With pumpkins very briefly in season and available here, I am trying to take advantage. Some I am cooking with now, for tasty, warming autumnal foods, while others I am roasting and then freezing as pumpkin purée for future use. With some of this roasted pumpkin purée, I decided to make more muffins - still in a bid to stock up on breakfast foods for Little Bit before Littler Bit arrives, which require zero effort from me after the first half hour or so. I wasn't really sure where I wanted to go with these, but then as I made up a batch of British Mix Spice for another recipe, I decided to use that. Mix Spice, as it turns out, is quite similar to Pumpkin Spice, but with some differences, most notable of which is the coriander powder. I decided to try out the spice blend on the pumpkin muffins, and I am quite pleased with it. Ingredients: 3 tbsp butter 2 tbsp light brown sugar 1 tbsp white sugar 1 egg 1 c milk 1 c white flour 1 c whole wheat flour 2 tsp mix spice* 3 tsp baking powder 2 tsp dried orange peel 1 c pumpkin purée 1 c dark chocolate chips For a recipe for Mix Spice, here is the link to the one I used. 1) Cream together butter and sugars. Beat in egg and then stir in milk. 2) Gradually stir in dry ingredients, followed by pumpkin and chocolate chips. 3) Spoon into muffin cups, filling about 2/3 full. Bake at 200°C for 20-25 minutes, until a stabbing implement comes out clean (I favour knives for this, but I know some people like skewers. Stabber's choice really.) I enjoyed these, especially with a smidge of butter. Little Bit tucked in quite happily, so I think my goal of providing something easy for him succeeded! I must say though that the pumpkin flavour wasn't particularly strong. I have found that before when using my homemade pumpkin purée from roasted pumpkin, especially as contrasted with the much more pronounced flavour of tinned pumpkin, but being unable to get tinned pumpkin here, I am making do with what we have. I also chopped up dark chocolate from a bar rather than using actual chips, and some of the pieces were (deliberately-accidentally) a bit on the larger side, so the final muffins had big gooey chocolate patches in them, which was not a bad thing in the least.

Looking into fenugreek a while back, I came across a description of it comparing fenugreek's taste to that of maple and the fact that fenugreek is sometimes used as a maple substitute. That gave me an idea. What about if I used fenugreek in something that often has maple syrup added to it, like pancakes. The idea niggled for a while until I finally tried it. The pancakes worked really well. They were missing a little richness to the maple flavour, but with butter or yogurt they were really tasty! Less sweet obviously, than adding maple syrup to a dish, and the flavour was more delicate, but very tasty. Ingredients: 1 1/2 c flour 2 1/2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp fenugreek powder 3 tbsp sugar 3 tbsp melted butter 2 eggs 3/4c milk 1) Combine dry ingredients, then gradually add wet ingredients. Add an additional splash of milk if necessary for the batter to be just thin enough to pour. 2) Melt butter in a skillet then cook the pancakes in two-tablespoon-dollops (or bigger if you want) over medium heat until bubbles appear and pop on the surface and it goes from shiny to matte, then flip. Serve hot with butter, jam, syrup or fruits. Or anything else you fancy. I really enjoyed these. They had a definite maple flavour but without added sugar. I enjoyed mine plain with butter, which gave them an extra richness that brought out the maple flavour. These are definitely coming back out! The only aspect I wasn't delighted with was the texture. They were a little heavier than usual, and I don't know if fenugreek requires a little additional liquid or rising agent, or if there was a mix-up somewhere. To be tried again I guess, and I will see. If you try them, let me know what you think!

