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As mentioned on Day 79 of The Challenge Fondue is traditional here, and as old as our dear Alps. There are many different ways of making, from varying the cheeses and number of cheeses, to changing the cooking liquid - wine, cider, beer, water - or adding other ingredients - herbs, saffron, truffles, tomatoes. This is my favourite variant, pretty much the one I learnt from my father. I always make my in a cast iron enamelled caquelon as is traditional here. Always drink something either hot or acidic and non-carbonated -wine, juice, tea, NOT coke or water- with a fondue to avoid a stomach ache. As for what to dip, whatever takes your fancy and goes well with cheese. Traditionally, it tends to be bread, potatoes and pickles, but nowadays anything goes. We tend to also dip apples, charcuterie, tomatoes and onions. I have friends who dip pineapple as well. The choice is yours! Calculate about 150-250g of cheese per person (take into account who you are cooking for and what kind of appetites they have). I usually split the difference and make it about 200g per person. I make my fondue with local Swiss cheeses as much as possible, but when living in the UK I did make some half-way decent fondues with cheddars. The trick really is to balance mature and creamy cheeses to get the right texture and taste. And as with any recipe, taste and tweak as needed to suit your preferences. And for anyone not aware of the rules, it a man drops his dippable in the fondue, he buys the next bottle of wine, if a woman drops hers, she owes each of the men at the table a kiss on the cheek. Ingredients (for a 3 person fondue): 3 cloves of garlic 200g Gryuère, grated 200g Appenzeller, grated 200g Vacherin Fribourgeois, grated 1 -1 1/2 tbsp corn starch 1 1/2 -2 c white cooking wine (to be adjusted as needed) a shot of Kirsch Pepper (lots and lots of pepper) For dipping (your cubes need to be pretty big, about 2-2.5 cm): Crusty bread (eg baguette), half a loaf, cubed with a bit of crust on each cube 1 apple, cubed 300-500g of baby potatoes, boiled until al-dente (they need to be cooked, but not fall apart when you stab them) 1 onion, cut into eighths to make large sections for dipping charcuterie of your choice pickles Methylated spirits -(the kind you would take camping) for the flame under the caquelon - sterno gel does not burn hot enough. 1) Using your hands, mix your cheeses and corn starch thoroughly. To a certain extent, how much corn starch to use needs to be gauged by feel. The cheese needs to be coated but not feel gritty. Add a little more if it seems necessary. 2)Using your thumb or the heel of your hand, crush the garlic in the bottom of the caquelon and rub the bottom and sides of the pot all over with it. Most recipes then tell you to discard the garlic, and I suppose that if you are allergic to it that is what you should do, but as a normal human, I recommend leaving it in. The garlic cooking in the cheese magma is beautiful when you happen across it and a real treat! 3) Light your methylated spirits (being careful not to light the table on fire as you do so) and place the caquelon over the flame. Pour about half the wine into the caquelon and allow it to heat gently over the flame. Once it is a little warmed, add the cheese in handfuls, stirring well. 4) Add the kirsch, and pepper generously. Stir with a wooden spoon in a figure of 8, making sure to stir the bottom of the pot as well. As the cheese melts, add the rest of the wine. Make sure not to add too much though as you don't want it swimming. You want just enough for the cheese to melt smoothly. When it is ready, it is ready NOW. Don't let it sit as it will burn on the bottom. Dip any combination of dippables you want, and enjoy. (Tip: the bread is less likely to fall off the fork if you stab in crust last onto your fork). When all the cheese is gone, scrape up the crispy bit on the bottom, the religieuse, and share it out. It is arguably the best bit! EDIT: We have recently started dipping lightly steamed broccoli. Not what you might call traditional, but it works!

As mentioned in Day 57 of The Challenge Rotkohl, literally red cabbage, is a stewed cabbage dish traditionally eaten in Germany and German-speaking Switzerland alongside sausages or other meat. You can get them ready made in tins, or you can make it yourself, pretty easily too. This batch came out particularly well, but the key, really, is time. I got this ready early in the day, before lunch, and stashed it in my Wonderbag slow cooker for the rest of the day until dinner, thus giving it plenty of time to stew. I also added a couple of first-time innovations which worked out scrumptiously. Ingredients: 1 half of a red cabbage, chopped 2 apples, chopped 1 c raisins 2 tsp orange peel 1/4-1/2 nutmeg, freshly grated 1 c apple cider vinegar 1 c apple juice Pepper 1) Place all ingredients in a heavy-bottomed pot. Bring to a simmer and stew covered at low temperature for at least 45 minutes (the longer the better). A slow cooker works wonders, but you can do it over the stove if need be. I love this dish! It works as a side for all sorts of meals, it is dead simple, and so so satisfying! Please try this! EDIT: I tried this again recently and made it with dried grapefruit peel instead or orange. It worked well, but there was a little more bitterness. A pinch of salt sorted that out though! Certainly an alternative to bear in mind!

