After years of wanting to join in the fun but being too afraid of the huge pans of molten fruit involved, which I imagined would throw great blobs of sugary lava all over my face causing permanent jam splatter scars, I have, under the expert guidance of a friend, finally gone for it and cooked up an enormous pan of lovely plum and apple jam.

Big bubbling pan of jam

As an added bonus all of the fruit collected was free, collected from various sites around Chorlton Ees. Anyone who’s familiar with the Ees will no doubt have noticed the area around Hardy Farm has dozens of apple trees all laden with hundreds of apples which are  ripe for the picking right now. So long as you’re not expecting to find supermarket style perfectly symmetrical shiny unblemished apples there’s probably more than enough for anyone who fancies to go fill as many carrier bags as they can carry.

The plums were from another less well known site on the Ees, the Community Orchard. The Orchard is perhaps an acre of land packed full of plum trees, apple trees, damsons, raspberries and lots of other fruits free for anyone to come along and pick. You just have to find it… and I’m not going to spoil the fun by telling you where it is! I remember the excitement when I first stumbled across it, an adventurous off road sneaky peak through a gap in the hedge revealed something of a secret fruity garden tucked away. Magic.

So with our bags full of lovely fruit all we had to do was work out what to do with it. Here’s where Steph came in. With a growing reputation as Chorlton’s resident jam expert we arranged an early 9am start jam session scheduled to last just over an hour. We were having so much fun though that one thing led to another and 6 hours later we’d not only made 9 jars of jam(!),  but we’d also done a bread making lesson, made two loaves of bread, a lovely celery soup, soda bread, jam tarts, repotted several plants and done an experimental basil cutting.  Rock and Roll!

What a lovely way to spend a Thursday morning.

Steph and Andy

The jam making process it seems it quite straight forward really involving simply boiling up your fruit and adding more sugar than you could possibly imagine necessary then pouring it into sterilised jars to be sealed and labelled up. There’s plenty of books and websites about for you to find out how to do this (or you could just pop round to Steph’s ), so no need for me to go over it here, all I want to say is it’s great fun, very rewarding and reasonably easy. Do it!

Here’s a couple of Jam making websites

The basic method from Self-sufficient.co.uk
Lots of recipes from The Foody
Lots more recipes from Jam Recipes

And here’s a link to a book I’ve been enjoying reading at the moment, the River Cottage Preserves Handbook. This series of books (including Bread, Mushrooms, and Veg Patch) really does seem to be spot on, each one put together by one of the River Cottage’s relevant experts they go through everything you need to know right from the basics. Can’t wait to give the Hedgerow Jelly a go. It’s made with a mix of any foraged Hedgerow berries and crab apples. Or maybe the Bramley Lemon Curd, which sounds like a lovely wintery treat for toast. Mmm.

All I need now is a kitchen to do all this in, oh and a house to have a kitchen in, oh and a garden to grow all the fruit. Ahhh, one day. For now it’s foraged fruit and friends kitchens all the way. Not that that’s a bad thing, in fact it’s great fun. See nothing should stop you. You don’t even need your own fruit or a kitchen to make your own jam, just a nice friend and a sense of adventure.

Perfect!

It was a pretty amazing day really. In the space of an afternoon we managed to make a plain white loaf, a dozen rolls, bread sticks, a focaccia, tortilla wraps and some nachos! All turned out great. Rachel certainly was a natural – she has great baking hands. Watching Rachel and Andy’s synchronised dough kneading it was difficult to tell who was teaching who.

Synchronised bread making

Even the kids got stuck in. Beth helped cut dough into strips to make bread sticks, which Ellie then did a marvellous job of shaping and adding grated cheese to make them extra tasty.

Beth makes bread sticks sticks

Beth and Ellie make the breadstick shapes and sprinkle cheese

Even little Lily helped, she made the important decision that lemons were indeed too yakky to be added to the mix.

Lily discovers lemons are not as tasty as bread

Most of the recipes used came from The River Cottage’s Bread Making Handbook – a fantastic book, packed with great recipes, beautiful photographs all put together with style and enthusiasm that really makes you want to bake. Also all the recipes seem to work well. Who would believe that this was our first venture into Italian bread making?

Focaccia... Mmmm

Or that a 4 year old could really play a major part in producing some of the bestest ever bread sticks?

Breadsticks, millions of em!

Those expensive, tasteless, o-so-straight and boring tubes of tat will never again be spotted in the Cordingley shopping trolley (or there’ll be trouble Rach – I’ve got my eye on you!).

So the first Bread Making Workshop was a great success, we all learnt a lot, but I think the best thing we discovered is that you don’t need to be an expert to do this. It doesn’t take years of practice to make something infinitely better than what’s on offer at the supermarket.

Of course the more you bake the better your bread will get, but this was all of ours first attempts at making over half of the things we made and all turned out well. I believe the key skill in bread making is the determination to outwit the marketers who create your addiction to shop bought bread.

It is not necessary to have the most amazing kneading techniques, special equipment, years of practice and oodles of spare time, but rather you need to be able to resist the lure of colourful packaging, health claims and subtle hints towards your own incompetence – ‘you couldn’t possible make a loaf so light, crusty and tasty as this’. Well here is the proof that you can.

Once again, here it is, a thing of beauty – the first loaf from Rachel, Master Baker Extraordinaire (family baker for over 3 hours):

Perfect!

Reclaim the power! Bake your own bread!

Anyone who is interested in taking part in a bread making workshop, or having us come to your house to run one for your family and friends please contact me.

I can’t believe it! I feel as if I have been being robbed, lied to and generally deceived. It’s a conspiracy. They know what they are doing and they do it anyway. I wonder how they thought they’d ever get away with it? Maybe I’m to blame. Maybe we’re all to blame. Who knows? But what is for sure is that it won’t be happening anymore.