My second attempt at making my own ricotta went well, but I scalded it a little (Little Bit waking up at a crucial moment was not part of the plan!) The scalding actually gave the ricotta an interesting caramelised flavour though. The plan had been to make ricotta gnocchi with it, so I went ahead with that but decided to use the caramelised flavour and have a slightly sweeter, more robust sauce to stand up to the ricotta. I made a pumpkin sauce with a little red wine and balsamic, caramelising the onions first. Using my own home made ricotta for this also had the advantage of allowing me to drain it in its little basket for a couple of days so that it was nice and firm to start making the gnocchi. I must say, it came out nicely! Ingredients: For the gnocchi: 1 c ricotta 1 egg 1 c grated aged cheese (eg parmesan) 1 - 1 1/4 c flour 1/2 c cornmeal, and extra for sprinkling Pepper For the sauce: 3 onions, sliced fine 1/2 head of garlic, crushed 1 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp sage, crushed 1/2 sweet potato, grated 2 c roasted pumpkin (I pulled mine from the freezer stash of pumpkin I put aside when it was in season) 1 red or orange bell pepper, chopped 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar 3/4 - 1 c red cooking wine 2 c water salt to taste 1) Place flour and cornmeal in a bowl and form a well. Crack eggs into well and add ricotta. Mix to form a dough, adding a little extra flour if it is too wet. Mix in the cheese and pepper. 2) Cut the dough into quarters and then roll these into long snakes. Cut the snakes obliquely every 1 cm or so to form the little pillowy gnocchi, then toss these in a little cornmeal to coat them (this absorbs excess moisture from the outside and gives them a little bite). Leave to rest while you make the sauce. 3) Heat oil in a pan. Sauté onions, sage and garlic over medium-low heat to sweat them. Add the sweet potato and pepper and cook for a few more minutes. Add the balsamic and wine and bring to a simmer. Add the pumpkin and break it up. At this point, the sauce should be quite thick, but coming together nicely in terms of the flavours. 4) Add the water and salt to taste and bring to a simmer. Add the gnocchi and cook for a further 5 minutes, until the gnocchi are tender but firm, not mushy. Serve, with a little more grated cheese over the top, optionally. I loved this dish! I wasn't sure until I started exactly what I was going to do with it, and then had my doubts mid-way in, but it was tasty, with nicely layered flavours without being heavy. It had some creaminess, and some tang, and some sweetness, and some umami. Overall a well balanced dish, in my opinion.

So crackers have always been one of those go-to foods in my house, both as a kid in my parents' house, and now that I have my own home. They are great for a quick snack, good for hiking or day trips, last a while, don't go off and pack up small. Then came Little Bit, who, as it turns out, also loves crackers. The only issue is that they are loaded full of salt which he isn't supposed to have much of. A couple of months ago, therefore, I started playing around with making them for myself. I checked a few of my cookbooks, hoping to find a recipe to start me off, but there didn't seem to be anything even in cookbooks I thought might have a cracker recipe (the Tolkein cookbook, as I thought homemade crackers might do for a Lembas reference, the Food DIY book, as it seemed inline with other recipes, and a few others). So in the end, I decided to wing it (I know the internet exists, but sometimes, figuring it out for myself is so much more fun). I took a basic pie crust as the base, tweaked it a bit so it would be quite stiff and dry, and then baked it. After baking, I then baked it a second time for much longer at a lower temperature to get any moisture out. I used part barley flour (home ground in the coffee grinder) and part regular wheat flour. Barley has a lower gluten content and is a bit sweeter, so I thought it might help make the crackers crumbly. If you do grind your own barley flour, don't worry if it isn't completely smooth. The bits just add a little texture, as long as they aren't too big. I have also used whole wheat flour in addition to the barley flour, and that was tasty too. I made them a first time in the autumn, and somehow, despite us all really enjoying them, a few were forgotten in a tin. Weeks later, they were still good, unspoiled, not stale and still tasty. I've tried them again, with some added flavours. And this time, I had help from a little one in a foxy apron. Here is the result: Ingredients: Base recipe: 1 c barley flour 1 c wheat flour 1/2 c + 2 tbsp butter 1/4 c water For Carrot Crackers: 2 tsp carrot ketchup (use carrot purée as a substitute) 1 tbsp extra flour Black sesame seeds for sprinkling For Honey Thyme Crackers: 1 tsp thyme 1 1/2 tsp honey Sesame seeds for sprinkling For Tomato Crackers: 1 1/2 tbsp tomato purée a pinch of allspice 1 tsp nigella seeds 1) Mix barley and wheat flours in a large mixing bowl. Add the butter and mix with fingertips until the mixture forms a crumbly texture. Add water and mix with a fork until it comes together to form a stiff dough. 2) Divide the dough into three equal parts and add the ingredients for each of the variants to one piece of dough, and mix well. Knead as little as possible, just combining the ingredients and bringing them to cohere. (Kneading forms gluten strands which would make the crackers chewy, not crumbly). Alternatively, make only one varients, but triple the ingredients for it! 3) Wrap the balls of dough up and place them in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes. Then, on a lightly floured surface, roll out each dough to about 3-4 mm thick. I then used different cookie cutters for each flavour (for fun, especially for Little Bit, and to help keep them straight). You could just use a knife or a pizza-cutter though and cut the dough into neat squares or rectangles. 4) Place the proto-crackers on a lined baking tray and brush with a little salted water. Sprinkle with seeds and tamp down a little (alternatively, press each cracker face down in a little mound of seeds then place face up on the baking sheet.) 5) Bake at 180°C for about 30 minutes, until the crackers are golden and firm. A taste test should reveal them to be cooked through and taste similar to cooked pie crust (but less flakey). Bake again at 50°C (or whatever your minimum oven setting is) for several hours until the crackers are quite dry seeming. 6) Allow to cool and store in a cool dry place. I was quite pleased with these. I am very pleased with the base flavour, but the added flavours need some tweaking as I don't feel that they come through strongly enough. That is possibly in part because I forgot my plan midway through. I had been going to divide the dough into three after the butter and flour stage, without adding any liquid. This would mean that all the liquid content would have to come from the carrot or tomato, for example. I would like to try them again like that, but it might be in a little while... Texturally, I am very happy with these. The butter created pockets as the dough baked, so the crackers have layers and crumbly flakiness to them. They are quite buttery and rich, so I suppose I could go back and try another dough without the butter base, but I quite like it. Even when dry and relatively old, the flavour held really well last time, and they make a good snack on their own, are a good base for other things. I had thought of using baking powder in them, but found that I had run out, so made do without. The first time I tried these, the dough was too sticky and I didn't manage to roll it out as thinly as I wanted. The resulting crackers were still tasty, but far too thick to really be called crackers. And having made them for Little One, I discovered that although he liked the taste, he struggled to eat the thicker ones (possibly part of the reason they hung around for so long). This time, with a much drier dough, not too elastic either, but relatively firm, I was able to roll them out very thin, and I find that works much better. Now they crack much better too, allowing them to live up to their name. And anyway, we want to dry them out afterwards, so a drier dough works in service of that too. All in all, I am pleased with these and feel I have something to work with and play around with a bit now.

