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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!

Just skip the eggs to make this salad vegan.

As mentioned in Day 33 of The Challenge It is pumpkin season again! We picked up a big Georgia Candy Roaster Pumpkin from a road-side stand (also excellent as dessert just roasted with a little olive oil and cinnamon! If you want to be decadent add butter and brown sugar to the hot orange mess and pour cream over the top, but it honestly doesn't need it! I think this will be my dessert for as long as the pumpkin lasts.) As the evenings have turned cooler, we decided to make a pumpkin chilli, with pumpkin replacing the role of the tomato. It worked well but was missing something, so we added a bit of tomato to the leftovers the next night and it was beautiful. Sweet and hot with just the right touch of acidity to balance it, and the deeper flavour notes from the beans. Ingredients: 1/3 of a large pumpkin 3 tbsp of olive oil 3 cups of assorted beans, soaked and ready to go ( we used adzuki and pinto beans) 3 onions, chopped 2 heads of garlic, chopped 2 red peppers, chpped 2 spicy(ish) white pepper 4 chilli peppers, chopped 8 mushrooms, chopped 2 tsp orange curry powder (or another of your choice. This is an interesting one we picked up in a market) 1 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao 2 tsp Urfa biber (Turkish black chili) 2 tbsp lime juice 2 tsp cumin 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp cloves 1 tsp ground ginger Salt and pepper to taste (500ml of tomato passata) 1) Roast the pumpkin chunks with 1 tbsp of olive oil at 200°C for about a half hour until soft. Mash with a fork and set aside. 2) Sauté onions and garlic in the remaining olive oil in a large heavy bottomed pot. Add spices and stir. 3)Add peppers and chilis and cook until almost tender. Pour in beans, pumpkin mash with all the roasting juices, the lime juice, and about a cup of water. if using tomato passata, now is the time to add it. Salt and pepper to taste. 4) Cook for an hour or more until flavours are married. Serve hot with corn bread or over rice. Garnish with fresh coriander if you have any. Served with fresh corn-muffins, it hit the spot both ways and was tasty, warming and satisfying but not overly heavy. We are just disappointed that with the Challenge in play, we won't be able to make this one again during pumpkin season (unless we cheat and call a time out). We kept this one mild as we were going to share with our 9 month old, so do feel free to spice it up further!

Just skip the goats cheese to make this soup vegan.

My second foray into using watermelon rind as an ingredient went well. I really enjoyed trying Watermelon Rind Chutney, so decided to see how it would work as a jam. The rind does have a mild flavour, but a little bit of spicing and it worked out nicely. As with the chutney I did have to partially blitz the jam as the chunks of rind did not disintegrate at all with the cooking. The watermelon rind also appears not to have any pectin so I added some home-made apple pectin to help it firm up. All in all it worked out very nicely and I am very happy with it. Ingredients: Rind of 1 medium watermelon, diced 1 1/2 c sugar 2 c apple pectin 1/2 tsp cloves 1) Place the watermelon rind pieces in a pot and cover with water. Place over medium-low heat and simmer for about an hour until the pieces of watermelon rind are tender. 2) Add other ingredients and stir. Using a hand blender, partially blitz the jam mixture to desired consistency. Taste test and cook down until thick. 3) Boil clean jars and lids for at least 15 minutes. Fill with jam while the jam is still bubbling, wipe the neck of the jar clean and seal. Place upside down to cool, sealing in the process. I am very happy with this jam, tried out on fresh home made English Muffins. The cloves added a much needed depth of flavour to the jam, and the flavour of the watermelon rind itself came through nicely. So happy to have more jam for my cupboard!

As mentioned in Day 16 of The Challenge I heard about this every year on New Year's Eve for years in The 90th Birthday or Dinner For One (do watch it if you have a minute, it is very entertaining), without ever knowing what it was. Then I tried it a couple of years ago and loved it and it has become a staple. It has a good mix of warm spice notes, and a good solid base. There are masses of different recipes out there for Mulligatawny Soup, which made it to Europe during the Raj and is thus a very tasty vestige of the British Empire and colonialism. I tried a number of different recipes and then tweaked to make one of my own. I hope you enjoy! Do leave comments :) Ingredients: 1/4 c butter 1 onion, chopped 1 carrot, diced 1 hot red pepper, diced half a head of garlic, minced 2 tsp ginger, minced 2 apples diced 3 tomatoes, diced 1/2 tsp of paprika (or tandoori powder - I find it adds a richer flavour note) 1 tsp thyme 1 tsp of curry powder of your choice (I used a strong Moroccan one, but have also used an orange curry powder from a market in Munich) 1 tsp cumin 1/2 tsp cinnamon Black pepper to taste - I like to use a lot, but the choice is yours 1/2 c red lentils 2/3 c coconut milk 3 c of chicken broth Roasted nuts to garnish (cashews are my favourite, but otherwise walnuts are very nice too) Fresh coriander to garnish 1) Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat. Sauté the onion, carrot, and pepper for a few minutes until the onion is translucent. 2) Add the garlic, ginger apples and tomatoes. Cook a further few minutes and then chuck in the spices and stir. 3) Add lentils and broth. Bring to a boil then simmer for about a half hour, until the lentils are cooked (red lentils cook quickly, so no need to soak them but you can if you want or if in doubt - over night will be super sure, but a few hours works too.) 4) Blend til about 75% of the soup is smooth, but with enough chunks remaining for texture, then add coconut milk. 5) Add toppings and serve. traditionally this would be with naan, but we've done it with tattie scones, flat bread or regular crusty bread. Any of these work. There is a reason this has become a staple for us. I hope you enjoy it too. We had no James to dish it, but I'm glad I actually looked this one up :) *Note: Don't worry about leftovers. It heats up fine, or you can make Miss Sophie's Soufflés! (Recipe coming very soon!)

