Pumpkins still

I had another pumpkin themed day again today. I still had a bit more than a pound of pumpkin left over from the large one I cut into last Friday and to that I had added a bit whilst making the bird feeder on Sunday. There was only one slice of the pumpkin and ginger tea bread left in the cake box, my husband having declared it the best cake I had ever made (wow, now that's a complement!). So, having stocked up on ingredients I set about making pumpkin and orange tray bake this morning to refill the box. This proved a deliciously moist and fruity cake which my daughter declared the best cake I had ever made (not quite such a complement as she is only 7 and says "best ever" at the drop of a hat!).

Pumpkin & orange tray bake

200g butter , melted
4 eggs , beaten
zest & juice of 1 orange

300g self-raising flour
300g light muscovado sugar
3 tsp mixed spice
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
175g sultanas
½ tsp salt
500g (peeled weight) pumpkin, grated

FOR DRENCHING AND FROSTING
200g pack soft cheese
100g icing sugar , sifted
zest & juice of 1 orange

Heat oven to 180°C, gas 4. Butter and line a 25 x 25cm square tin. Beat the eggs into the melted butter, stir in the orange zest and juice, then mix with the dry ingredients till combined. Stir in the pumpkin. Pour into the tin and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until golden and springy to the touch. Cool for 10 minutes then turn it out onto a cooling rack. Whilst still warm, prick it all over with a skewer and drizzle with the orange juice from the second orange, retaining 1 tablespoon of juice for the icing. Leave to cool completely. To make the frosting, beat together the cheese, icing sugar, orange zest and 1 tablespoon of the juice till smooth and creamy. Add a little cornflour to stiffen if necessary. When the cake is cool, spread the frosting over the top of the cake in peaks and swirls. Store the cake in the fridge but return to room temperature to serve.

With the cake still warm and the smell of delicious home baking filling the house, I dashed off to gardening club where the theme was... you guessed it... pumpkins! We had managed to grow one little pumpkin which this afternoon we turned into two bird feeders. I also took one large pumpkin in from home and showed them how to make a pumpkin lantern and we baked pumpkin muffins so that they realised that pumpkins can be eaten too! A packed afternoon but a lot of fun for all.

More pumpkin stuff

How am I doing on the 101 things to do with pumpkins? Is it 5 or 6 so far? Well, this morning I made some of my delicious pumpkin and butternut squash soup.

Pumpkin and Butternut Squash Soup (serves 3)

1 lb (450g) pumpkin flesh
1 lb (450g) butternut squash flesh
Olive oil
10 fl oz vegetable stock
2 tablespoons tomato puree
4 sage leaves
Salt and pepper

Peel and chop the vegetables then fry them in some olive oil for about 5 minutes in the bottom of a large saucepan. Pour in the stock, add the tomato puree and sage leaves and simmer for 30 minutes until soft. Pour into a food processor and blend until smooth. Return to the pan. Season to taste and bring back to the boil then either serve it hot or pour into warmed jars, seal and put in the fridge until needed.

Then after my hearty lunch, I made one of my mini pumpkins into two bird feeders. For this I just chopped it in half and scooped out the inners to make two dishes. Adding Vaseline to the cut surfaces helps to preserve them for a few more days. Next I plaited 12 pieces of string into 4 cords (it helps that I just happen to be super speedy at plaiting!). Then I secured two cords to each pumpkin dish using a drawing pin underneath. Finally, I filled the dish with seeds (including some of the pumpkin seeds) and hung them up outside. This is a lovely simple idea and could be the perfect thing to do with my gardening club gardeners this week with our one small pumpkin.

101 things to do with a pumpkin!

I'm not sure I'll find 101 things to do with a pumpkin but I need to find quite a few; after all, I have 19 of things to use up!

Whilst my yellow tomato and pumpkin chutney was happily bubbling away, I chopped up a fair amount of the remaining pumpkin and put it into the steamer to cook for a while. When soft, I put it into a bowl and mashed it. Once pureed, pumpkin is very versatile and can be used in a number of sweet recipes where its presents can pass unnoticed. Some of these, such as muffins and pancakes, I have made before and have become family favourites. But others remain untried but interesting.