I love Borani and have ever since discovering it a few years ago in my Taste of Persia cookbook by Naomi Duguid. The idea of a savoury, creamy yogurt dish with vegetable toppings was naturally a hit for me, and I've been playing around with it ever since. I am not sure a Persian would recognise it much, but that's not the point. I am making tasty food, not necessarily culturally authentic food. Since trying Ottolenghi's Sweet Potatoes in a Tomato and Tamarind Sauce last week from his Flavour cookbook, it occurred to me that the spiced and roasted sweet potatoes could potentially go very nicely on a borani, so we tried it, with some additions and modifications, and it worked beautifully! I added some spinach, but hoped that adding it to the sweet potatoes under a cover in the oven it would wilt. It didn't. Instead it dehydrated, and added a bit of texture to the dish and was delightful. The joy of mistakes in the kitchen! Ingredients: 1 kg yogurt 1 tsp thyme 4 sweet potatoes, chopped into bite sized pieces 1 tbsp maple syrup 2 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp cardamom 1 1/2 tsp cumin Juice of 1 lime 3 tsp pul biber 2 handfuls of spinach 1 spring onion, chopped Salt and pepper to taste 1) Drain the yogurt at least an hour through a cheese cloth (or clean dish towel) over a bowl (and keep the whey! It's great as an ingredient in other things! I drained mine into the bowl I used for step 2 and have flavoured whey now) You can drain it up to overnight depending on how thick you want it and how liquidy it is to start with. 2) Place the sweet potatoes in a large mixing bowl and add the maple syrup, olive oil, cardamom, cumin, salt and pepper, lime juice, and pul biber. Mix well then spread out on a baking sheet (grease proof paper or a silicon sheet can be helpful here!) and bake at 240°C for 25 minutes, covered with foil. The uncover and bake for a further 10 minutes until the bottoms of the potatoes start to caramelise. 3) Place the spinach in with the sweet potatoes and mix well. Cover with the foil again and bake a further 5 minutes or so until the spinach is cooked (dehydrated and crispy if it comes out like mine). Allow the sweet potatoes and spinach to cool a little. 4) Place the yogurt in the same mixing bowl that you used in step 2 and add thyme, sumac and some salt and pepper. (I used a salt flavoured with Alpine herbs and flowers). Mix well. 5) To serve spoon yogurt into bowls and top with the sweet potato and spinach mix. Sprinkle spring onions over the top. Enjoy! I loved this! I found the interplay of flavours witty and stimulating. Or maybe that was the conversation at dinner... But the acidity of the yogurt played against the sweetness of the potatoes and the deeper flavours of the spices, and off against the sharper note of the lime and the freshness of the spring onion. Another Borani variant for the books! Little Bit is a bit of a yogurt aficionado and lost no time in stuffing it by the handful into his mouth. He can use a spoon, quite well even, but was in too much of a hurry. Not the most sophisticated or well-mannered dinner companion, but certainly flattering to the cook.

