Spicy Pumpkin Soup

Posted on November 5, 2015November 5, 2015 by [email protected]

Spicy Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients:
50 g (2 oz) butter
1 kg (2 lb) pumpkin peeled and diced
2 medium onions, chopped
1 tin chopped tomatoes or 4 large tomatoes, skinned* and chopped
2 pints stock (vegetable or beef – stock cubes are fine)
Seasoning:
½ tsp chilli pepper
½ tsp cayenne pepper
½ tsp allspice
1 level tsp cumin
1 level tsp cloves
1 level tsp thyme
If you like a spicy soup you can add more chilli, cayenne and allspice but I find this is tasty but mild enough so even little children enjoy it.

*to skin tomatoes easily simply put in a bowl, pour over boiling water, leave to stand for about a minute and the skin just rubs off.

Method:
Fry the onion in the butter gently until soft,
Add the pumpkin and stir for a few minutes,
Add the tomatoes
Add the stock
Stir in the seasoning
Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 30 minutes until the pumpkin is tender.
Cool slightly, puree in a liquidiser or food processor.

The Nasturtium Fairy

Posted on November 4, 2015November 4, 2015 by [email protected]

The Song of The Nasturtium Fairy

Nasturtium the jolly,
O ho, O ho!
He holds up his brolly
Just so, just so!
(A shelter from showers,
A shade from the sun;)
‘Mid flame-coloured flowers
He grins at the fun.
Up fences he scrambles,
Sing hey, sing hey!
All summer he rambles
So gay, so gay –
Till the night-frost strikes chilly,
And Autumn leaves fall,
And he’s gone, willy-nilly,
Umbrella and all.

From ‘A Flower Fairy alphabet’ by Cicely Mary Barker

Poppies in November

Posted on November 4, 2015November 4, 2015 by [email protected]

Poppies in November

It’s time for bonfire night but I’m still picking sweet peas, the nasturtiums are going strong – and the poppies are still in full flower, brightening up the garden on these musty, misty mornings. It’s just as well we had an Indian summer as the runner beans were planted so late, due to a very cold and wet May, that I doubted we would be picking any beans at all. So maybe the seasons are moving – and we should plan summer holidays in September next year?

Whatever, I have really enjoyed picking sweet peas right through October. I put some in the lounge where I sit in the evenings but also some on the window ledge near the sink – where I seem to spend an awful lot of my time. I do really enjoy cooking vegetables I have grown myself – they taste much better and they are so much fresher – but it is more time consuming than preparing clean, bug-free supermarket varieties.

The rabbits are also enjoying the long season as they get a nasturtium leaf (and sometimes a flower) every day. As the Nasturtium Flower Fairy says, as soon as the frosts come, the nasturtiums are “… gone willy-nilly, umbrellas and all”.

Nasturtiums in November

The Song of The Nasturtium Fairy is from ‘A Flower Fairy alphabet’ by Cicely Mary Barker

Wittenham Cider

Posted on October 20, 2015October 20, 2015 by [email protected]

Samhain – All Hallows Eve – time to make Wittenham Cider – many years ago my aunt gave me this recipe – it’s from a very old newspaper cutting.

Wittenham Cider

3 1b apples
12 pints water
2 lb granulated sugar
3 lemons
empty pop bottles

You will need 2 large clean buckets – one to make the cider in and another to strain the cider into. Approximately 3 lb of apples – any sort – a mixture is best and windfalls are fine. Wash them and chop or mince them up (including peel core and pips) and put them in the bucket.

Pour on 12 pints of cold, unboiled, water. (The original recipe is so old it says 6 quarts of water.)

Leave for a week, stirring night and morning.

Strain through a stocking held over a sieve or colander into the second bucket.

Stir in 2 lb of granulated sugar and the grated rind and juice of three lemons.

Strain again and bottle. Plastic pop bottles will do fine.

It should be drinkable within a week.

If not drinking straight away you will need to release the tops of the bottles regularly so they don’t explode – or you can use old port bottles with corks.

