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I wanted to make a mushroom sauce today - preferably with a bunch of different mushrooms. Sadly, all we could find were white or brown button mushrooms, but I still wanted to make my sauce. The next step was to decide what to pair it with - pasta, rice, potatoes? In the end I decided on a creamy garlic mash (using some of my failed mozzarella curds) and a poached egg. It all came out very nicely, simple but filling and tasty. Ingredients: 500g mushrooms (preferably mixed) 1-2 tbsp olive oil 1 onion, chopped 1/2 head of garlic, chopped 1 - 1 1/2 c red cooking wine 1 tsp thyme salt and pepper to taste 1) Heat the oil in a deep pan. Sauté onions and garlic until soft and fragrant, and allow a few to char a little. Add mushrooms and sauté for 10 minutes or so until mushrooms. 2) Add the thyme and wine, reduce heat and cover, simmering gently for an additional 10 - 15 minutes until the wine is reduced and mushrooms have absorbed the wine. Place over mashed potatoes and a poached egg topped with sumac. This was satisfying and balanced, a comfort food if there ever was one. The creamy mash really allowed the mushrooms to shine and the red wine contrasted nicely with the egg.

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!

There's been a bit of a hiatus since my last posts due to some travelling, the first trimester of a pregnancy and fun things like planning a move. As things are beginning to settle down again though, I have some exciting recipes to share from the last little while. I hope you enjoy! My last citrus jam that I made over the winter was a lemon jelly. Unlike most of my others, like the G+T Lime Marmalade or the Spiced Grapefruit and Rum Marmalade, I decided to take the more elaborate route for this one and actually process the peels properly rather than just blitzing them into the marmalade. I also decided to try using my Apple Pectin that I made in the autumn to see how it went. And then I added bits... NB if you do not have homemade apple pectin, replace with the recommended amount of a store bought one. Ingredients: 1 kg lemons 3 1/2 c apple pectin 1 l water 2 c sugar 2 chilis, minced 2 - 2 1/2 tbsp ginger, peeled and minced 1) Using a vegetable peeler, remove a thin layer of peel from the lemons and set the strips aside. Juice the lemons into a large pot, discarding what remains of the pith. Add the sugar and the pectin and water, and bring to a boil. Stirring, reduce to a simmer. 2) Meanwhile, thinly slice as much of the peel as you want. Add this and the chili and ginger to the pot. 3) Cook until the marmalade thickens. You'll want to test readiness by putting a drop of the hot jelly on a saucer which has been in the freezer. Give it a couple of seconds to cool and then prod it. If the top of the jelly wrinkles, it is ready to put into jars. 4) While the jelly is cooking, boil 4 or 5 jars with their lids in a large pot at a rolling boil for at least 15 minutes. When the jelly is ready, carefully extract one jar at a time from the pot and fill it. Wipe any spills from the rim of the jar, seal and place upside down on a cloth to cool. Once sealed the jars of jelly should keep well in a cool dry place for a good while. The jelly came out very nicely. It ended up being a different colour than I had originally pictured, both because of the pectin and because of the chilis. I had some doubts about my pectin, but those have been cured. If anything I used a little too much of it. I really liked the flavour when it was fresh and can't wait to try it now that the flavours have had a bit more of a chance to develop. Not using the bulk of the lemon peel as I did for the other marmalades, my output was drastically reduced, from about 10 jars to about 4. Those 4 are worth it though! They are a clear jelly instead of a thicker bodied marmalade. Occasionally not taking the lazy route pays off! They are different beasts, the marmalades and the jelly, but both very tasty. All in all, it's been a lot of fun playing around with different citrus jams this winter!

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.

After my earlier attempt at a tomato ketchup, I was inspired to play around with other ketchup varieties. One that I wanted to try, thinking that the vegetable would lend itself well to this, was beetroot. The challenge in making this ketchup was to make it taste properly ketchupy and not like borscht. I think I managed! Try it out for yourself and let me know what you think! Ingredients: 4 beets, peeled and chopped 1/2 head garlic, minced 1 onion, chopped 7 tbsp red wine vinegar 3 tbsp light brown sugar 1 tsp oregano 1 - 1 1/2 tsp thyme 1/2 - 1 tsp salt 1 - 1 1/2 tsp tandoori powder 1) Place beets in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer, cooking, covered, until beets are tender. Add other ingredients, and continue to simmer, uncovered for about 20-30 minutes. 2) Cool the beets slightly then pour the contents of the saucepan into a blender and blitz well. Taste test, adjust, then transfer back to the saucepan and cook further until reduced to the desired gloppiness. 3) Meanwhile, boil clean jars for 15 minutes, completely submerged in water, thus sterilising them. While the ketchup is still hot, spoon into the jars one at a time (canning tongs come in handy here to fish the jars out of the boiling water), then wipe the rim, seal and place upside down on a clean towel to cool. I made my ketchup last week, and then we pulled it out this evening to have some, and I am really quite pleased with it. It tastes like ketchup, but it also still tastes like beet. And to my great relief, it does not taste like cold borcht!