With lots of fresh chanterelles available (they still have moss on them at the grocery store) and autumn coming on, something warm and filling but not too heavy celebrating seasonal produce seemed in order. This time I didn't make the spätzli myself, but the dish came out tasty and colourful! Ingredients: 2 tbsp olive oil 2 onion, chopped 3-4 c chanterelles 1-2 c pumpkin, chopped 1 c ham, diced 1/2 - 3/4 c spinach, wilted 500 g spätzli 1 c mozzarella, grated 1 tsp thyme Salt and pepper to taste sour cream to dollop 1) Heat oil in a skillet. Sauté chanterelles. Allow them to give up their liquid, tip this out, and add the onions. Sauté until translucent and add other ingredients except the sour cream. Mix well. 2) Place in a preheated oven at 180°C until the tops are crispy and the cheese is melted. Dish up and dollop with sour cream. Super simple and tasty, this dish hit the spot! Approved of by Hubby and Little Bit, this one's a keeper. And with all the chanterelles recently, ways of using them are necessary. This dish was tasty with the ham but could also easily do without.

I learned to make scones from a friend in my first year of university, and while living in Scotland, it quickly became a go-to. It takes me all of about 5 minutes to prep the dough and they bake in no time. Baking them at sea level and using self-raising flour, I would roll them out to 1.5 cm thick or so and end up with scones 5 cm high, light and warm inside, melting the clotted cream and honey. Moving back to Switzerland though, living at over 1000m above sea level and without self-raising flour, I had to add a lot of baking powder to make them rise at all, and then they tasted somewhat chemically. I tried tweaking the recipe a few times to fix the issue and then just stopped making them. Reading up on the different properties of baking soda and baking powder recently though for a refresher (good things to know when you experiment with recipes), it occurred to me that if I used something mildly acidic instead of milk, it might activate baking soda. If I could use soda instead of powder, it might fix my chemical taste problem and still allow the scones to rise. I decided to give this a try next time I had whey or buttermilk on hand, and sat on the idea. After making my ricotta for the White Lasagne though, I had about 1.5l of whey on hand - enough for scones and then some (used in the Caramel Chestnut Risotto). So I gave it a try! the broccoli and cheese are a bit of a new addition too. Ingredients: 2 - 2 1/4 c flour (I used a 5 grain brown flour, but use whatever you want!) 1/2 c butter, cold, diced 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 - 3/4 c whey 1 c broccoli in small florets 1 c finely grated cheese ( I used L'Etivaz, a Gruyère type cheese) (optional: corn meal for sprinkling) 1) Lightly steam the broccoli florets and drain well. 2) Place about 1 3/4 - 2 c flour in a large mixing bowl and add the butter. Using finger tips, mix the flour into the butter until it forms crumbs. 2) Add the baking soda and 1/2 c whey, and mix well with a fork until it forms an dough. Add a little more whey or flour as necessary. 3) Mix in the cheese and broccoli, then roll out the dough on a clean floured surface to about 1.5 - 2 cm thick. Cut out rounds (size of your choice) and place on a baking tray. Optionally you can sprinkle them with corn meal at this stage. 4) Bake at 200°C for 15-20 minutes until puffed up and golden. The verdict was that these were very tasty. They didn't puff as much as I would have liked and as I used to get in Scotland (we are still at 800m above sea level though, despite having moved out of the mountains). I don't know if the whey wasn't acidic enough or if I didn't use enough baking soda. Either way though, despite being a little lower than I would have hoped, they were not at all dense and very tasty. Also, huge bonus, they didn't taste in the least chemically. I will play with the rising agents a little further (and keep you posted!) but will certainly be making these again. PS. They also made excellent lentil slider buns!