As mentioned in Day 47 of The Challenge I love stir fires! They are simple, adaptable to whatever is in the fridge, tasty, with endless different flavours to jazz them up. I like the range of colours and textures, the ability to make it vegetarian or meaty, or in this case shrimpy. (It was time to introduce shellfish to Mini Me, so it was shrimp week. Although initially suspicious of them he loves shrimp now!) Ingredients: 2 onions, chopped 1 head of garlic chopped 1 red and 1 yellow pepper, chopped Half a head of broccoli, cut into florets (floretted?) 10 shrimp 1 tbsp peanut oil 1 tbsp soy sauce 1/2 tbsp rice wine vinegar 2 tsp sesame oil 1 tbsp black sesame seeds 2 tbsp chili flakes (or pul biber*, as my chili of choice often is) 1) Heat oil in a wok. Add the onions and garlic and stir for a couple of minutes. Add the rest of the veg and stir fry at high heat for about 5 minutes. 2) Add the chili flakes, soy sauce and rice wine vinegar and tuck the shrimp in with the veg and cook for about 4-5 more minutes until the shrimp is just cooked. 3) Sprinkle sesame seeds over the top just before the shrimp are done cooking. Serve hot over rice. A touch of sweet and sour or sweet chili sauce is not necessary but does not go amiss... I hope you enjoy this as much as we did! Mini Me even decided he preferred the leftovers for breakfast instead of porridge (better than porridge?!) * This is an affiliate link to help you find what you need to make the recipe. You will not be charged any more by using this link but you will be helping support more delicious recipes!

I kept mine less sweet, but feel free to add more, if that's your thing. You can check the consistency by placing a saucer in the freezer.

These are an adapted version of a muffin recipe I got from my mother-in-law. They are packed full of vitamins, fibre and protein and are super tasty. The only down-side is that they are a little dense, but they are very worth it despite that! I switched out the sugar from maple syrup to honey and grape molasses, and changed the spicing and nuts around a little. Some of those decisions are taste based and some are pantry based. The grape molasses was because I recently picked some up and wanted to try it out. Ingredients: 1 c ground hazelnuts 1 c ground almonds 1 c oats 1/2 c raisins, chopped 2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp cloves 1 tsp baking soda 3 eggs 1 c zucchini, grated 1 c carrot, grated 1/3 c butter (scant), melted 1 tsp vanilla 1/4 c honey 1/4 c grape molasses 1) Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. beat in the eggs then add the wet ingredients. Stir until just combined. 2) Fill muffin cups 3/4 full and bake at 175°C for 25-35 minutes until golden brown and a knife comes out clean. I like these either plain, or with just a little butter. They are tasty, with a rich flavour and make a great breakfast on the go. I might play around with spicing and flavours a little more though just to sharpen them up a little.

Over a year ago, I made mead. It came out a little rougher than I had hoped, but much better than I had feared. I decided at that point to leave it to age to see whether it would improve, and planned also to try mulling it in the winter. For some reason, I never got around to mulling it last winter before finding out that I was expecting a Littler Bit, and therefore no longer drinking boozy things. It was therefore only now, with a Littler Bit happily swaddled in her Moses basket, that my sister, hubby and I decided to try mulling the remaining mead from a year ago. And how glad I am that we did! Don't worry if you haven't tried brewing your own, store-bought mead will work too, so don't let that stop you. Ingredients: 6 c mead 1 tbsp maple sugar 1 tbsp honey 1 tbsp dried orange peel 1 cinnamon stick 6 cloves 1) Place all ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer, and cook for about a half hour or longer to allow spiced to infuse. Drink hot. We very much enjoyed this. So much so in fact, that we are brewing a new batch of mead in order to have some for mulling purposes at Christmas. We did discover that leaving the mulled mead overnight, it was even better on day 2. I may even mull it a day or so early next time.

This one is half cheese journey and half recipe. I was asked for it by a colleague though, so here it is. Yogurt making is not massively new to me. I have done it a few times, and have enjoyed trying out different starter yogurts and seeing the effect different ones have on the final yogurt. It is very easy to do an the result is satisfying. If the yogurt is not as thick as you'd like, simply strain it. Then you have yogurt as well as whey to use. The key to this as far as I am concerned, is to use a good quality milk. Mine was quite thick, with an almost flan-like consistency, but we strained it a little anyway. Ingredients: 2 l milk 3/4 - 1 c yogurt with active cultures 1) Place milk in a saucepan and heat over medium until it is warm but not too hot. You should be able to dip your pinky finger in and leave it for a count of 10 without being uncomfortable. 2) Add the yogurt to the milk and stir. Cover the saucepan and place in a warm spot to ripen over night or longer. A spot in the sun, by the fire or by a radiator are great. I usually put mine in my Wonderbag cloth oven as it maintains the temperature over a long period without using any energy and without risk. 3) Strain as needed. I particularly like home-made yogurt for dishes like borani where the flavour of the yogurt itself is key. Depending on the starter yogurt used the end-yogurt may be more acidic or sweeter. Play around with it and figure out which you like best!

