Pumpkin Costume

Are you in need of a last minute (and slightly ridiculous) Hallowe'en costume? Well you have come to the right place! This year, I decided I wanted to be a giant pumpkin and was going to inflict the same fate on my lovely friend Sarah, who had asked me to make her a costume. I headed to the Guildhall Market in Bath to pick up some bright orange dress lining fabric from the sewing stall there, which was a bargain at £3.98 for 2 metres. I then grabbed a ball of string and off I went.

1. Cut the fabric in half lengthways to make 2 'pumpkins' (if necessary).

2. Tuck a piece of string of equal length to the fabric into a pinned hem (about 3cm) at the top. Note- do not cut the string off of the ball yet, as you will not need a whole metre of string, but it makes it much easier to sew if it's of equal length to the fabric:

3. Holding the fabric taut with the string right at the top, stitch along to form a hem. Make sure you leave plenty of string poking out the end as below:

4. You can now decide how much string you need at the top by modelling your pumpkin. Place the pumpkin as desired (I had mine under my arms to leave them free, but you could just as well have it over the top of your arms and cut arm holes) and then gather up the pumpkin until it forms a full circle around you. Snip the string, leaving enough to tie the strings in a bow/knot to secure your pumpkin:

5. Knot the ends of the string and add a few stitches (Captain Sew didn't want to do this, so I quickly hand sewed mine) to stop the string getting lost inside the gathered fabric:

6. Repeat steps 2-5 for the bottom of the pumpkin.

7. You are now ready to join the sides of the pumpkin as you please- I tucked mine it to form a simple hem:

8. Try on your pumpkin, preferably with a green top and bottom half. Then stuff as necessary- you are now ready for any Hallowe'en party that may come your way!

This only took me 30 minutes per pumpkin, including some technical Captain Sew difficulties, as none of the sewing needs to be particularly neat. I was rather pleased with the result:

On another pumpkin-based note, we also made productive use of our extra hour today and carved a pumpkin just in time for Hallowe'en:

Happy Hallowe'en everyone!

Toffee Apple Cake

The blustery weather was making me feel very autumnal this weekend and what better way to enjoy this by getting out for a bike ride to a country pub and then coming home to bake a cake with a nod to Hallowe'en and toffee apples?

We cycled to the Five Mile House via some beautiful Cotswolds villages where we stopped for a drink in the October sunshine. The food smelled delicious though, so will have to visit when we don't have to cycle back afterwards and can enjoy a sunday roast!

Rustic sign en route:

Five Mile House:

We then made a toffee apple cake from the 'Baking' (Simple Cookery series) book- one of my favourites for quick and easy to follow recipes- with just a few tweaks (less cream and more apples!)

The cake is delicious and I am savouring every last bite as I am going to have to watch what I eat from now on- this desk job has resulted in noticeable weight gain since August, oops! Cue lots more healthy recipes (from Monday... honest).

Pumpkin and Winter Veg Soup

This evening I made some seasonal pumpkin and winter vegetable soup for the long dark evenings which seem to be upon us now.

Ingredients:

1/2 pumpkin with seeds, stringy bits and skin removed

1 onion

1 carrot

1 parsnip

5 medium sized potatoes

1.5l vegetable stock

Salt and pepper

Method

I fried the onion, then added the rest of the vegetables, the stock, coriander and some seasoning and let it simmer away for half an hour, before blending it into a hearty, fairly thick soup.

This made lots of portions (probably about 8), which I have frozen, as you can see the casserole dish was very full, almost cauldron like! This is much more economical (and just about as delicious) as my favourite New Covent Garden Soup, my calculations make this soup about 35p per portion, compared to around £1 RRP per portion for NCG soup.

I have pureed the rest of the pumpkin for a rainy day's baking project, watch this space for some Hallowe'en themed cakes...