orange 1 tbsp sugar 1/2 tsp cloves 8 fresh dates, pitted and quartered a handful of walnuts a drizzle of Cointreau per bowl 1) In a small saucepan, heat the orange juice and zest, sugar, and half the cloves. Stir and allow it to come to a gentle simmer. Taste test and add the rest of the cloves if desired. Once this has thickened to a thin syrup, remove from the heat. 2) Place a meringue in each of four bowls, then over the top a dollop of mascarpone (for the fun of it I decided to form mine into ro-shays - ahem, rochers for those who speak French- , but feel free to just dollop). 3) Place some of the date quarters and a few walnuts in each bowl then spoon some orange syrup and drizzle Cointreau over the rest. Ta-Da! It' is that simple, but simply delightful! Next time I might roughly chop the walnuts to get a more even coverage, but otherwise I would change nothing about this. Except maybe to try it with a drizzle of rum? Hmmm. There's an idea! I also wonder how everything would react to being lightly flambéed.... Oh so tasty though!

year, my sister, a friend and I agreed to start on a new project with the new year, making different recipes has been some discussion back and forth for a few weeks now as to what we should make for our first recipe

Here is the recipe I came up with.

Sweet Potatoes are normally really expensive here, so when the price drops, I buy up loads of them. Usually, being a tuber, they last pretty well. This time though, that meant using up 4 kilos of sweet potatoes fast. After putting a couple in a few other dishes and still having a mountain of them to use, I chopped off the ugly bits and made soup. As often happens, I didn't have a very clear idea when I started of where I was heading with this soup, but I am really happy with where it ended up, so thought I'd share. I had thought maybe I would go a big veggie soup direction, or maybe cream of sweet potato soup, or something coconutty. The Fromage Blanc was the last from my most recent batch of homemade cheese, and the chives were the only ones that poked their heads through this year. The pot looked rather like a bald man's head with only a few green hairs sprinkled around. I used chicken stock as I had some from a recent chicken dish, but veggie stock would have worked well too. It all came together very nicely though! Ingredients: For the soup: 2 tbsp olive oil 3-4 onions, chopped 4 cm ginger, diced 2 - 2,5 kg sweet potatoes, chopped 4 c chicken stock 1 tsp Urfa Biber 1 tbsp nigella seeds 1 - 1 1/2 c corn Salt and pepper to taste for the red pepper paste: 1 red pepper 1 red chilli pepper 2 tbsp olive oil 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar 1 onion, chopped For the fromage blanc 3/4 c fromage blanc (or cream cheese) 2-3 tbsp fresh chives 1/2 tsp garlic powder salt 1) Place red pepper and chilli in the oven, whole at 200°C for 20-30 minutes, until the red pepper is soft and starting to char. 2) In a heavy-bottomed soup pot, heat olive oil over medium heat and sauté onion and ginger. 3) Add sweet potato and stock. Add water until the sweet potatoes are just covered and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 20 - 25 minutes until sweet potatoes are soft. 4) Using a hand blender, blitz soup until it is most of the way smooth. Add corn, Urfa and nigella seeds. 5) Meanwhile, remove peppers from the oven and blitz in a blender with the onion, olive oil and vinegar. (I used olive oil left over from preserving my Cabécou Goat's cheese). 6) In a bowl, mix the fresh cheese, chives, garlic powder and salt. 7) Serve the soup hot, with dolloping options of fresh cheese and red pepper paste. I am really happy with this soup. Having the fresh cheese and the red pepper paste on the side meant we were each able to spice it up or make it creamy according to our own tastes. This also continues the trend of keeping spicy things on the side so that Little Bit can eat the same meal as us. He wanted corn from the tin while I was cooking, so I ended up needing more corn than anticipated, but then he offered me 5 kernels for the soup. Individually of course. He was very proud of his contribution too! The fresh cheese was very tasty, and I enjoyed the creaminess as it melted into the soup, but the soul also works really well without it. The red pepper paste is tasty in its own right, and I am happy to have it around for other purposes too. I like happy accidents in cooking!

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.

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.

I've always loved chestnuts in any shape or form, especially roast chestnuts. They always speak to me of Christmas markets, friends and family, and the smell alone is enough to carry me back. Traditionally, these should be eaten out of a paper cone, fresh from a roasting pan outside in freezing night air, and the chestnuts so hot you burn your fingers peeling them. The other day I settled for home-roasted ones for Little Bit and me, though. He ate fewer than I had anticipated (always the case) and I made the mistake of leaving the rest in the cast iron pan on the stove while I finished tempering chocolate. As a result, they were rock hard but not burnt. I hate the idea of food waste, so instead of tossing them in the compost, I decided to try and salvage them by turning them into custards. I didn't have enough eggs for that, so instead turned them into little puddings. Ingredients: 1 1/2 - 2 c chestnuts, roasted 3 tbsp butter 1 1/2 - 2 c milk 1 egg 1 tsp cinnamon 2 tbsp flour 1/3 c sugar 2 tbsp dark chocolate, grated 1) Melt 1 1/2 tbsp butter in a saucepan. Briefly toss the chestnuts in the butter, then simmer in milk until liquid is reduced by about half and the chestnuts are tender. 2) Blitz the chestnuts in milk, adding a touch of extra milk or some water if it is too thick. 3) In another saucepan, mix sugar and flour over medium heat. Add the chestnut mix and a little extra milk, and cook slowly, stirring well. When well incorporated, remove from heat and beat in the egg, remaining butter, and cinnamon. The egg should be fully cooked by the residual heat of the pudding. 4) Dish into little individual ramequins and sprinkle chocolate over the top. Chill in the fridge for an hour or so, then enjoy! These were delightful. I wasn't able to blitz the chestnuts until smooth as Little Bit was already asleep and after about a minute of pulsing, he was starting to wake up. Instead, our puddings had chunks of roasted chestnut in them, which worked rather well. They would have been nice with a little whipped cream or mascarpone, but were also very tasty as is! Book Pairing: While making these, I was listening to the start of In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick. It is a history of the real-life whaling ship Essex and its wreck which were the inspiration for Moby Dick. I decided that Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky was too depressing and I wasn't in the mood, so instead switched to a book that opens with an account of cannibalism... Hmmm... It is well written, but listening to the unrelenting series of errors in judgement, leadership and navigation made by the captain and first mate and knowing where the whole thing is headed is a bit grim. It would be funny how badly things went if it weren't so tragic! At least, having decided that I wasn't up for anything depressing at the moment, this is a quicker read than Brothers K! Definitely worth a read if your mood can handle it though.