I've avoided making spring rolls for years, assuming them to be difficult. I don't know why I decided that these were too daunting as I quite happily make other similar things like dumplings and ravioli... Then a few weeks ago, I bought rice paper on a whim, thinking it was about time I tried to make these. This was my first attempt, and though not perfect, they came out very tasty and I was very happy with them. The main thing that needs work is our frying technique, as the rice paper seemed to almost melt away in some places. If anyone has tips on that, please do share! Ingredients: 15-20 sheets of rice paper (depending on how full you stuff them) 1 carrot julienned 2 spring onions sliced 1/2 head of garlic, crushed a knob of ginger, peeled and grated 1/3 c of shitake mushrooms, rehydrated and sliced 1 c beansprouts 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar 1 tbsp soy sauce 3/4 - 1 c peanut oil for frying For the sauce: 3 tbsp soy sauce 1 tbsp honey 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar 2 tsp chili flakes 1) Sauté carrot and spring onion in oil for 1 minute. add mushrooms, bean sprouts and garlic, and cook for a further 4-5 minutes. 2) Remove from the heat and add ginger, soy sauce and rice wine vinegar, mix and leave to cool. 3) Soak each sheet of rice paper in warm water for about a minute (make sure it is properly submerged or only one side will get wet and it will roll up!) Place a sheet on a piece of damp paper towel or a dish cloth. 4) Place 1 tbsp of filling in the centre about 2 cm from the bottom edge. Fold up the bottom edge and then fold in each side and roll up to the top. Place each spring roll on a plate with a damp paper towel and cover with another damp cloth. Do not let them touch or they will stick. 5) Heat oil (about 1 cm deep for shallow frying) in a deep frying pan over medium heat. Gently place each spring roll in the oil and using two forks, cook them evenly , turning them in the oil after about two minutes. When they are crisp and golden, take them out and drain them on dry paper towels. Don't let the spring rolls touch in the oil, or they stick together! 6) For the sauce, mix all ingredients together and let sit until the spring rolls are ready. Enjoy! They came out crispy with fresh tasting crunchy veg in the centre. They paired wonderfully with the sauce we mixed up and with the Tom Kha Gai soup. It made a light but very flavourful dinner.