What what what? What has happened?

What happened was this. Today we mixed some plain flour and some water in a bowl, kneaded it a bit, left it a bit, rolled it out and dry fried it. And you know what happened? We made lovely, fresh, soft, tasty tortillas. It was easy. AND they tasted REALLY nice. I’m MAD.

£1.69 it is for a pack of 6 Old El Paso tortillas. £1.69!!!!!
It cost us about 25p to make the same amount. GRRRR.

How can this have happened? At what point did we become so insecure of our cooking/baking skills and so dependent on other people making things to sell to us that someone worked out they would be able to sell something to us that is so cheap and easy to make yourself.

Seriously it would take more effort to walk to the shop to buy some. It’s almost like someone convincing people to buy water when everyone knows it comes out of the tap. Oh…

Well anyway, I’ve worked it out! Ha! You won’t get me anymore. And what’s more I’m going to make it my mission to tell everyone else too. You won’t get away with this for much longer.

If the ‘cheap’ and ‘easy’ tags don’t draw you in, check out this list of ingredients:

INGREDIENTS:

Wheat Flour, Water, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Stabiliser: Glycerol, Salt, Raising Agents: E450a, E500, Dextrose, Emulsifier: E471, Preservative: E202, Flour Treatment Agent: E920

Mutant food!

I don’t even know what most of that stuff is! I reckon they could release a batch with deadly poisons listed in the ingredients and no one would pick it up. Glycerol?? Do I want to eat that? Really? I have no idea? It sounds like an explosive. And numbers, lots of numbers. I don’t want to eat numbers. I want to eat food.

Here is the list of ingredients you need to MAKE YOUR OWN TORTILLAS. Hurrah!

Makes 8

250g plain white flour (plus extra for rolling out)

2g salt

150ml water.

So easy it’s hardly worth writing a proper recipe, but I’ll tell you once and then you’ll be off.

Put the flour in a bowl. Gradually add the water mixing it around with your fingers until you bring it together in a ball.

Knead for a few minutes.

Cover and leave to rest for about half an hour.

Divide in to 8 pieces, gently shape in to a rough ball and then roll out to about 2 or 3mm. While you are doing this put a good frying pan on a medium heat to heat up (no oil).

When the pan is hot put a tortilla in the pan, watch as it starts to bubble slightly as the underneath starts to brown (approx 30 seconds) then flip over and cook for another 30 seconds.

Stack them up as you cook them in a dry tea towel to keep them warm (the steam of the stacked warm tortillas keeps them soft).

Eat straight away, or wrap in tin foil to eat later (can be reheated later wrapped in foil in a low oven).

That’s it! And this recipe somehow still makes it seem more complicated than it really is. Honest.

A couple of other revelations:

Chapattis are made in much the same way, only use wholemeal or chapatti flour!

Nachos are basically tortillas cut up and deep fried. Officially they should be made with cornflour, but we gave it a go with plain and they made an equally good snack. Bit of salt, bit of spice shaking and you’re there.

What will I ‘discover’ next? Can you really make your own pasta? noodles? pizzas? soup? Of course you can. I’m onto you. I’m going to get my revenge… watch this space.

Please let me know if you read this and then make your own tortillas.
New tortilla makers count as of 7th July 2009: 9

See more “make your own…” posts

There’s also lots of information on there about what real bread is and why we should be eating it including what is wrong with industrially produced bread.

This campaign is not about making it easier for a few people to have the luxury of going out to buy fancy artisan bread. Bread is a fundamental part of our diet, three quarters of all people have it as part of their diet every day, and as such it is vitally important that the bread we eat is good for us. Industrial milling breaks the grains down in a way that destroys many of it’s nutritional qualities, so much so that vitamins have to be added back into the mix by law. These re-added vitamins are more difficult (or impossible?) for our bodies to take in than those that were originally naturally present but that the industrial process has removed. Other aspects of the way most bread is produced makes it all but impossible for some people to digest properly.

There’s also the issue of supporting local businesses. The Real Bread Campaign reports of a study that found that on average local businesses put more than three-quarters of their income back into their local community , thereby helping it prosper. Compare that to the big supermarket giants, where the money is sucked out of your community straight into the pockets of a few shareholders. I can understand why some people may find it hard to resist the pull of the supermarket, however I think it is important that if and when it is possible people should be moving towards supporting their local shops as much as they can.

Remember, every little helps. Or is that hurts?

It’s been going a few weeks now and more and more producers are being added all the time so you should be able to find somewhere near you. Or if you know a local producer that’s not on the map let them know about it so they can get themselves added!

For more on the problems with (amongst other things) industrially produced bread read Felicity Lawrence’s “Not on the Label”.

For more information why and how to bake your own bread read “Bread Matters” by Andrew Whitley.

We had a fairly quiet first day really. We went to pick up the tickets for the next stage of the journey from our friend John. However when we got there he realised he’d lost them. Oops. Two tickets to Moscow thrown out with the rubbish. Luckily he was able to get them re-issued although it sounds as though it was a complete nightmare. Russians seem to have a great fondness for bureocracy. The process involved many forms,lots of signatures, much confusion and of course a fine. Something he tells us you get used to after a short time of living in Russia. It seems that as well as the liking for official documentation that corruption and bribes are very much an accepted part of everyday life. 30 kph over the speed limit? 300 rubles = no problem.

While we were over at John’s we went to the supermarket, where we bought some of the amazing salads the seem to sell pretty much everywhere in Russia. Check out this plate of yumminess:

The strange things that look like tuna are actually aparagus although I and no one I asked had any idea how it had been prepared. It was kind of like a crinkly tube with a really odd texture, a bit like a juicy rolled up finger from a rubber glove. Bizarrely this texture made it a very pleasant thing to eat. The round things are a type of smoked cheese. We bought almost half a kilogram of this and it only cost us around ??1.50. Prices seem to vary wildly. Often we’d see what appears to us to be 2 identical items, but one might be one price, the other 5 times more. We were probably eating dirty tramp food, but I thought it was really tasty.

