Pumpkin party!

So sometimes I bake things.  Or cook things.  It’s never perfect, but it’s okay… and it’s satisfying.  Especially when I get to use home produce.

I’ve had a giant pumpkin sitting on my kitchen dresser for the last couple of weeks.  It was what you could call a ‘happy accident’, having grown out of the compost I had dug in around my apple tree some months ago.  The tree hasn’t given me any apples yet, but it gave me a pumpkin, so I’m pretty happy.

Anyway, the main reason the pumpkin sat on the dresser for so long is because it’s so big I’ve had no idea what to do with it!  Well, I guess it’s not that big…  if I entered it into a giant pumpkin contest, for example, I’m pretty sure it would come last… BUT… it is about four times the size of any pumpkin I’ve seen in the stores… which makes it about four times bigger than anything I know how to work with.

So I decided that times like these call for a PUMPKIN PARTY!

I had some sage that my mother-in-law gave us recently, so I found a pretty awesome recipe for pumpkin and sage savoury muffins.  Then I still had pumpkin left so I made vegan pumpkin oatmeal cookies.  But then I STILL had pumpkin left, so I made a basic pumpkin soup for dinner.  There’s just so much of it, really!  Not to mention all the seeds!  The SEEDS – what do I do with them all?!  In the challenge of a waste-free, sustainable household, I decided to roast them in a sweet and spicy coating.

All in all, nearly everything I used came from what we had in the garden or the pantry.  The only things I had to buy were molasses, together with some wholemeal flour and rolled oats – I forgot that I hadn’t replaced them since the Great Pantry Moth Saga of 2011.  And, as ridiculous as it sounds, I still have half the pumpkin (or ‘Big Mother’, as I have now called it) left.  The next plan is some roast pumpkin for salads, and maybe some more soup for freezing.  But that’s another plan for another day.

A short break.

Goodness! It has been a while since I’ve updated, huh?!  To be honest, I’ve just been having far too much fun out in the sunshine.  For a start, I have been working on the motorcycle (my lovely 1980 Honda CB250RS) and when I haven’t been working on it, I’ve been riding it!  Oh, and when I haven’t been doing either of those things, I’ve been chatting with the nice folks over at vjmog.com (the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Owners Group).

Craft has gone out the window for a little while.  My needlework lace has been replaced with oily rags.  But what can I say, the sunshine has been just beautiful.  So please excuse me while I head out for a ride!

xox

Easy vegan: chickpea dumpling soup

A couple of days ago my lovely friends, Karen and Simone, came over to help me get my motorbike back on the road. I decided to make some chickpea and tomato dumpling soup for lunch. It was a veganised, adulterated version of a recipe I found in the Family Circle “Complete Vegetarian Cookbook”. Seb and I have cooked this soup regularly, but I still always enjoy the results.

Ingredients:
oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp chilli powder
2 x 300g cans chickpeas
3 1/2 cups vegetable stock
2 x 425g cans chopped tomatoes
1 tbs chopped fresh coriander leaves
1 cup SR Flour
25g butter
2 tbs grated parmesan (I used soy cheese)
2 tbs mixed chopped herbs
3 tbs milk (I used extra water)

Method:
Heat the oil & cook the onion until soft.
Add the garlic, cumin, ground coriander and chilli & cook until fragrant.
Add the chickpeas, stock and tomato. Bring to the boil, the reduce and simer for 10 minutes. Add in the fresh coriander.
Dumplings:
Sift flour into a bowl.
Add chopped butter. Rub together with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the cheese and herbs. Make a well in the centre and add water.
Combine, then divide into balls.
Add the dumplings to the soup, simmer for 20 minutes (covered).

Easy!

Easy vegan: peanut butter cookies

I’ve been feeling under the weather this weekend so didn’t find time for any Sunday craft.  However, that didn’t stop me from indulging in some terribly unhealthy baking.  I opted for these tasty, coronary-clogging peanut butter cookies (as found at ChooseVeg) and, really, baking doesn’t get any easier!  Just take the ingredients shown in the image below, mix them together, roll into balls and bake.

The results? It feels like eating peanut butter out of the jar… if you added extra sugar and oil to the spoon.  Eating any more than one is sure to cause longterm health problems.  However, these cookies tick every comfort food box.