Having decided a while back to start experimenting with using sahlep, I started playing around with different flavour combinations and potential recipes in which to try it out (like my Sahlep Pancakes, or my Sahlep Custard). A particularly good flavour to match with sahlep, in my opinion, is cinnamon, so while I do have other flavour combinations in mind to try, many of my ideas pair up sahlep and cinnamon. I am not sure where the idea of trying macarons came from, but it has been kind of present in the back of my mind for months. Sahlep is a hot drink made from ground orchid tubers in warm milk, often with cinnamon too. It has been drunk since Roman times at least, and Paracelsus even wrote about it, considering it to be a strong aphrodisiac. I have no knowledge of any such properties but have always really enjoyed it as a special treat. Today it is still drunk across Turkey and Greece. Sometimes it comes in the form of pure orchid root, and sometimes it is mixed with powdered milk. It is the latter variety that I am able to find here. I tried a first iteration of this recipe with my sister when she was visiting after Littler Bit's birth, and we were delighted with it. The recipe seemed good, but our macarons fell down on execution. It was her first-ever try at making macarons and my second, so seeing as they are notoriously difficult, I don't feel too bad about it. They were tasty but came out flat and gooey inside, and had to be scraped from the silicone baking mat. We figured we had either over-beaten the egg whites or under-baked the cookies. In that first iteration, I also trialled using a small amount of cooled sahlep cooked in milk in the buttercream filling to give the sahlep flavour, but found that the filling was too goopy and didn't come out right. For this next trial, therefore, I tried making sahlep butter ahead of time, allowing it to cool, then softening it to make the buttercream filling. This time, while my execution is still not perfect, it is getting better, and the finished product is not too far off the mark, and oh so good! Recipe Cook time: 1.5 hours -- Portions: 20 cookies -- Difficulty: Medium/hard Ingredients: For the cookie portion: 3 egg whites a pinch of salt 1 c ground almonds - blitz finer if need be. Must be very fine! 1/2 c maple or light brown sugar 2 - 2 1/2 tsp (generous!) of cinnamon For the buttercream filling: 1/3c butter 2 1/2 tsp sahlep 1/3 c maple powdered sugar (or you can use light brown sugar, but blitz it so the granules don't crunch!) 1) For the buttercream filling, melt the butter over low heat in a small saucepan. Stir in the sahlep and cook for a few minutes, stirring to incorporate. Cool completely and set aside. 2) Place egg whites and salt in a very clean, dry bowl. Whisk until you achieve a thick foam - just shy of soft peaks. Add the maple or brown sugar and beat until you achieved a thick, stiff consistency. 3) In a separate bowl, sift the powdered sugar, ground almonds, and cinnamon. Fold into egg whites. 4) Pipe in circles 2.5 - 4 cm in diameter onto baking paper, and place on a double baking sheet. Bake at 160°C for 8-10 minutes, then allow to cool completely on a wire rack. 5) In the meantime, back to the buttercream. Cream sugar into sahlep butter. Spread or pipe on one-half of the macarons, and then sandwich with a second one. Enjoy! I am very pleased with these! I wasn't at all sure how the sahlep butter would go, and I am very pleased with how it worked out. I have never used sahlep raw and so wasn't sure how it would go if I just added it cold (although apparently it can be consumed raw and is used as an ingredient in things like ice cream which aren't cooked - by the by, that is an excellent idea. Sahlep ice cream!). I do think that the sahlep flavour was a little strong in the final butter ( I thought the opposite was more likely to be the case), so I would reduce it to 1 1/2 to 2 tsp of sahlep for the butter next time. I would also increase the cinnamon content a little, maybe to a full (generous) tbsp rather than sticking with tsp measures. Aside from that though, I am very happy! The larger ones collapsed a little at the end of baking, and I am not sure why. My technique still needs some practice. They still weren't flat though, or too gooey in the centre, so I am not going to quibble. They could just have been a little taller and firmer. They also had a little border... I have seen quite different cooking times in other recipes, from 7 to 25 minutes, so I'm not sure if maybe I should be leaving them in for longer. Maybe my batter wasn't firm enough? Hard to tell. I was just so wary of over-beating like last time... More experimentation and trial are still necessary in this particular domain! Little Bit and Hubby definitely didn't mind. They very happily dug in and hoovered up a bunch before supper. ("Mama, I want a macaron. I am going to steal one. Not waiting until it's cool!" on repeat from a certain someone....) The base recipe for this, before much alteration, came from Michel Roux's Eggs. It is, surprisingly for being centred on one simple ingredient, an excellent cookbook. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

After delving into making my own versions of mayo and ketchup, I figured it was time to start making my own mustard too. After reading a few different methods and about mustard making generally, I decided to give it a shot. At its root, making mustard requires mixing ground mustard seeds with water. The colder the water, the sharper the mustard will be. Allowing the mixture to chill in the fridge overnight is supposed to do away with the bitterness from the mustard seeds. That's it. Anything else is extra, and all down to personal choice and flavouring. Here's what I did. I opted for warmish water as Little Bit really likes mustard but not if it's too strong. I made two different flavours: mix spice and orange tarragon. Ingredients. 2 c yellow mustard seeds 3/4 c warmish water 1/2 c apple cider vinegar 2 tsp olive oil salt to taste For the mix spice variant: 1 tsp mix spice a pinch of brown or maple sugar For the orange tarragon variant: 1 tsp dried orange peel 1 1/2 tsp dried tarragon 1) Coaresly crack about 3/4 c mustard seeds. Set aside. More finely grind the remaining mustard seeds. How finely ground these are and how many are left coarser will affect the final texture of your mustard. Combine all the mustard in a bowl. Add salt and water. Stir. Add vinegar and olive oil, then refrigerate overnight. 2) Check the texture of the mustard and taste test. Add a little more water or vinegar as necessary. Then divide the mixture in half and add the remaining ingredients for each variant to one-half of the mustard. Allow to sit overnight again for flavours to develop. 3) Taste test and serve. To test these out, I made Clair Saffitz's brioche pigs in a blanket, along with a fresh batch of Beetroot Ketchup and some rosehip vinegar mayo. I was thoroughly pleased with these two mustards, and delighted to have finally gotten around to making my own. I can't believe how easy it was! I even got help grinding up my seeds in the mortar and pestle from Little Bit, who was very proud to have helped. The whole time I was making these, I was thinking of my grandmother who passed three years ago. Ahe loved mustard and took great delight in finding and trying new flavours and varieties. This is something we had talked about doing together but never got to. To try making your own, order mustard seeds for yourself here, and if you need a mortar and pestle for it, click here.