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Do feel free to adjust this and the sugar to suit your tastes.) 2 tbsp of orange zest 2 egg yolks 6 egg

Feel free to skip the shrimp, or substitute for something else, but it was a worthy addition.

As mentioned in Day 58 of The Challenge Did I mention that it's pumpkin season? We have bought a few (I won't say too many) again. I love pumpkin soup and we have it every year. This time though, instead of the traditional creamy spicy pumpkin soup, we went for chunky with a different range of flavours, still warming, but differently so. Ingredients: 1/2 pumpkin (or 2 small ones which is what I used), chopped 2 onions, chopped 1 head of garlic, chopped 1 red pepper, chopped 2 sprigs of fresh thyme 2 sprigs of fresh oregano 1 tsp garam masala 1/2 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao 2 tsp zathar 2 tsp urfa biber (Turkish black chili) 3 c vegetable broth 1 tbsp olive oil Salt and pepper to taste 1) Heat oil in the bottom of a pot and sauté onions until translucent. Add garlic and peppers, and cook for a couple of minutes before adding pumpkin and broth. Throw in herbs and simmer for 20 minutes. 2) Add spices and simmer for a few more minutes, then taste test and check vegetables for tenderness. Dead simple, warming and tasty. Perfect after a walk in cool autumn weather!

Skip the bread and the recipe is gluten free.

As mentioned in Day 42 of The Challenge I love chestnuts and always have. They are a marker of the season. I used to only get them at Christmas markets in little paper cones, roasted and so hot that you burn your fingers trying to peel them. And then I discovered that you could buy them and roast them at home, and even cook with them. It isn't quite chestnut season yet, although it was last week in the southern part of the country and it got me hankering for some chestnuts. This is a soup that I first tried out of my Taste of Portugal cookbook by Edite Viera, and then at a friends' place for a St Martin's Day dinner, and I loved it. The recipe from my cookbook I found at once too bland and starchy though, so I have played around since, and was very happy with today's soup! Ingredients: 1 Tbsp olive oil 1 red onion, chopped 1 white onion, chopped 2 carrots, chopped 1 celery stick, chopped Half a head of garlic, chopped 750g chestnuts (as they aren't quite in season yet, I used frozen ones) 1 tsp thyme 1 c chicken stock 2 c milk 1/2 c lemon juice 1 tsp urfa biber per bowl chives for sprinkling Salt and pepper to taste 1) Sauté onions briefly in oil in a soup pot. Add other veg and sauté for a few minutes more, allowing the veg to char a little. 2) Add a small amount of water (approximately 1/2c) and add the chestnuts. I allowed them to cook like this in the water until it had cooked off then, waited a few minutes before adding more liquid. This allowed the chestnuts to roast a little, releasing a delicious flavour reminiscent of cold hands and paper cones in Christmas markets. 3) Add thyme and salt and pepper, stir then add the stock and milk. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes. 4) When the vegetables and chestnuts are tender, blend until smooth and velvety. Add the lemon juice and dish into bowls, garnishing with chives and urfa. This soup is silky smooth and velvety. It had just the right starch and sweetness, balanced by the deeper notes of the garlic and urfa and rounded out by the veg and the lemon juice. It is filling, so if you plan on serving this as a starter, ladle up small portions or people won't be hungry for the next course! Perfect as a lunch though. It pairs well with crispy bacon crumbled over the top or with bread on the side, but works perfectly well without either.

Skip the raisins and toast to make it keto-friendly, or use gluten-free toast for a gluten-free meal.

We kept this one mild as we were going to share with our 9 month old, so do feel free to spice it up

So, it isn't like we needed more cookies just before New Year, but for Science, it was necessary to make a control batch of these using the more traditional ground almonds rather than the ground Hazelnut variety of Cinnamon Stars I made last week. I had also found that the chocolate variation was too chocolatey and needed to be toned down a little, so I wanted to try them out with only a dash of cacao instead of a full third of the powdered sugar being replaced by cacao. I was a numpty and sent the hazelnuts back to my house before making this batch at my parent's so both the standard and the chocolate variety were made using almonds this time around. I had a bit of an oven problem, so they came out softer than usual, but this was a hit with the family. I also increased the cinnamon content in both varieties, which was also a popular move. Ingredients: For the plain ones: 3 egg whites a pinch of salt 1 1/2 c powdered sugar 3 c ground almonds 3 tbsp cinnamon 2 tsp kirsch For the chocolate ones: 3 egg whites a pinch of salt 1 1/2 c powdered sugar 2 tbsp cacao 3 c ground almonds 3 tbsp cinnamon 2 tsp kirsch 2 tbsp sugar for rolling Optional: 1 tbsp flaked almonds, toasted 1) Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt to form stiff peaks (check out my beautiful, stiff, hand-whipped 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. If using, add a few flaked almonds on top of the icing at this point. 4) (Optional: Allow to rest for 5 hours or overnight. I skipped this step this time) Bake at 240°C for 4 minutes. The consensus, seeing as these were the control batch to the experimental hazelnut cookies from earlier in the week, was that both types of nut work. If you prefer almonds generally, then you likely prefer the classic variety of these cookies (which I will continue to call Cinnamon Stars even though all of these were circular). If you prefer hazelnuts generally, you will probably prefer the hazelnut variety. Just swap out the nuts in a 1:1 ratio. The increased cinnamon was a hit, and I think I've hit on the right proportion of cacao. These were now cinnamon cookies, with almond and a little chocolate, rather than chocolate cookies with some nuts and a little cinnamon. If you want chocolate cookies, check out the classic Basler Christmas Cookie recipe instead (which I like as well), or the orange variation that I tweaked this year. For this type though, I am delighted with these ones. The flaked almonds were an idea of my dad's as we had some left over from the Chicken Tagine the day before.