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.

As mentioned in Day 2 of The Challenge I grew up with cornbread. It is a comfort food, a good staple. Usually it was a breakfast food, served in bread or muffin form with eggs and jams. Sometimes my father baked in pieces of bacon. For years though, that was all it was, until I started cooking for myself. Then gradually other things made it in, like cheese or jalapeños. I started baking it over chilli and experimenting with it in different ways. This loaf is one of those ways. It is endlessly versatile. This time I put in brocoli and spinach because I had them on hand, other times it is other vegetables. I find that feta works well as the cheese, but so do others. The red curry paste was because I had some in the fridge and it felt like the right palette. Quick, easy, adjustable to whatever tastes, cravings or stores you have, and super tasty. Ingredients: 1 cup flour 1 cup cornmeal 1/4 cup sugar 2 tsp baking powder 1/4 cup vegetable oil 1 cup milk 1 egg 2 tsp red curry paste 2 tbsp jalapeños 1 onion, diced 6 sundried tomato halves, sliced 1/2 suçuk or other spiced sausage, in chunks 1 red chilli, sliced 1 handful of spinach, wilted 1/4 head of broccoli 1 disk of feta, cubed/crumbled 1) Preheat oven to 220°C. Combine dry ingredients, then add wet, stirring just enough to mix. 2) Add all other ingredients, reserving half the feta. 3) Prepare a loaf pan, and pour in the batter. Sprinkle the reserved feta over the top. 4) Bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown on top and a knife comes out clean. Serve as is, as a main or a side, with or without sauces or spreads. On Day 2 we had it as a main with different sauces. My husband liked it best with BBQ sauce, I preferred it with whole grain mustard. Butter, mayo and hot sauces worked too. Take your pick and enjoy!

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.

As mentioned in Day 77 of The Challenge These were experimental, and came out very well. I wanted bread to go with our lunch. But we were out of bread, so I was going to make baking powder biscuits. But I was out of butter, so I decided to make corn muffins, but then realised that I had used the last of the eggs and milk already. So I made corn muffins with what I had - Apple sauce and apple juice instead of the eggs and milk. They were a bit sweeter than normal, and a little moister, but they worked! Ingredients: 1 c flour 1 c cornmeal 2 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/4 c sugar 2 eggs 1/4 c sunflower oil 3/4 c apple juice 3/4 c apple sauce 1) Mix together the dry ingredients. Gradually add the wet ingredients, mixing well to prevent lumps. 2) Spoon into muffin cups or into a prepared cake tin. 3) Bake at 200°C for 25-30 minutes. These worked very well? They are certainly more sweet than savoury, and worked best with just butter, no jam or chutney really did justice or had its own justice done on these muffins, but they were tasty never-the-less. In future, I might use a little less apple sauce, and probably cut the sugar a little. Definitely worth a try for a bit of variety though!

After a big shop for fresh veg (and not quite enough fridge space for everything), craving something quick and easy, but healthy and tasty, I pulled this together and it made a great dinner! And the Wonderbag, as so often happens, helped a huge amount (use a crock pot or slow cooker). Ingredients: 1 tbsp olive oil 2 onions, chopped 1/2 head of garlic, chopped 2 carrots, chopped 2 zucchini, chopped 1 sweet potato, chopped 2 c roasted pumpkin (I pulled mine out of the freezer from the stash I set aside during pumpkin season) 2 tsp zathar 2 tsp sumac salt and pepper to taste 400 g chickpeas 1 c bulgur wheat 1) Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pot and sauté the onions and garlic until fragrant. Add the other vegetables except the pumpkin, and the spices and stir. Allow some of the veg to char a little. 2) Add the pumpkin, the chickpeas, bulgur and enough water to cover everything to about 1 cm above the level of the veg. 3) Bring to a simmer and then place in a Wonderbag or crockpot, or keep over medium heat until the water has largely been absorbed and the veg is tender, about 45 minutes. Serve. So it took slightly longer for the veg to cook than I thought, but this was so tasty, with surprisingly complex flavours given the very little seasoning that went into the dish. It worked both fresh and as a leftover and was very satisfying. I hope you enjoy it too!