Andy and I left John to look after his poorly girlfriend the first night and on his recommendation went to a bar called Fidels, which is on the road just to the side of the big shopping centre on Nevsky Prospect . Great bar, about a third the price of anywhere else we’d seem, also much better atmosphere.

Anyway, so it was here we got decided to act like the Russians and start drinking Vodka. Except that we didn’t act quite ike the Russians and forgot to match each vodka with ??????? (Zakooska – a small snack) and instead choose to match each vodka with a beer. Big mistake.

After only a short time the vodka had well and truely caught us out. I remember first sitting quietly chatting to each other, then taking to strangers, then giving out our emails, then dancing, and by the end of the night finding it really quite tricky just to walk in a straight line. It was that kind of drunk where it hits you so quick you’re well aware of losing your abilities, but have absolutely no way of doing anything about it. We woke up the next morning with writing on our arms and a note pad full of people’s email addresses and our various sribbled attempts at writing our names and where we were from in Russian.

Drawing of a watch, time reads “NOW”

We didn’t manage to get out of bed unti 4pm. John and Sasha invited us around for dinner. John made us a lovely mushroom risotto, made with wild mushrooms that Sasha’s Mum had picked earlier in the year. It seems in Russia, as with most other countries we’ve visited so far people don’t have this irrational fear of fungus that weare conditioned with at home. It’s common for people to go picking here, most people would easily be able to identify the edible mushrooms and know what to do with them. I’m not sure whether or not I would really like this to catch on at home. It does seem to be becomming a little more popular, with foraged wild food a must in any trendy restaurant. However if everyone cottons on to it there will be none left when we go hunting. Yes we need a few more of the scare stories please. Mushrooms are bad, often very poisonous. You can die you know. In seconds! Aaaargh!

After the meal we headed for town to visit a few bars. Andy knew John from Uni and it seems that since then he has transformed himself into a kind of international superstar DJ, and is quite well known in Russia. This was really handy as it gave us access to bars that would otherwise really have been impossible to go to. We went to one place completely unmarked. You had to knock on the door, someone would open it, say hello to John and Sasha then welcome us in. Apparently there are quite a few of these ‘friends’ bars. It was a really nice place, quite funky decor, a dj and very nice, if a little expensive, Belgian beer. It seems the people who run them have enough friends to keep them going so they don’t really need tourists or other random people off the street wandering in to crash their party.

Our next day in St Petersburg just kept going wrong from the start. The kind of day you just want to give in and go to bed. We’d got up and walked and walked taking in the sites until we wanted lunch. The plan was to go to the Hermitage after we’d eaten, but after faffing around getting hungry and frustrated trying to find places the guides had recommended we eventually gave up and just went anywhere. Our food took forever to come and by the time we got to the Hermitage it was only 2 hours until closing. I read somewhere that this place has like a hundred million pieces and even if you looked at each one for just a second it would take around 7 years to go round the whole place. We obviously didn’t have enough time. We did attempt to go in, but after buying tickets we were directed to the cloakrooms, a huge long corridor packed full of fur-coat clad Russians pushing and shoving their way around. I couldn’t stand it. We just had to get out. Somehow we managed to get our money back on the tickets quite easily and practically ran outside to our freedom. Never again. I’m not sure when would be a good time to visit that place. We thought we’d gone at an off-peak time, I hate to imagine what it would be like in the summer.

Thankfully once we’d given up on doing the tourist thing the evening did get better. We went to a lovely Georgian restaurant for dinner called Aragvi. Georgain food is probably the best option for veggies in Russia. With an emphasis on salads and bean dishes there was lots of choice. In fact it was a bit like my favorite place in Manchester, Aladdins.

We had Lobio a kind of slightly spicy crushed bean stew with lots of paprika, a Georgian salad which was just a normal kind of salad stuff, but then a great heap of parsley on it and we also had a cheesy bread, the name of which I have forgotten. This bread was amazing! It was very rich though and more than one in a lifetime would probably be enough to give you a heart attack. There was a good centimeter of melty cheese covering the entire top. This is the kind of place where its good to go with a few friends so you can get a good range of dishes to share between you. If you do this I would recommend only getting one of these cheesy breads between four people, rather than eating half each like we did, or you will end up going to bed feeing like a whole person has somehow crept into your stomach, refused to leave and fallen asleep.

On our last day in St P all enthusiasm for the Hermitage lost we went instead to the Kunstkamera Museum. Without doubt the craziest museum I’ve ever been to. It was began as a collection of various artifacts of scientific interest from around the world by Peter the Great in 1714 to build Russia’s understanding and scientific knowledge. He sent people around the globe to collect items and also offered payment for anything unusual. So the place now contains huge glass cabinets full of the standard various bits and bobs of small tribes and artifacts from around the world, but then at the back there’s a room full of glass jars of pickled deformed feotuses. Babies with two heads, no heads, placentas with five babies attached and skeletons of small children with various conditions. After a few minutes it’s all a bit much really.

In the evening we said our farewells to John and Sacha over a traditional Russian meal at a lovely Russian restaurant. A place I would really recommend…. if I could find the link. Although if you’re strict veggie perhaps don’t opt for their “cabbage soup” schi. Ours came complete wth huge chunks of fatty pork. Mmm.