One such untried recipe was pumpkin ice-cream. I saw something written by James Martin in a magazine the other day suggesting stirring pumpkin puree through vanilla ice-cream. I thought for a moment he had lost the plot but on further consideration it sounded like it had potential. I was still surprised, however, when I googled it to discover something like 240,000 hits for pumpkin ice-cream. The one thing about pumpkin is that it goes very well with spices such as ginger and cinnamon. I think vanilla is a bit wish-washy to go with pumpkin so when I saw a recipe with cinnamon, ginger and pumpkin I decided to give it a go.

Pumpkin Ice-cream

450g fresh pumpkin
300ml whipping cream
120g light brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Pinch ground cloves
Pinch of salt

Peel and chop the pumpkin then steam until soft. Mash until a smooth puree is formed. Put all the ingredients in a blender and blend for about a minute until well mixed. Pour into suitable containers and put in the freezer. Take out of the freezer after 2-3 hours and whip up with a fork to break up the ice crystals before returning to the freezer.

It makes an interesting ice-cream, unlike anything you are likely to find in the shops. As you can imagine, the spices are the dominate flavour with a slight toffee flavour from the sugar. No hint of pumpkin! I think it would go very well dolloped next to a hot winter pudding such as apple pie or sticky toffee pudding.

After that I immediately froze a pound of pumpkin puree to make into pumpkin muffins at a later date. They are a good one to have in the cake tin in the run up to Halloween.

Pumpkin muffins

1 lb (450 g) pumpkin
3¼ oz (90 g) wholemeal flour
6½ oz (180g) self-raising flour
½ teaspoon mixed spice
¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
3¾ oz (95g) dark brown sugar
2 oz (55 g) sultanas
2 eggs
4 fl oz (115 ml) sunflower oil
4 fl oz (115 ml) whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Peel, chop and steam the pumpkin for 20 to 30 minutes until very soft. Squash until smooth then allow to cool. Refrigerate overnight if desired. Preheat oven to 210°C, gas 7. Sift the flours and spices into a bowl, adding any bran remaining in the sieve. Whisk the eggs, oil, milk and vanilla together and add to the dry mix then add the pumpkin. Combine until just mixed. Spoon into paper cases in a tin. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

The next day, I grated some of the remaining fresh pumpkin into a recipe to make pumpkin and ginger tea bread. What a delicious recipe this proved to be - a lovely moist cake with a yummy ginger flavour. I had a piece mid afternoon and when my husband had a slice for his dessert after
dinner I couldn't resist having another slice!

Pumpkin and Ginger Tea Bread

175g melted butter
140g clear honey
1 egg, beaten
250g fresh pumpkin
100g light muscovado sugar
350g self-raising flour
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 tablespoon Demerara sugar

Preheat oven to 180°C, gas 4 and line a 2lb load tin. Mix together the butter, honey, egg and pumpkin. Add the muscovado sugar, flour and ginger and stir until well combined. Pour into the tin then sprinkle over the Demerara sugar. Bake for 50-60 minutes until risen and golden. Leave in the tin to cool for 10-15 minutes before turning out to cool on a wire rack.

With some of the remaining pumpkin puree I made a batch of pumpkin pancakes. These are similar to Scotch or American-style pancakes. My daughters like to have pancakes for breakfast every now and then so it is nice to be able to make some rather than buy them. They can be frozen, thawed and reheated in the microwave for the ultimate in convenience food. As it happened, my daughters were hugely enthusiastic about them whilst I was making them and they both wanted a freshly cooked one right there and then despite only having just eaten their lunch!

Pumpkin pancakes (makes 16-18)

250g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
1 tsp mixed spice
55g light brown sugar
3 eggs
284 ml carton buttermilk
175 g pumpkin puree
4 teaspoon sunflower oil

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, salt, raising agents and spice. In another bowl, mix together the sugar, egg, milk, pumpkin and oil. Make a well in the centre of the flour and gradually mix in the wet ingredients until a batter forms. Heat a little oil in a frying pan and add 60ml (2 tablepoons or 1/4 cup) of batter at a time. Cook until the base is set then flip and cook until the second side has set and browned. Either serve hot or cool on a wire rack and freeze for use later.

After this I still had a bowlful of puree so I weighed it out into bags for other recipes I want to try and put them into the freezer until we have eaten our way through the tea bread and I have stocked up on a few ingredients.

So, how many of my 19 pumpkins have a worked through so far... not quite one! Maybe I will find 101 things to do with them after all!

