First cab off the rack for this month’s round up of What we’ve been cooking is pumpkin, cashew & coriander soup.   No wonder pumpkin soup has made an appearance with all those pumpkins under the house.

I mentioned in the original post on this soup that this is my favourite pumpkin soup ever.  Three years later, I am still of that opinion.  I cannot fault it.  I make it every year and love it.  So does Maus.

You do have to make up the spice mix but, once that is done, it is dead easy to make and the spice mix lasts for many pots of soup.  If you like pumpkin soup, I implore you to try this recipe.

Colette, my vegetarian mate, came over for dinner the other night.  I am not much of a vegetarian cook but I can whip up a mean tart so poor old Colette gets more than her fair share of tarts from me.

This tart, rainbow chard, cheese and almond tart, is a Belinda Jeffery recipe.  I have mentioned many times on this blog that I like Belinda Jeffery recipes and, in particular, her tarts.  They are the best, and this is no exception.

For some reason, when I made the tart this time, I had too much filling.  The next day, I made a small one with the extra filling and a couple of extra eggs.  It was perfect for Maus and me for dinner that night.

One night during the month, I didn’t feel like meat (there seems to be a bit of a vegetarian theme happening) and had passed the dinner batten to Maus, with the recommendation that she make these almond rosti potatoes with goats cheese.  On the night, I declared these the best rostis ever.  That is saying something.  Maus also thinks they are pretty good.  Maus likes them because they are not sloppy so they keep their shape when she is cooking them.  I like the tang from the feta and the crunch from the almonds.

Time for something sweet.  During the week, my two nieces and all their kids called in.  My mind turned to bikkies for the kids and I remembered that in the preamble for this post: jam drops, I noted Merle (the recipe comes from Merle Parrish’s book, Merle’s Kitchen) advised that jam drops are always popular with kids.  Great, jam drops it was.  I don’t know about the kids but we sure like them.  Again, I made them with my passionfruit jam.  They are a real winner.

Talking about winners, curries are always winners in our household and I do like this one: lamb in a cashew nut and mint sauce.  I make a very similar one with chicken from the same book (Indian Cooking for family and friends by Meena Pathak).  (I just scanned through my chicken recipes to see if I had posted it and noticed that I have two curried chicken with cashews posts but not the one I was thinking of.)  One thing about doing these posts that I have already noticed is that there are identifiable trends.  It is interesting what type of recipes attract me and the ones I consider worthy of posting.  I clearly like this style of curry.

Last but not least.  I am sure none of you are surprised that I made another of my ‘new favourite cake’, spicy pumpkin loaf, today and it is half gone.   It is not all Maus and my fault.  A young man, named Lee, was here and he likes it tooooooo.

That is it for this month’s round up.  I hope you enjoyed reading about some of our favourites.  More new stuff coming your way soon.