Saturday 29 October 2011

The Hallow'een Collection

I'm BACK!!

Do forgive me, I've been a bit preoccupied with finding new jobs, entertaining visiting family, having the cold, dreaming up business ideas so I can become rich and stop job searching, and generally being busy with an increasingly demanding and cantankerous almost 2 year old.

I will also admit to falling out of love a little with my garden and being more than a little pissed off at the lack of autumn fruits to collect and eat and share recipes with you!

But that's all over now!  So as a treat I thought I'd share some seasonal ideas with you, the best of Halloween as it were....  I love this daft festival.

I had planned many months back to share my amazing little squashes that I grow every year with you, but they totally and utterly FAILED this year, so I only have some pumpkins awaiting decoration this year.  I'm not quite sure what to do with them this year.  I know I should have some decorated for this evening all ready as many kids will probably be trick or treating tonight as it's a Saturday, but I'm using the excuse that we'll be at the annual Halloween party at Daddy Native's sister's tonight! 

Inspired by the wonderful Tiffany at  Easie Peasie who posted these exquisite pumpkin ideas a while back which I just HAD to share with you, I also found these on American site Womansday (let's face it the best ideas are going to be American)-
Halloween Craft How-to: Candle Pumpkins

Halloween Craft How-to: Spider Web Pumpkin

Craft Project: Mr. and Mrs. Gourd-geous

The site also has some rather fabulous Halloween templates for decorating and these party ideas have me thinking maybe I could hijack the party next year and throw it myself!

Fanged Pumpkins

Vine-and-Leaf Carved Pumpkin

And what to do with all that pumpkin flesh?  Bored with Pumpkin soup?  Well how about making a Pumpkin Curry, or Pumpkin Hot Pot, a healthy Pumpkin and Sweetcorn Risotto , Pumpkin Muffins with mulled apple juice, or a devilish Pumpkin and Apple Meringue Pie from River Cottage.  If you're really feeling adventurous and want to show off to friends and family The Guardian has this collection of recipes from top chefs.
Roast pumpkin with cream, thyme & Parmesan
Check out this Halloween Vodka idea from the fabulous blog Scary Mommy.  Jill, you rock!  Hic!

This year we're dressing up as Zombies as its the easiest cheapest idea I could come up with. And I kinda like it that we always go as a family theme.  Last year we were boring and tired new parents so lazily went as cowboys.  The year before I was heavily pregnant and the only clothes that still fitted were my pyjamas so Daddy Native wore his Fireman's uniform (aren't I a lucky girl!) and I went as the rescued heavily pregnant damsel in distress pyjamas!  But we have yet to surpass the year we went as the guys out of the 118 TV ads.  Very funny. 

Here are some very clever ideas that would take way more planning than I'll ever manage!
This is a pretty comprehensive list of costume ideas & instructions.

Well my friends, I think that's enough inspiration for this year.  Do please share what you got up to and dressed as this year!

Happy haunting!

Saturday 1 October 2011

Medicine Woman - Ayrshire style

One of the things that make up for our horrid winters in Scotland, is the sheer enjoyment of watching the change of the seasons.  I think that's why Spring and Autumn are my favourite times of the year.  As well as looking forward to the annual Eurovision Song Contest party every Spring, and my birthday falling in Autumn!

I wish I could say that the reason I've been so quiet on here of late is due to being busy collecting berries and making huge batches of jams, cordials, crumbles & jellies.  But I'm sure you'll have noticed that there are very few berries for the picking!  The blackberries were so late to ripen here, that only a few have survived, meaning that the autumn walks I've been looking forward to are offering only a handful of berries which Baby Wild immediately swipes from my grasp!

I managed to scramble around a wild apple tree nearby and collect some fallen fruit & had been hoping to turn them into an apple and blackberry crumble but it's clearly not to be. And I'm not paying for fruit at this time of year if I can help it!

I've exhausted my resources of rose hips locally, leaving behind all those not in perfect condition for the birds.  We have plenty of rose hip syrup bottled away, and if I find another bush somewhere I'd like to make more jelly as we demolished September's batch almost instantly.  I wonder how the birds are getting by on so few fruits to feast on before winter?  There are no rowan berries either I've noticed, as I had been hoping to make rowan berry cheese for the first time too.  Check out these plentiful rowan berry recipes I found on line... tempting aren't they?

Yesterday Baby Wild & I managed a walk between showers and found a happy elder bush in Spiers Park, complete with a handful of large ripe blackberries underneath! Must be blessed by fairies I imagine!  So we treated ourselves to just enough elderberry heads to make 2 small bottles of cordial which taste fantastic.  Since we have plenty of rose hip syrup, I'll keep the elderberry cordial for soothing colds and sore throats later in the year.  Am loving making my own medicines this year!  Elderberries are packed full of vitamins, but be sure to cook them rather than eat them raw, as uncooked they can contain traces of cyanide!

Elderberry Cordial (for juices, sweet treats, drizzles and sniffles)

To make the cordial, collect and wash heads of elderberries, before removing the berries from the stalks with the help of a fork.  Don't worry about getting every bit of stalk removed, life's too short for that!  Pop in a pot & add just enough water to cover the berries, bring to the boil & simmer for 10 minutes.  Once that's done squeeze all the juice out through a doubled muslin cloth back into the pot.  Ramp up the health properties by adding finely chopped ginger & cloves to the juice, along with the juice of 1 lemon (from a bottle in my case) and 1lb of sugar for every pint of berry juice you squeezed out.  Bottle into jars or bottle straight from a hot dishwasher to make life even easier.  You can also freeze the cordial - as it doesn't freeze solid I'll be eating it straight from the freezer by the spoonful to sooth a sore throat later in the depths of winter.

We're gonna be a healthy family this winter!