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!

Last week was American Thanksgiving, "Big Feast" as Little Bit excitedly calls it, and we had people over for dinner. We made rather a big batch of cornbread stuffing, knowing there would be leftovers, which is always a good thing. Five days into eating said leftovers though, I figured I'd jazz it up a bit. This is inspired by one of my mother-in-law's dishes but made my own. Ingredients: 1/2 small pumpkin, sliced 2 onions, sliced 4 tbsp butter 1 c milk 1/2 - 3/4 c mushrooms 4 carrots, grated about 3 c cheese, grated 1 tsp thyme 1 tsp rosemary 1 1/2 tsp - 2 tsp sumac 1 tsp dried orange peel 3 1/2 c stuffing 3 tbsp carrot top pesto 1 1/2 tbsp cranberry sauce Salt and pepper 1) Melt 1 tbsp butter in a deep frying pan, and sauté the onions and pumpkin. add about 1 c water and stew for 10 minutes until beginning to go tender. 2) Add the carrots, mushrooms, milk, herbs and spices and all but about 1 c of the cheese. Cook on medium heat until combined and beginning to reduce, about another 10 minutes. 3) Melt the remaining butter and mix with the stuffing. Spread about half the stuffing on the bottom of an oven-proof dish. spoon the pesto over the top. Layer the pumpkin mix over that, and then cranberry sauce. Mix the remaining cheese with the rest of the stuffing and place it on top in the casserole dish. 4) Bake at 180°C for about a half-hour, uncovered for the first 20-25 minutes, then uncovered until the top is crispy. This came out beautifully, but is definitely better on the first night (odd, given how many dishes improve with a little time). In future, I will try to bear this in mind and make only the required amount. Hubby and Little One both loved it too, and despite post-Thanksgiving resolutions, we all had seconds. It was good served up with a little extra cranberry sauce or mustard, but it was a very moist dish and so didn't need it in the least.

During the 12 days of Christmas Cookies last year, Day 5 was Chestnut rings (" on the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me five chestnut rings"). I was very happy with how those came out, but I had hoped for more of a roast chestnut flavour which they didn't have. I've been meaning to try these again since, tweaking some bits to get that roast chestnut flavour to come out, but only got around to it now. (I know, I know, Christmas cookies in September? But chestnuts should be allowed anytime in my book.) To try and get the flavour I was after this time, I roasted both whole chestnuts (given the time of year, these were from the freezer) and the chestnut (vermicelli) paste. I also tried two different textures, rolling some and leaving others rough and spiky. Finally, i tried half the batch lightly salted and the other unsalted to see what difference it would make. IN the end, I think my favourites were the ones that were rough and salted. All four variants were good though. Ingredients: 1/2 c butter, softened 3/4 chestnut paste 1 1/4 c brown sugar 1 c chestnuts 3/4 tbsp vanilla extract 3 tbsp milk 1 egg 3/4 tsp baking soda 1 3/4 c flour 1/2 tsp salt 1) Roast chestnuts and chestnut paste at 200°C for about 30-45 minutes until dark. The paste will taste almost caramelised. I roasted the paste in a little covered pot to keep it from drying out. The whole chestnuts don't need to be covered though. 2) Cream butter, chestnut paste and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the wet ingredients and then the dry and mix well. 3) Chop the chestnuts into pieces. Incorporate into dough. Drop by teaspoonsful onto an ungreased cookie sheet either smoothing out the balls or leaving rough) and then bake at 190°C for 8 minutes until golden brown. I was really happy with these! The salt was necessary as it helped bring out the flavours and accentuate everything else a little. I only added a very little and not much was needed. They did taste like roast chestnuts this time. The flavour was obviously less pronounced than in whole roast chestnuts, but that is to be expected. I skipped the cinnamon and don't think it was missed. I will still keep the other recipe too, but this is a nice alternative to have up my sleeve!