Pumpkin Muffins

With the snow still falling and the broken freezer still half full, time for yet more cooking and baking.

Today : Pumpkin Muffins

120g butter at room temperature

150g brown sugar

4 tablespoons molasses or golden syrup

1 beaten egg at room temperature

225g cooked pumpkin puree

225g white flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 teaspoon of grated nutmeg (optional)

50g raisins or currants

Preheat oven to 200°C - this mix will make approximately 14 muffins so prepare the requisite number of paper cases.

• Cream the butter and sugar together untilo soft, add the sugar and the molasses/syrup and beat with an electric whisk until light and fluffy.
• Add the egg and the pumpkin, stir well until blended.
• Sift over the flour, salt, bicarb, cinnamon and nutmeg, fold just enough to blend together, do not overmix.
• Fold in the dried fruits.
• Spoon the mixture into the cases, filling them 3/4 full.
• Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until the tops spring back when touched lightly.

I am using my silicone mould for the first time. This was given to me by a friend who had tried it and was not impressed, I had obviously then shoved it into the back of the cupboard and now it is going up against paper cups in direct competition.

With the left overs of pumpkin puree and last night's courgette and tomato spicy meatball sauce, I am combining to make a Thai red curry soup for Brendan tomorrow for his breakfast.  Yes - breakfast, as he is going to be up at 4am to drive the snow plough for the first time around the commune, so by the time he gets home he thinks he is going to want something more substantial than a cup of coffee and a slice of cake like normal.

With a helping hand from Ferguson

Today it is lovely and sunny, and rather warm for an autumnal day, which goes some way to making up for the fact that it has dropped below freezing for the last three nights, in fact last night it got down to -5°c.

Meaning of course that things are dying off in the garden, first to go were all the pumpkin plants, all those thick stalks full of water have no chance when it  keeps freezing, consequently no champion sized pumpkins this year, but a plentiful crop nonetheless, now with their backsides drying in the sun before heading underground for winter storage.

The next thing to go were all the tomato plants outside.  Those in the greenhouse are all doing fine, although I am doubtful that they will all go red in there before the heavy frosts start.

And some things are remarkably resilient, have reseeded themselves and are going rather well already - radishes of course.

Took a third cut of my cut and come again broccoli heads today as well, and here are half of them boiled up ready to make a broccoli quiche slice for lunch.

Line a tin with some flan pastry, then add in the cooked florets of broccoli.

Make a basic quiche mix, a good way of using up surplus eggs, I use 5 or 6 eggs, 250ml of cream, 1/2 teaspoon salt, lots of black pepper, a tablespoon of dried herbs usually parsley and 1/2 teaspoon of paprika.  I know that using cream does not make for a healthy quiche, but it does taste lots better.

Add the broccoli - if I had any spare bits of sandwich ham I would have added this too, but as the fridge is bare, veggie slice only on the menu.

Top with some slices of ripe tomato, then bake in the oven for 35 minutes at 180°C.

Serve hot or cold with salad for a tasty quick lunch.

And just to prove how hard my inner nerd worked - here is my wardrobe all aired, refolded, neatened, straightened and sorted.

Thursday was brought to you by the letter 'P'

As part of my drive to make things more manageable in the garden, today I decided not to just section the areas mentally that I was going to concentrate on, but today I decided to concentrate solely on the letter P.

So parsnips, pumpkins and peas.  (I did potatoes the other day so they could stay out of today's list of items.)

Firstly the peas canes were weeded and the peas fastened up to the strings.

Then the parsnips - what there is of them were weeded, they have been resown twice now, and twice, immediately after sowing it has either rained or snowed for weeks, and so from a whole row I now have about 6 viable plants in total.  I have given them a last chance to go for it with the last few seeds from an open packet and if they don't grow, then there will be significantly fewer parsnips in the freezer this year.

Finally the pumpkin row was cleaned up, and I transplanted the random growing pumpkins into their allocated space.  I just hope that they survive the transplant as it is very hot today.  I have given them extra water but again will just have to wait and see.