The changing seasons

I have known about the 4 seasons at least since I was five years old. Certainly at that age I could have drawn a picture to represent the different seasons. Yet every year autumn takes me by surprise. With the warmth and light of summer it feels as if things can keep growing forever. But slowly the mornings start to feel colder and the evenings get darker and you realise that plants really aren't going to grow for much longer. In July I could fill a punnet with raspberries every 3 days, in August I could fill a carrier bag with courgettes once a week and in early September I could fill a bag with French beans every week. But at the end of September the raspberries are tiny and few, the courgettes are mere blimps behind the flowers and the French beans are tired and tough.

That's not to say that there isn't still plenty to eat and things to pick but the type of food has changed. I love to eat with the seasons (just as well really!) and summer eating has given way to autumn now. The soft summer fruit is all frozen or turned into preserves so now is the time to eat plums, apples and blackberries before they too come to an end. The summer cucurbits of courgettes and cucumbers are exhausted but the glorious pumpkins and squash are golden and ready for picking. The tomatoes are still just about managing to ripen in the shorter sunny days and maybe, just maybe, the chilli peppers will turn before the frosts.

With possible frosts forecasts for the beginning of October, we decided this weekend to bring the pumpkins in for safe keeping. This year we grew 3 Jack O'Lantern pumpkin plants, supposed to yield large fruit ideal for carving, 2 Little Bear pumpkin plants, supposed to give mini pumpkins, and 2 butternut squash plants. Pumpkin plants are fantastic the way from a tiny seed they romp away into enormous plants, produce huge or abundant fruit and then, exhausted, shrivel away to dust with just the fruit remaining. From our plants we have managed to grow (with more effort on the part of the plant than ourselves) 8 large pumpkins, 11 mini pumpkins and 7 butternut squash.

The pumpkin harvest day is something my girls have been looking forward to and nagged about for a month so it was with great excitement that my eldest took hold of the knife. And like the opening of a new building, she cut the first stem. Then we sweated in the glorious autumn sunshine as we heaved the fruit to the wheelbarrow and back home again.

Soon I'll be making things from pumpkins but for now they will keep and I'm still using up the stored courgettes and cucumbers. Later in the week I think I shall nip out and pick some more tomatoes just in case frost does arrive. Whatever is left unripe I can use to make green tomato chutney. In the meantime I shall use up the autumn bounty in mixed chutneys and relishes.

I'm sure winter will creep up on me as sneakily as the autumn did but when I'm tucking into a hot pot stuffed full of leeks and root vegetables I shall know for sure that winter is here.

Multicoloured Autumn Relish

This attractive relish is suitable for use as a condiment with cold meat and cheese and is ideal on hot sandwiches and burgers. The combination of vegetables is not essential as long as a good variety of colour is included so it is a good way to use up vegetables at the end of the summer season.

Ingredients (makes 3 to 5 jars)
1 lb (450 g) green tomatoes
8 oz (225 g) red tomatoes
2 red peppers
2 green peppers
2 sticks celery
2 onions
½ cucumber (peeled)
½ small red cabbage
1 cob’s worth of sweetcorn
Salt
8 oz (225 g) light brown sugar
25 fl oz (710 ml) white wine vinegar

Method

Chop all the ingredients into small chunks and layer in the bowl with the salt. Place a small plate over the vegetables and weight down. Leave it for several hours or overnight. Drain and thoroughly rinse and dry the vegetables. Add the vegetables to the preserving pan with the sugar and vinegar. Bring to the boil and simmer for about an hour, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender and the liquid has reduced considerably. Transfer into warmed jars and seal immediately.

Sweet Sandwich Pickle

Suitable in all types of sandwiches but particularly good with hamburgers and hot dogs.

Ingredients (makes 3-4 jars)

3 lb (1350g) peeled and chopped marrow
Salt
1 large onion
12 oz (225g) apples
1 pint (600 ml) malt vinegar
8 oz (225g) tomato puree
8 oz (225g) stoned dates, chopped
1lb (450g) soft dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
2 tablespoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons of ground all spice
A dash of freshly grated nutmeg

Method
Place the peeled and chopped marrow in a bowl layered with salt and leave to stand overnight. Rinse and dry the marrow then tip it into a preserving pan. Grate the apple and onion and add this to the preserving pan. Add the tomato puree and the vinegar and bring to the boil. Cook for about 30 minutes until the vegetables are soft. Add the dates, sugar and spices and stir well until the sugar is dissolved. Bring back to the boil then simmer until thick. Ladle into warm jars and seal immediately.