That bit floating around just to the bottom right of the sour cream is a big dirty lump of fatty pork. This probably actually means it’s a good quality schi, but to us it just meant yet again picking bits out and eating something we knew contained meat. Luckily this doen’t really bother either of us too much having decided it’s better to just accept it will happen and get on with it rather than starve or miss out on local specialities. And the soup was very nice. I can imagine for some veggies though that eating out in Russia could be really a struggle. I’m also becomming worried that all the soups we have tried so far were only so tasty because they were made with meat stock. I’ll have to work on creating the perfect vegetarian stock if I’ll be able to replicate them well at home. But I have an idea for the secret ingredient and I’m looking forward to giving it a go. This place claims on it’s advertisement that their stock, made in the traditional way, takes over 8 hours to make, so maybe that’s the key? Long and slow. Usually a good thing.

So apart from the meaty vegetarian soup this was a great place. They specialise in blinies and have over 40 different types on their menu. They serve Kvass, a kind of Russian homebrew beer drink with a very low alcohol content. I thought it tasted a bit like coke, but without the sensation that it could easily strip your insides. They also do these great chip type things which are fried with wild mushrooms. Lovely jubly.

So that was that. St Petersburg, tick! Thanks to John and Sasha for all the help and guidance around your great city.

John, Sasch and Kvass.

After St Petersburg an overnight train took us to Moscow for a quick one day stay with some of John’s friends. They had a really nice flat on Tverskaya Lamskaya, the Moscow equivelant of London’s Oxford St, just two minutes stroll to Red Square. Brilliant.

We didn’t really do too much in Moscow. To be honest I think we were both a bit tired from all the wandering around and Vodka experience in St Petersburg so now we really just wanted a nice chilled day. Went to Lenin’s Mausoleum to see Lenin’s dead body. This was a strange experience. The enormous marble tomb on Red Square was very dimly lit and at the foot of each stairwell and the end of each corridor stood a very serious looking Russian soldier only just visible in the darkness. When you enter the room with the body you are forbidden from stopping even for a second, despite the fact that only one or two other people are there. So you slowly walk around each edge of the glass case peering in at a preserved body. Very odd.

So after a quiet eveniing eating Pizza and watching football at Paul and Iena’s and a couple of drinks in a local bar we had an early night in preparation for the next few days adventure, the 86 hour train journey on the Trans-Siberian to Irkutsk.

Apologies first for the terrible title. But as I am currently back at my parents living on Merseyside temporarily. I’ve had to get used to seeing references to the Beatles everywhere… but you may have realised that I cunningly concealed the subject of today’s bread making post in that title? Have you guessed what it is yet?

Yup, the humble naan bread. Like fish comes with chips (er, not if you’re a vegetarian…), ok then, like sosmix bangers and mash, for me the naan is as much of a part of a curry as the actual curry dish itself. When I was in India a few years ago, myself and my travelling companion John would have a naan bread with every meal. The only difference was that he ate “butter naans” with each meal whereas I would have a plain one. There was a bit of an increase in his weight during those 3 weeks in India. (For those who don’t know I was John’s best man at his wedding last week so I feel I am still in speech mode… and crucifying his personality… I’ll stop now!)..

Anyway naan bread. I’d never really thought too much about what they consisted of, or how they were made. But that all changed last week when I made some of these fabulous breads for the first time. It’s actually quite simple but you’ve got to plan ahead which isn’t easy for everyone.

The basic recipe is as follows:

• 500g plain flour
• 2tsp dried yeast
• 1tsp salt
• 1tsp sugar
• 3 tbsp natural yoghurt
• 30g melted butter (or ghee but I didn’t have any of that)
• 250ml of milk

You will see that it is a bread that rises but uses milk instead of water. You need to dissolve the yeast into the milk (which is at room temperature or thereabouts). With flour and salt mixed in a mixing bowl, add the yeast/milk mix, sugar, yoghurt, butter and the remainder of the milk.

You then need to knead this. If you’re not sure how to do this it’s worth having a look on youtube for videos. It will seem very sticky at first but resist adding more flour and keep kneading. After about 10 minutes you should have a soft dough.

You should then place the dough into a bowl and cover with the lid or clingfilm and allow to rise for 3-4 hours (so unless you are a student or idler it’s something to do at the weekend!)

After this knock it back (just knock the air out of it) and leave for a few minutes.

You should then divide into 4 pieces and shape it into a teardrop shape on a lightly greased baking tray. I used a rolling pin. I reckon keep it about 3/4cm-1cm thin as it will rise during the proving stage. Put the whole tray into a plastic bag and leave for another 45mins-1hour.

When you cook them you will need a griddle pan (as most people don’t have a tandoor). This pan needs to be really hot. Get the grill hot too. Griddle the bread for a few minutes (not sure about time you’ll be able to check and see if cooked). Then transfer to the grill (I put a bit of butter on it before this step and it worked quite well). Don’t put it right next to the heat or it will burn too quick. You want it to cook in a few minutes.

Serve it with your curry, rice and some yoghurt and chutney. Mmm I’m hungry now.

So that’s it! Having written this post a while after the event it seems a bit like hard work. But believe me the taste beats anything you will buy in the supermarkets even if it possibly won’t match proper indian restaurants! (well not until you’ve done it a few times)…

Blimey I’ve been eating a lot of pumpkin! Since the Hallowe’en party last week which left me with about 10kg of pumpkin to use I’ve made it a bit of a mission to try use the pumpkin in as many different ways as possible and have come up with this list of ten things to do with your Hallowe’en pumpkin.

I’ve tried to make them all quite different, so there should be something to suit everyone so you’ll have no excuse to throw your pumpkin away to rot. If you got a bit giddy like I did and bought the biggest pumpkin you could find you should have enough to make all these things. You’d also probably need to be a little bit insane to want to make them all, well at least all within the space of a week, so you might want to freeze some. You can just peel and chop the pumpkin as normal and then bag the bits and pop them in the freezer. I did this last year and they were fine to chuck into soups and things. No reason they shouldn’t be good for anything else too.