I've been doing a challenge on Instagram where there is a different ingredient each week around which a dish needs to be built. This week's ingredient is lemongrass. "Easy. I'll do a Thai curry," I thought. "But how about something new, too? How about something sweet with lemongrass. Maybe a lemongrass coconut panna cotta. No, it's Lent and I won't get a chance to try it. How about a savoury lemongrass panna cotta then? Hmmm. That's an idea. With what?" So in the end it turned into still crunchy stir fried veg with the warm spices from a curry, the panna cotta sitting on top of the veg with the cool flavours, and a chilli sauce drizzled over the top with the heat. I was not sure how any of this would work, starting with the panna cotta. Would it gel without a lot of sugar? And then how would it all come together. I wasn't sure until I made it exactly what I was going to put in the hot drizzle. In the end though it came out nicely. Ingredients: For the warm base: 1-2 sweet potatoes, cut into fat matches 3-4 carrots, cut into fat matches 1 -2 red peppers, cut into fat matches (1 onion thinly sliced if you have one, which I did not unfortunately) 4-5 cloves of garlic, sliced 1 tbsp peanut oil 1 tbsp mustard seeds 1 tsp coriander seeds 1/2 tbsp cumin seeds 2 tsp cumin 1 tbsp cooking sake juice of half a lime For the panna cotta: 1 l of coconut milk 2 stalks of lemongrass, chopped 1 small chunk of ginger, finely grated 2 packets or 70 g gelatine 6 drops of fish sauce 1 tbsp cane sugar Juice of 1 lime For the chilli sauce: 1 red chilli, chopped fine 1 tsp rice wine vinegar Juice of half a lime 1 tsp honey Topping: Coriander leaves Sesame oil Crispy millet (I soaked some millet grains in a little whey then put it in a cooling oven) 1) Prep the Panna Cotta in advance. Pour the coconut milk into a saucepan and warm gently. Add ginger and lemongrass and leave to infuse for at least an hour. 2) Bring the panna cotta back up to a gently simmer and add other ingredients except for the gelatine. Taste test then you have a choice. Either strain the bits out of the cream or, as I did, leave them in. I liked crunching on bits of lemongrass later. Add gelatine and simmer gently, stirring for about 5 minutes, then pour into small individual serving containers (eg ramequin pots) and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours, or overnight. 3) Heat oil in a wok. When the oil is hot, add the mustard, coriander and cumin seeds. When they start to pop, add the garlic. Fry briefly then add the vegetables and other ingredients. Cook at high temperature for a few minutes then reduce the heat. Cook until the sweet potato and carrot are cooked but still crunchy. 4) In a small simmer all ingredients for the chilli drizzle. Partially blitz and set aside. 5) Plate it all. Place the veg on the plate, tip a panna cotta out on top (I placed my ramequins in hot water for a few minutes to loosen the edges. I did it a little too long though and some of them were a little softer than I wanted.) Drizzle chilli sauce over it, then place coriander leaves around and millet crisp over the top of the panna cotta. This was a hit! I would do a few things differently next time though. I had hesitated about whether to do the veg in a wok or the oven. I did it in the wok in the end but I think another time I would do them in the oven to have crispiness to them rather than crunch. Also, I don't know that I would try to loosen the panna cotta in the cups first. Maybe just run a hot knife around the edge instead. As it was, the panna cotta melted a little fast, producing a (re)constructed Thai curry. The panna cotta was good on it's own and I would like to try it again with different pairings. It could also work as a dessert but would need a tangy coulis because it is quite rich.

For my friend, HibiscucKook's recipe for vegan pancakes on her blog, click here.