As mentioned in Day 23 of The Challenge We tend to have a light meal for lunch, like soup or salad, and we live around the corner from a farm stall. This happened because of their phenomenal fresh carrots and kale. It took all of 15 minutes to get on the table, as well as prepping for the cauliflower carbonara for dinner, it was packed full of flavours, textures, and colours while being light and easy. I highly recommend this! Just skip the eggs to make this salad vegan. Ingredients: 2 onions, spiralised 2 normal carrots (or one huge one), spiralised on the ribbon setting Kale 2 tbsp olive oil 3 tsp honey 1 tsp nigella seeds a handful of walnuts a handful of sage leaves 2 eggs 1 red pepper 2 stalks of celery 4 sundried tomatoes 1 tsp balsamic vinegar Salt and pepper to taste 1) Cut kale into thirds and steam for a few minutes, until the leaves just start to change colour - not too long as you want to retain some crunch. Place on plates. 2) thinly slice the red pepper and plate with the kale. 3) Heat half of the olive oil into a pan. When it is shimmering, add the onions and sauté until tender and starting to brown. Add nigela seeds and cook for a few more minutes before adding to the kale. 4) Meanwhile heat the rest of the oil in a second pan and sauté the carrots. Add the balsamic and the honey and the sage leaves. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, and plate up. 5) Poach the eggs for 4 minutes, then carefully extract them and place them on top of the salad. Add walnuts, celery sticks and sun-dried tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste and serve. We had this with grapes and tasty bread and local cheese, as well as a home-made mayonnaise. My husband declares to be one of his favourite things I've made.

This is an adaptation of a friend's fenugreek chicken recipe. His fenugreek chicken, back when we were living in South Africa, was the first time I ever had fenugreek and the memory of it is what then pushed me, back in Switzerland, to try to get a hold of some for myself. I knew so little about ti at that point though that I wasn't even aware that there were fenugreek leaves, seeds and ground fenugreek. When the friend who eventually sourced it for me and picked it up asked me which I wanted, I had no idea, so she got me all three. I made the chicken again and then launched into my own exploration of the spice. This recipe is more or less faithful to his original recipe for the chicken but simply vegetarian, replacing the chicken with sweet potato and carrot (I do have his permission to post). The substitution worked well but obviously altered the end result. Both vegetables are quite sweet, so the emphasised the cinnamon in the recipe and the sweetness and warmth of the flavours. It also ended up a little different as I used rehydrated Kashmiri chilis instead of green chilis for the simple reason that my local grocery store didn't have any chilis available, so I used what I had on hand. This resulted in a warmer, less acidic heat. Both of these made for an excellent new dish, but I would change at least one of the vegetables and cut down on the cinnamon a little next time if I wanted something closer to the original dish but that is still vegetarian. I am sticking with my friend's units of measurement here, firstly because they are excellent, and secondly as a tribute. Ingredients: 2 sweet potatoes, chopped 3 carrots, chopped 1/2 head of garlic, grated medium chunk of ginger, grated (my friend's recipe specifies 1.2 inches) 4-6 green chilis, finely diced 1 - 1 1/2 medium onions, chopped 40% tsp of turmeric 40% tsp chili powder (I used tandoori powder as my other chili powder is too hot for Little Bit) 1 1/5 tsp salt 3/5 c dried fenugreek leaves, rehydrated in enough boiling water to cover them for 30 minutes prior to use) 30-50g butter 1 tbsp vegetable oil 1 1/5 - 2 bay leaves 1 1/5 tsp cumin, heaped, like Everest 1 tsp coriander, heaped, like Mauna Kea 30% tsp cinnamon (I think I accidentally did closer to 50% tsp this time. oops!) 1 tsp dried thyme, optional Drizzle of cream 1) Heat oil in a deep frying pan over medium heat. Throw in onions, salt, and bay leaves and sweat until just beyond golden, stirring occasionally. Add ginger, garlic and chili. Stir for another minutes. 2) Add remaining spices and stir. Add the fenugreek leaves and some of the rehydration water. Stir. 3) Spread the onion and spice mix out over the base of the pan then place the sweet potatoes and carrots on top and stir. Add butter and thyme. Add a little more tumeric if it all looks a little pale. (the original directions were to do so if the chicken looked like a polar bear, but even under-turmericked sweet potatoes don't look very polar bear-esque...) 4) Once the sweet potato and carrot have had a chance to sauté a bit, add the rest of the water and let it reduce to only a thin coating. Cover, and stir every few minutes. 5) Once the sweet potato and carrot are tender, add black pepper until you can taste it and drizzle over the cream. 6) Serve over rice, and cover when not dishing. If the dish dries out it is nowhere near as tasty. Add more water, butter or pepper as needed. This was a very tasty dish in its own right, but quite different to the original (which I will have to make again soon). This one will stick around as a veggie alternative I think, but they are quite different dishes at the end of the day. A simple substitution this wasn't in the end, but still thoroughly worth doing. The remnants in the pan which didn't get packed away immediately quietly disappeared of their own accord, which is always a good sign...