I can’t quite believe how much we managed to make! Especially considering that the pumpkin we’d bought only cost us £4. It must be the most economical vegetable purchase ever. 10 different dishes, portions for two people, plus we had some left overs to freeze from some dishes, what does that work out at? Less than 20p per person per dish (plus a few pence for rice, spices etc).

We did have another pumpkin too, of about a quarter of the size of the huge one. This second one however was not quite as nice, which was a bit of a surprise as I’d been reading the smaller ones are usually tastier, so I was expecting it to be the other way around. We’d bought the first from Church Farm, an organic farm shop and the smaller one from the co-op, it was specially stickered up as a hallowe’en pumpkin. The flesh was much paler and tasted more like water than pumpkin. So that’s my first tip. Even though it’s mainly for carving, buy a good one from a decent shop. Even if the organic one had have been twice the price (which it wasn’t, by weight it was actually cheaper), it’s gonna be so much tastier and you can make so much from one pumpkin it’s still incredibly cheap.

Here’s a quick run down of what we made in order of ‘most tastiest thing’ first to ‘hmm not sure about that one’ at the end. On the final day of my pumpkin frenzy I made about 4 things at once. The quality kind of suffered a bit, they’re still good ideas to be inspired by though. I’m sure the pumpkin gnocchi in particular has more yumminess potential. Will probably work on it some time in the next couple of months and will update you if it turns out better. All of these pumpkin recipes could be made using any other squashes too, I suspect some of them might even be a lot nicer made with perhaps a butternut squash or turban pumpkin. Full recipes at the end. If anyone tries any of these it would be great to hear how it goes. Also any other suggestions of what to do with pumpkins would be great. Enjoy.

1. Pumpkin Bhajis

So in at number one with a unanimous vote was Pumpkin Bhajis. This flash of inspiration came when we decided to do a pumpkin curry on day 3. “Mmm we could have onion bhajis too” I thought, then “Mmmmm! I could substitute some of the onion for pumpkin!” The result was pretty damn tasty. A lot lighter than a normal onion bhaji. The recipe below makes enough for about 20. They were good for at least 2 days after cooking, they’d all gone by then though (oops!), so not sure how much longer they would last, but it’s well worth making them in batches like this or even more. The temperature of the oil is pretty key and if you do them all at once you get into the super bhaji making rhythm.

2. Pumpkin and Coconut Soup

A close second was this soup. It was very kindly described as “One of the nicest soups I’ve ever had”. I have to agree it was pretty good. And, as with all soups, it gets extra points for easiness to make and potential to do in huge bulk quantities which you can then freeze in handy little portion sized tubs. Blimey imagine, if you did a whole pumpkin. You’d get enough for about 50 portions of soup! That would surely be enough pumpkin soup for a while year! Hurrah!

3. Salt and Pepper Pumpkin Seeds

This much overlooked part of the pumpkin easily gets a place at the top of the board. Great scavenging satisfaction… you thought you’d scooped them out to go in the bin… but NO! They’re going in the oven with a little seasoning to make a tasty snack easily on a par with dry roasted peanuts.

4. Pumpkin and Lemon Risotto

If it wasn’t for the three higher ranking competitors, this would surely be the winner! What’s that, am I auditioning to be a dodgy sports commentator?.. The addition of the lemon transformed this risotto into something quite spectacular. It’s a very naughty risotto, half a bottle of wine AND double cream. Tut tut. You could maybe substitute them out, but hey, they are what makes it taste nice, and you’re not going to eat it every night, so go I say for it.

5. Pumpkin Bread

Again only in the number 5 slot as the higher places have been filled up. Made by my Master Baker, Andrew, this was a very tasty loaf. Lovely fresh out of the oven with a good spread of butter, the taste of pumpkin is subtle, but pleasantly noticeable. A great seasonal loaf, what a way to use the yearly glut of pumpkin. Also once you’ve made this bread you might start to wonder what other vegetables you could add to things you’d think you wouldn’t. Like carrot cake and garlic bread, it’s a revelation.

6. Pumpkin Curry (Anything)

Curry Anything is our standard curry recipe. We tend to make this whenever we have a couple of veg that need using up. The recipe and method is always the same, you can just vary the vegetable or bean ingredients. It always works and is a good medium spicyness no nonsense curry.

7. Savory Pumpkin Pie

This started off as a gratin, but I found a spare bit of pastry lying around (doesn’t everyone have that?) so I popped it on the top and the gratin magically turned into a pie. It would be good either way, the top just turns it from a side dish to the main attraction.

8. Roast Pumpkin and Buckwheat Salad

This was fairly medium really. Just a bit of a thrown together at the end effort. The best bit about it really was that the pumpkin was roasted with nuts. This combination would be great just as it is with a roast dinner rather than mixing in with the buckwheat. I think the problem was I’d never cooked buckwheat before and I’m not sure I did it right. I had some as left overs and it was actually a lot tastier the next day than when freshly made, maybe he buckwheat had soaked up some juice which made it tastier?

9. Pumpkin, Tomato and Basil Soup

This was my least favourite of the things I made, just not my kind of soup. Other people might like it, I’m just not really into tomato soup, except bizarrely, the stuff you get in tins (if I can admit that). Also I thought the pumpkin in this had a wierd texture, almost gritty. I’m making this sound lovely aren’t I, bet you can’t wait to try it!