The Nuthatch

Posted on October 7, 2015October 7, 2015 by [email protected]

Nuthatches like sunflower seeds as well as peanuts.

Our neighbour works wonders with bits of old iron and he made this very innovative bird feeder which all the birds love and the cat hasn’t found out how to get onto yet. We get visits from a pair of nuthatches, they usually pick up a peanut and fly off to eat it but this one stayed long enough to be photographed.

I have also seen nuthatches eating melon seeds but they prefer peanuts. The hens like melon seeds too.

New Zealand White Rabbits

Posted on October 7, 2015October 7, 2015 by [email protected]

This is Cowslips latest litter, 5 weeks old.

Baby rabbits must be some of the most adorable babies – once they have all their fur and their eyes are open. They are born blind and deaf and pink-skinned but by 3 weeks old they are miniature versions of their mum hopping about their pen.

By 5 weeks old, the babies always scramble for a bit of their mum’s green food – this time of year it’s Shepherd’s Purse, rocket, spinach, dandelions, clover and the occasional nasturtium leaf (they love nasturtiums but they are quite strong so one leaf a day is enough).

Balloon Flights over Shropshire

Posted on October 7, 2015October 7, 2015 by [email protected]

Sailing across Shropshire on a sultry September evening.

Hot air balloons are surreal and it’s lovely to watch them drifting over the Shropshire fields but they are so silent they can be right above you without you knowing. We used to have a Jack Russell terrier who would bark like mad when he saw a balloon but he’s gone now so I have no warning. Totally engrossed in weeding the vegetable patch the other evening, it really made me jump – creeping silently across the sky and then the burner suddenly roaring just above my head!

Time to Harvest the Onions

Posted on October 7, 2015October 7, 2015 by [email protected]

Late August – time to harvest the onions.

Last year I bought some onion sets from a discount store which I planted in November, and some from a local nursery which I finally planted at the end of March (late because the weather was so awful in early Spring). Whether it was the poor quality of the onions or the fact that the hens kept getting out and scratching in the onion bed, or the wet winter we had, I don’t know, but the onions I planted in March from the nursery were much bigger, despite the shorter growing season.

As soon as the onion tops fall over, it’s time to harvest the onions but you can, of course, eat them before that if you wish. To store them you need to tie string tightly around the neck of each onion so the damp in the stalk doesn’t seep into the onion bulb, then you can tie them up any way you want. Plaiting onions is quite fun and they look great hanging up alongside bunches of dried herbs.

Butterflies love Buddleia

Posted on October 7, 2015October 7, 2015 by [email protected]

Every garden should have a buddleia bush.

Butterflies and bees – and other insects – absolutely love buddleia and I’ve spent many hours in the August sunshine simply watching the different butterflies – this is a peacock which is one of our prettiest but our buddleia attracts red admirals, tortoiseshells and commas as well as speckled woods and cabbage whites. The common purple buddleia is quite vigorous and needs a lot of cutting back so choose a calmer variety if you have a small garden. Keep cutting off the dead flowers and it will continue flowering through September.

Speckled Wood butterfly on potato leaves

Our Wildlife Pool

Posted on October 7, 2015October 7, 2015 by [email protected]

A pool attracts all sorts of plants, animals and insects.

It’s difficult to believe that when we originally dug out this pool and lined it with local clay it was just bare soil. I was told by our local farmer to pull out the trees when they were just saplings – should have listened – now we are having to cut them down.

I also didn’t believe the farmer that bulrushes would take over the pool – I was so delighted to have my own bulrush that I left it and, within a few years the pool was full of bulrushes and not much else. Then it dried out one summer and the next year the bulrushes had almost gone but yellow flag irises were taking over and the water lily was looking decidedly peaky. So you do need to maintain a pond to keep the balance but it’s worth it – we get lots damselflies and dragonflies as well as frogs, toads and newts.

Impossible to believe that the picture below was taken from virtually the same spot in May 2006!

Barbara Rainford

Tag Archives: uplifting

Spicy Pumpkin Soup