Pumpkin Soup

Want to try something warm and satisfying? How about this soup with crusty bread rolls:

picture from http://www.cupcakegrenade.com/ 

 Ingredients

1 pumpkin

2-3 onions

vegetable or chicken stock

Butter

vegetable oil

salt and pepper

Method

Set your oven to its hottest, then cut the pumpkin onto four and remove the seeds. put a little oil, salt and pepper on your pumpkin then bake until it is cooked - soft when you cut it with a knife.

In the meantime chop up your onions and fry at a hot temperature in butter and oil, for a minute, then turn right down and slow fry until caramelised - soft and brown.

Put your cooked pumpkin, any juice from it, and the onions in a food mixer and blend - add hot stock to make it the thickness you like, serve with bread rolls.

Pumpkin Fritters

This recipe is a bit of a make it and see - you might like a little more spice, a little less sugar... have a go and see what you think!

 Picture from http://babootie.com/

Ingredients

1 small pumpkin

2 eggs

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon all spice

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 tablespoon brown sugar (or whatever sugar you have)

self raising flour

caster sugar to dust

Method

De-seed, peel, chop up and boil your pumpkin - it is cooked when it feels soft to cut with a sharp knife. then mash it and stir in the sugar, spices and egg.

Add flour a little at a time until you get a thick batter. Shallow fry a tablespoon of batter at a time and dust the fritters with caster sugar. 

You can eat them on their own or serve them with ice cream or maple syrup.

Friday catch up - Halloween Fun Day

Today started with garden work alongside setting up for the fun day, with the continuation of the building of the tool wash area and bug hotel extension:

Hot off the press, some snaps from today's fun day, which included pumpkin carving, mud monsters, the smoothie pedal bike, apple bobbing, halloween hunt, guess the weight of the pumpkin, how many seeds in the jar, face painting, composting (and all about worms) and lots of yummy food including pumpkin soup and pumpkin fritters - phew!  

Recipes in the next couple of posts and  photos from our official photographer to come, but in the meantime, a little flavour of the day:

Friday catch up - weeding

It was all about the weeding today. Its a job that always needs doing, but we especially want the People's Garden to look good for next weeks Halloween fun day (Click picture for larger size):

So we weeded the borders (and saved the horseradish):

And the veg beds:

And there was still time to admire the flowers:

And even learn something about the Garden's soil  texture - the picture below shows how the soil at the garden is a lot of sand (bottom) then silt, then clay, and (at the top) organic matter. It shows that although the soil is free draining, it doesn't have much nutrients... hence the tons of muck that are shovelled onto the site!!

Friday catch up - memorial tree

There was lots to do in the garden today...

While the remaining tomatoes "hang about":

There was plenty of autumn clearing to do:

 And surveying of the new roots bed:

As well as the digging up and potting of self seeded grasses:

We also prepared a place for the memorial tree for much loved and missed artist and volunteer, Paul. His tree is called  "Paul's Scarlet" (Catagus lavaegartus). We look forward it its planting: