20 days ago
My health better on one front at least, I took the kids to Tesco to stock up ahead of the bonfire night party. Then I carved the pumpkin as you can see below. Supper was a creamy pumpkin soup with cinnamon. The pumpkin gets another day of life before, tomorrow morning, it is transformed into chancellor Rachel Thieves ahead of a one way trip to the bonfire, fake CV attached.
95 days ago
Most of the remnants of the tree chopped down in my garden are slowly being split into firewood. As my wood shed fills up I am taking photos and will bring them all when the job is completed later this week and I can revel in my manly glory. But those branches thatwere too small, the leaves and the sawdust is now piled high on the bonfire site. They will damp down during the Autumn but i staill have some old pallets and other junk from the barns to clear to make space for chickens and goats. So, as you can see below Iam well prepared for bonfire night. But…
387 days ago
It’s another hard night cooking at the Welsh hovel as you can see below. First up is a creamed pumpkin and bacon soup with the insides of the carved Halloween pumpkin. Throw in a sprinkling of cumin seeds and it was delicious. Now that the kids are in bed it is time for marrow and ginger jam as I try to cope with the marrow glut. What you see below is the flesh of one very large and one small marrow together weighing 3.8 kg. That has been cubed and, as I write to you now, is being cooked on a low heat with some of the juice of eight lemons.
387 days ago
One of the advantages of being at the end of a long and poorly lit lane is that we are unlikely to be pestered by brats saying Trick or Treat tonight. I have zero tolerance for this awful import from America.
412 days ago
My colleague Darren reckons these vegetables are gourds. They are aparently white acorn squashes all harvested from just one plant in the marrow patch which I suppose I must have planted. Each year I hope I grow a pumpkin but seem to produce a new type of squash. Now all of them sit in my larder where they might just last eight weeks. I think they are the basis of autumn soups but will report back if I find any other way to use them.
735 days ago
Ok, there were also some sausages not home produced but elsewhere you see beetroot (still being harvested) which we eat boiled, roast spuds (still being harvbested) and roast butternut squash which I harvested a few weeks ago and which are stored in the larder. I’d happily eat this lot without a meat dish but the Mrs and the kids are very much carnivores.
1114 days ago
It turned out that the bottom of the pumpkin that Joshua and I had bought had, within four days started to rot. I thought of buying another but, being a green sort of chap, I sliced off the offending section and improvised.
1120 days ago
It being half term, Joshua and I killed time at the local garden scentre buying more gooseberry bushes for reasons I shall explain later and also a pumpkin. He, the Mrs and Jayarani are away with the mother-in-law this weekend but when he returns on Halloween I shall have it carved and a pumpkin soup ready for him. The light is deceptive. It is bright orange. Pumpkin cuisine can wait. Last night was another cooking night, as the family snored and slumbered I stayed up late, turning the last of the windfall cooking apples into jam.
1479 days ago
Last year, unable to find a pumpkin to buy at the last minute, we used turnips and celeberated Hop-tu-naa This year I snapped up a pumpkin and watched by Sian the cat hollowed it out. I am not a great pumpkin carver so by my standards this was an adequate result. Then came the pumpkin soup.
1847 days ago
I was going to cave to that ghastly American imported idea and buy a pumpkin and make pumpkin pie. I bought the molasses and cream and was ready, all I then needed was a pumpkin…
2821 days ago
Having been deprived of chocolate and sweets for most of the year, late October until November 5th at Butterwell Farm, Byfield provided some greatly appreciated treats.
2942 days ago
The younger generation suggested half term pumpkin carving. But I could not find a pumpkin in the local stores as all the chavs seemed to have got there ahead of me. But I spotted a turnip and, remembering my time in the Isle of Man, Halloween became Hop-tu-Naa.