10. Pumpkin Gnocchi with Watercress Suace

Now this really doesn’t deserve to be at the bottom of the list. I’m convinced this has great potential and will be trying it again soon. Maybe it was the choice of sauce. I didn’t want to have it with a tomato sauce as we’d just had that last week, but I’m not sure the one I chose was right for it. The watercress sauce was lovely, but I think because the gnocchi is heavy in itself you need a lighter fresh tasting sauce to compliment it. The next day I had some of the left over gnocchi cold, this time with a bit of tomato sauce we’d made for some pasta and it was much nicer. So I’d probably do that. Also I think it would help to squeeze the water out from the pumpkin once it’s cooked. Mine was quite watery (must have been from the dodgy co-op batch) and so I had to add quite a bit of extra flour, which made it taste like, well flour surprisingly. I’m not giving up on you though Pumpkin Gnocchi. I know you’re a star waiting to shine.

1. Pumpkin Bhajis

• 1 large onion, thinly sliced
• 500g pumpkin, grated
• 200g gram flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 2 tsp chilii powder
• 100ml of water
• sunflower oil (amount depends on size of pan, poss 500ml)

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
2. Gradually stir in enough of the water to bind it all together as a thick batter.
3. Leave to stand for 30 minutes before frying.
4. To cook, heat oil in a large deep pan, you’ll need a couple of inches, so the bhajis will be able to float around in it (you’ll be able to save the left over used oil in a jar for next time you deep fry something)
5. To test if the oil is hot enough drop a small amount of the mix in, it should start to bubble straight away.
6. When the oil is hot enough get a tablespoon of the mix on a metal spoon and scrape off into the oil using another spoon to form it into a rough ball shape.
7. After a couple of minutes turn the bhajis over, it should have turned golden and starting to brown. Then cook the other side until it looks the same.
8. Remove from the pan using a slotted spoon and transfer to a bowl lined with kitchen paper to drain off excess oil.
9. You might want to check at this point you have cooked the bahjis for long enough- just cut one in half and check it is spongy all the way though, with no soggy batter mixture still in the middle. If not cooked you can just return to the oil for a couple more minutes, then you will have a guide for how long you will need to cook the rest. The time will vary accordling to how big you are making them.
10. Can be served straight away, or will last a good few days covered.

2. Pumpkin and Coconut Soup

• 1 oz butter
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 red chili, finely chopped
• 1kg Pumpkin chopped
• 1 tin of coconut milk
• 1 1/4 pints of stock (approx)
• juice of 1 lime
• 1/2 bunch of coriander

1. Fry the onion gently in the butter for 15 minutes until beginning to brown.
2. Add the chili and garlic and fry for another minute before adding the chopped pumpkin.
3. Cover the pan and leave the pumpkin to sweat for around 10 minutes, then add enough stock to just less than cover the pumpkin.
4. Bring to boil, then leave to simmer for 15 minutes or until the pumpkin is tender.
5. Puree, then add the coconut milk, lime juice, chopped coriander. Return to the heat to warm through then serve garnished with a little more chopped coriander.

Toasted Salt and Pepper Pumpkin Seeds

1. Collect all the pumpkin seeds from your carved pumpkin, and seperate from any of the flesh and stringy bits.
2. Wash the seeds, then spread out on a baking tray.
3. Sprinkle lots of salt and pepper over the seeds, then put in a hot oven for around 45 minutes or until toasted and crunchy. YUM!

4. Creamy Pumpkin, Lemon and Sage Risotto

• 1 oz butter
• 1 onion, finely shopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 kg pumpkin, chopped
• 250g risotto rice
• 2 tbsp dried sage
• 1/2 bottle of white wine
• 1 pint stock
• 50ml cream
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• A handful of rocket, torn in half

1. Fry the onion and garlic gently in the butter for around 15 minutes or until beginning to brown.
2. Add the chopped pumpkin, cover and leave the cook for around 10 or 15 minutes, until beginning to soften.
3. Stir in the risotto rice until all coated from butter/pumpkin mix then pour in the wine. Add the sage and stir round.
4. As the wine starts to soak into the rice add the stock a little at a time and stir in to stop the rice sicking.
5. When the rice is cooked (will be approx 30 minutes), stir in the cream, rocket and lemon juice.
6. Leave to cook for 2 more minutes before serving. Also nice served sprinkled with parmesan.

5. Pumpkin Bread

• 300g pumpkin chopped into chunks
• 60ml cooking liquid from the pumpkin
• 2 tsp honey
• 500g white bread flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp instant yeast
• milk to glaze
• 2 tbsp pumpkin seeds, to decorate

1. Boil the pumpkin until tender and then drain, keeping back some of the cooking water and then puree the pumpkin and leave to cool.
2. Add honey to 60ml of the cooking liquid and stir to dissolve.
3. Mix flour and salt and yeast in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre and add in the honey liquid, followed by the pumpkin puree.
4. Mix in the flour to form a firm, coarse, sticky dough. If the mixture is too dry, gradually add one or two tablespoons of the pumpkin liquid (or water).
5. Turn the dough out on a lightly floured work surface. Knead until very smooth, silky and elastic, about 15 mins.
6. Place dough in large clean bowl and cover with a tea towel. Leave to rise until double in size, about 1 to 1 1/2hrs. Knock back the dough to release the air, then leave it to rest for 10mins, covered.
7. Shape dough into a round loaf. Place on an oiled baking sheet and cover with a tea towel. Leave until double in size, about 1 hour.
8. Brush the dough with milk and sprinkle with pumpkin seeds.
9. Bake in pre-heated oven at 220C and bake for 40mins until golden-coloured and hollow-sounding when tapped underneath.