Due to Covid quarantining we could not be with all the family for Christmas, so I am waiting on the last 3 days of Christmas cookies until we are all together. And in the mean time, something a little different... It sounds a little strange I know, but give it a chance. The arrival at this dish was a little peripatetic. We had peeled a pomelo for breakfast, excited for Little Bit to try another new food, especially a citrus, and we are both very fond of pomelos. We discovered with disappointment though that it was not very juicy, and was too dry with a bitter aftertaste. Fine then. I'll make it into a smoothie. SO I peeled it and prepped it, then spotted a beet in the fridge and decided that the acidity, mild bitterness and sweetness of the pomelo would play nicely with the earthy sweetness of the beetroot. I therefore peeled the latter and chucked it into the blender with the pomelo. I added some orange peel and some spices for good measure, then had to go do something else and left it there on the counter. The plan for dinner at this stage was spiralised sweet potato in a creamy mushroom sauce. When I came to make dinner though, having spiralised the sweet potato I spotted the almost purple smoothie sitting on the counter, and decided that tonight was a test night. Let's see what happens if we use the almost smoothie as a sauce for the sweet potato spirals, with the mushrooms chucked in. So that is what we did, and with a little tweaking it worked. The bitterness from the unjuicy pomelo still came through, but less so when sopped up with bread, so we decided to have the leftover sauce with cheesy gnocchi a couple of days later and it sang. Ingredients: 1 pomelo 1 beetroot 1 - 1 1/2 tsp dried orange peel 2 tbsp lemon juice 1/4 tsp cloves 1 tsp cinnamon 2 tbsp honey 2 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao Salt and pepper to taste 1) Blitz the ingredients together ( if you prefer a mellower flavour for your beetroot, steam or roast it first. I used raw beet and it worked well though.) 2) Heat slowly in a saucepan, stirring gradually, 3) Add to spirals of veg or to cheesy gnocchi or pasta. The first night the bitterness from the pomelo was a bit much. The dish had promise but needed some tweaking. We found that the starch helped counter the bitterness though and so cooking it with gnocchi, heavier in starch than the sweet potatoes with a less delicate flavour of their own, With a pomelo that was perfectly ripe though, instead of one we needed to use in something rather than just eating, I don't know if we would have encountered the same problem. This is definitely going to stick around though, it was so tasty! EDIT: After making mozzarella of my own for the first time, I used the sauce in puff pastry pockets with the mozzarella and dates. They were beautiful (and tasty!) The sauce also works well as a pink base for pizza.

As mentioned in Day 3 & 4 of The Challenge I love curry. It is one of my favourite foods. Some have heat, others don't. Some curries are vegetarian while others are unashamedly carnivorous. The colours, the smells and the flavours are all enticing. A year in Nepal gave me a good spice tolerance and an appreciation of the different flavours. I love that curry comes in so many different forms, from different places across the globe with different spices and blends. I have a spice cupboard that is too big for my own good. Not everything in it is labelled, others have labels like "soup spice", a meaningless name given to a blend by a spice vendor somewhere. I cook mostly by taste and smell, and the imagined combinations of things matched mentally before they are added. Most of my curries are probably not recognisable as any specific thing to anyone native to anywhere that actually makes curry, and I would love to have all the know-how about using spices, and which to add when in order to layer flavours that I might, were I from one of the cultures, but instead I play and experiment. And usually, things turn out well. This was one of those. I wanted to test the properties of fenugreek seeds a bit more, we had a pumpkin that needed using, and I thought it might go well with the sweeter spices that I wanted to use. This curry does not pretend to be authentic anything, or from anywhere except my kitchen, but it's good. Ingredients: 2 tsp mustard seeds 2 tsp cumin seeds 2 tsp fenugreek seeds 2 tbsp peanut oil a handful of dried orange peel 1/4 - 1/2 pumpkin (small), cubed 1 red onion and 1 white, diced 1 head of garlic, sliced 1 large knob of ginger, peeled and diced 2 long red chillis, sliced 1 tbsp red curry paste 1 courgette 2 carrots 1 red pepper 1/4 - 1/2 white summer squash 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp urfa biber (Turkish pepper) 1/4 tsp cloves 2 tsp cumin 3 c water 2 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao Juice of 1/4 lemon 1) Heat oil in a pot. Add seeds and orange peel. Cook until the spices are fragrant and the mustard seeds start to pop. I tried a fenugreek seed at this point and it was sweet and perfumed, only the slightest hint of bitterness. 2) Add onions, garlic and ginger to the spices and cook until translucent, then add the pumpkin. Turn the heat down and, adding 2 cups of water, simmer gently for about 20-30 minutes. 3) Add other ingredients except for lemon juice and simmer further until vegetables are tender. 4) Add lemon juice 5 minutes before dishing. Serve over rice and eat hot. This turned out beautifully. It was warming and had some heat to it but without blowing your head off. I thought the spices played off each other particularly nicely. The cocoa spice was a late addition to add a deeper note that was lacking, and then the lemon juice came in to brighten it up. I had intended to toast the seeds instead of frying them, but was distracted by Little Bit's dinner, and had intended to add red lentils (initially I had planned on dal for dinner before things evolved), but forgot those too until doing clean up at the end. Overall it was very satisfying and I would definitely make it again. It did have a bit of a dry tongue after effect though. I am wondering if that was the fenugreek. My husband's guess was the cumin, but that was minimally dosed. I've never had that effect before despite using a lot of cumin all the time. Something to investigate further.