It's Halloween soon. Woooo-oooo-ooooh. Spooky.
Personally I prefer to carve peppers rather than pumpkins. They come ready-hollowed and in a variety of colours. But pumpkins are good too. I'll be doing a massive one on Sunday and making soup with the insides. I'll also be hosting a vegetable carving competition. Prizes for the most frightening lantern and for the most original choice of vegetable. I'm a little over-excited at the prospect.
As well as the competitive gourd-whittling there will be warming autumnal food. I haven't decided what yet, but pictures and recipes to follow.
I should apologise for the over-long absence, but I shan't. I Dined With Dos Hermanos on Monday which was ace and gave me the kick start I needed to start blogging again and I shall try to be less lax in future.
UPDATE: There were some impressive vegetable carving skills on display on October 31st, but sadly my camera is broken and the iPhone failed to capture them in all their exquisite detail. You can get the general idea though. Here are Helen Z’s incredible butternut squash townscape relief, two alarming aubergines by Simon and Martin, a never-attempted before turnip/globe artichoke mash-up by Polly, James’ thuggish gourd and my pumpkin.
The innards of the pumpkin got turned into soup, but I’m not really sure it was worth the effort. I added the flesh to onions that I’d softened in butter with garlic, cumin, cinnamon, dark brown sugar and a tiny pinch of chilli flakes. I waited until the pumpkin cooked down into a lovely, buttery, fragrant pulp before adding the stock. Which is where it all went wrong.
Sainsbury’s “Signature” Chicken Stock tastes of very, very little. It suppose it serves me right for believing that the kind of stocks you get in plastic pouches will somehow be better than something made from a cube. (Yes, I know it would be best to make my own, and I do sometimes, but I’ve not got a proper freezer so it’s not available on demand...) Anyway. It imparted its flavour of very little to my soup which had previously been so enticingly spicy.
I managed to rescue it by reducing the liquid a bit and adding a lot more cinnamon and plenty of salt and pepper. It was served to hungry vegetable carvers with sour cream and paprika-toasted pumpkin seeds who seemed appreciative enough, but I’d rather gone off pumpkins for culinary purposes by then.