6.Pumpkin Curry (Anything)

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 inch of ginger, finely diced
• 1 dried red chilli
• “The Spices” :  1 tbsp ground cumin, 1 tbsp ground coriander, 1 tsp chilli powder, 1/2 tsp tumeric
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• Anything Cooked (for this we used about 500g  pumpkin and a tin of butterbeans)
• Yoghurt
• Fresh coriander to garnish

1. Heat the oil in a large pan, add the cumin and mustard seeds, fry until they begin to pop
2. Add the onion and cook gently for about 10 minutes or until soft.
3. Add the garlic, ginger and dried chilli, cook for a further 5 minutes.
4. Add “The Spices” and cook for another minute or so.
5. Add the tomatoes, stir and leave to simmer until thickened, approx 10 minutes.
6. Add “Anything Cooked”, stir round and leave to simmer for a few minutes before serving. You can add a couple of tablespoons of yoghurt at this stage if you like.
7. Serve with rice and garnish with chopped fresh coriander.

7. Savoury Pumpkin Pie

• Pumkpin
• Garlic
• Butter
• Parsley
• Milk
• Shortcrust pastry
• S+P

Sorry for the lack of quantities, this was more of just an idea than a recipe.

1. Get however much pumpkin will take to fill your chosen oven proof dish and slice into thin slices as you would for a potato gratin.
2. Arrange around the dish, do a layer of sliced pumpkin, dot with butter, sprinkle on parsley, finely chopped garlic, salt and lots of pepper.
3. Repeat the layers to the top of the dish, then pour in some milk, enough to be about 1cm up the dish and then put into a medium heat oven for around 20 minutes.
4. After 20 minutes cover the pumpkin with shortcrust pastry and then return to the oven until brown, about 30 minutes.

8. Roast Pumpkin with Buckwheat Salad

• 500g pumpkin, peeled and chopped into smallish cubes
• 10 almonds, sliced
• Olive oil
• tabasco sauce
• 1 red pepper, deseeded and cubed
• cooked buckwheat
• crumbly white cheese, eg feta, wensleydale, goats cut into small cubes
• S+P

1. Put the pumpkin in a roasting dish with the sliced almonds, drizzle over some olive oil and a good splash of tabasco. Roast for around 20 minutes then add the peppers and roast for a further 10 minutes, or until the pumpkin and peppers begin to brown.
2. Put the cooked buckwheat into a dish and stir in the roast veg, cubes of cheese, and a little more oil if required.
3. Season with a bit of S+P.

9. Pumpkin, Tomato and Basil Soup

• 750g pumpkin, peeled and cubed
• 1 oz butter
• 150ml passata
• 1 large onion finely chopped
• 3/4 pint of stock
• lots of fresh basil
• cream or yoghurt to serve

1. Melt the butter in a large pan, then add the onions and fry gently until softened and beginning to brown.
2. Add the pumpkin, cover and leave to sweat for a few minutes.
3. Add the stock, put in just enough to go to just below the top of the pumpkin in the pan. Cover and lave to cook for around 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the pumpkin is tender.
4. Puree the pumpkin and stock mix then add the passata, a good couple of tablespoons of chopped basil.
5. Leave to heat through for around ten minutes before serving with a little cream or yoghurt and garnish with a freshly picked basil leaf.

10. Pumpkin and Watercress Gnocchi with Watercress Sauce

For the gnocchi:

• 750g pumpkin, cooked, drained and excess water squeezed out.
• 150g plain flour
• 50g grated parmesan
• 50g chopped watercress
• 2 tbsp chopped  fresh basil
• S+P

1. In a large bowl mix together all the gnocchi ingredients. Add more flour if necessary. The mixture should be dry enough to handle, but try not to add too much flour. Knead briefly to bring it all together.
2. Turn out the dough onto a well floured surface, divide into four and roll each piece with your hands into a long sausage shape about 2 cm thick, then chop this into 2-3 cm pieces, which you then roll into a ball shape in your hand to make dumplings. Press down lightly on each one with a fork to make a pattern.
3. Bring a large pan of water to a rolling boil. Drop the dumplings into the water in batches. They will float to the surface when they are cooked.

For the watercress sauce:

• 50ml double cream
• 1 small onion, very finely chopped
• 1 oz butter
• 100g watercress, chopped
• 100ml milk
• S+P
• a squeeze of lemon

1. Saute the onions until soft, then add the watercress and cook for another 2 minutes before adding the cream.
2. Add the milk and leave to boil until it reaches your prefered thickness.
3. Season with S+P and add a squeeze of lemon juice.

I love this bright orange soup. A little bit of spice to keep you warm, good autumnal  chunky veg and a few lovely soft butter beans. Mmm, it’s like a cosy duvet. This is the basic recipe, but if you have any other nice bright coloured autumn veg lying around spare, no harm throwing them in too.

This recipe has tinned butter beans in. Generally I prefer dried beans. I find they usually have better texture than the canned ones. Butter beans are, I think, the exception to the rule though and I actually prefer them. I’ve been getting the Suma ones which have been really big and tasty. When I’ve used dried ones before they didn’t end up with the nice soft texture that these have, plus it obviously takes more time and planning. But each to their own.

When I made this soup I also intended to make some soda bread, but then realised we didn’t have any wholemeal flour. I ended up using stone ground white flour and mixing in a bit of oatmeal. I turned out ok. Not as nice as real soda bread I’ve had before, maybe a little heavy, but definitely a good quick substitute if you’ve not got the right stuff in. It takes all of about 2 minutes to make too, which for bread is pretty incredible.

Spicy Butternut & Butter Bean Soup

• 1 oz butter
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 3 gloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 fairly chunky butternut squash, peeled, seeded and roughly chopped
• 2 big sweet potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 or 2 red chilis (how hot do you like it?), finely chopped
• 2 cans of butterbeans, drained
• 1 1/2 pints of stock
• S+P
• 5 tbsp chopped coriander plus extra for garnish

1. Melt the butter in a big soup pan, then add the onions and galic and fry gently over a low heat for 15 minutes or so until the onions are soft and golden, but not browned.
2. Add the chilli and fry for a couple of minutes before adding all the rest of the chopped veg (but not the beans!). Stir round to coat a little, then cover and leave to sweat for 10 minutes.
3. Cover with hot stock, bring to the boil then simmer for around 15-20 minutes or until the veg are tender.
4. Puree the soup, season and add the tins of beans and chopped corriander.
5. Return to the heat and simmer for around 8 more minutes to allow the beans to warm through and take on the flavour of the soup.
6. Serve garnished with a little chopped coriander.

“I can’t believe it’s not soda bread!”

• 300g self raising flour
• 100g oatmeal
• 1 tsp salt
• 120ml milk
• 120ml yoghurt

1. Preheat the oven to 200C
2. Put the flour and oatmeal and salt in a bowl and mix together.
3. Mix the yoghurt and milk together, then pour intot he flour mix and stir it all together with a wooden spoon.
4. Kneed briefly then shape into a round, pat it down to about 5 cm thick, put a light dusting of flour all over then place on a baking tray.
5. Cut a cross in the top of the bread, almost all the way through, then pop in the oven for about 30 minutes, or until beginning to brown. Check it’s cooked through before serving.

It’s a couple of months since we were there now, here is a little post about our stay at Plan-it Earth in Sancreed, which is pretty much at Land’s End in Cornwall. I think I might have mentioned it before, it’s a seven acre small holding which runs eco-education courses and has two yurts for holiday rentals. We’d gone there wwoofing, intending to stay for just three days, but ended up staying over a week. It was a really great place. We learnt loads and had a great time. As an added bonus for the first couple of days we were able to stay in this lovely yurt before the next guests arrived.

The first day there was a bit of a downpour and we spent most of the morning weeding the polytunnel, dashing out into the garden to pick artichokes and redcurrants in any dry spells. Rachel kindly suggested that due to the inclement weather we might like to do a few jobs in the house. Andy did some work on the website and I helped prepare the artichokes we’d picked, which I have decided are an evil vegetable. Spikey and tough, we spent over two hours hacking away at them to use in some kind of potato and artichoke broth type thing. It was very tasty, but you can’t really trim them down without wasting most of the vegetable which means when you eat it you end up picking the tough, half chewed bits of stalk out of your mouth and get covered in sauce.  Not a recipe I’ll be trying again. They are however delicious just cooked simlpy whole and served as a starter. Boil them for around 40 minutes then pick the leaves off individually, dip them in butter then scrape the flesh off with your teeth. The inside heart it the tastiest bit, but you’ve got to be careful to get rid of all the “choke”, another evil little treat the artichoke has hiding at it’s centre.

Summer Fruits Pudding

This was a recipe for a Delia Smith cookbook they had. I like Delia, her recipes are always good, traditional, no nonsense and work well, or they were until recently when she appears to have gone a little mad with her supermarket time saving fake food book, but nevermind, just ignore that one and you’re safe.

800g mixed summer fruits, we had redcurrrants, logan berries and strawberries, I think you can use any berries, but maybe try get something a bit sharp or it could be too sweet.

150g sugar

8 slices of nice white bread

A lightly buttered 1 1/2 pint pudding basin

Put the fruit and sugar in a pan over a medium heat for 3-5 minutes, until the sugar has melted and the juices start to run, it will look a like fruity massacre like this:

Take the fruit off the heat and line the bottom and sides of the pudding basin with the bread, take care to overlap it so there are no gaps which the fruit juices could run out of.

Pour in the fruit, apart from about a cupful to keep for sauce later, and then cover the top with bread slices too.

Put a weight on top to squash the bread down, something fairly heavy, and put it in the fridge overnight.

Just before serving tip it out onto a plate and pour over the remaining juice and serve with thick cream.

Don’t laugh, but here’s what Delia’s version looks like… maybe I need more practice. I’d cut the crusts off if I did it again.

:

I was a little worried for some reason about making bread. All this kneading, resting, rising, blah blah makes it all seem quite complicated, hard work and likely to end in disaster. So we started simple, just made plain white loaves and I have to say it was surprisingly simple and they turned out pretty well.

Basic Loaf

700g unbleached strong white bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
425ml tepid water
7g sachet of dried yeast

Mix the flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl, make a well and pour in the water.

Work the mixture with your hands until it comes together to make a ball of dough that leaves the sides of the bowl clean. If it is too sticky add more flour, if it is too dry and crumbly add more water a little at a time..

Lightly flour a work surface and knead the dough for around 10 minutes. To do this stretch it away from you, then fold back onto itself, turn and repeat.

After 10 minutes it was apparently meant to be “very elastic and silky smooth, and stretch to paper-like almost transparent thinness” . It was however just a big blob which snapped when I pulled it. Hmm. Nevermind, I thought, it’ll do. This bit must get better with practice. At this stage we split our dough so we could make one loaf each, but you can just keep it whole if you want a bigger loaf.

Now, put the dough back in the bowl and cover and let rise until doubled in size. This will take about one to one and a half hours.

When it’s done punch the dough a couple of times to distribute the air and tuen it out onto a floured surface.

Gently kneed and shape the dough into a rough ball. Try not to work it too much as this will lose some of the rise in it. Just roughly shape it to how you want the final loaf to be.

Put the loaf on a lightly greased baking sheet and slip it into a plastic bag to rise in a warm place. It’s best to seal the bag somehow as the yeast likes a warm humid environment at this stage. Leave for 45 mins to 1 hour.

Uncover the loaf and slash the top with a knife. Bake in for around 35minutes at 220.

To test if it’s cooked, turn it over and tap with your knuckles, it should sound hollow, if it sounds heavy and dead return to the oven for 5 more minutes.

Leave to cool on a wire rack.

This is the bread we used for the Pan con Tomate the other night, it was really good for that. All in all it was a successful bread making session and I’ll definitely be doing it again sometime.