Birthday Celebrations

This week I saw in another birthday and a lovely quiet one it was. I got some beautiful gifts...

Considering I said I didn't want to do anything for my birthday I did lots of things to celebrate and despite being ill I had a lovely time.

OH provided me with a treasure hunt for my presents :)

We had lovely food and lots of friends over for drinks the night after and regardless of my fear of a red wine and beige carpet combination, there were no alcohol induced accidents.

Then today my family came round which was a lovely way to spend the last of my few days off.

Not Again

Oh no! I did it again! I let a whole month pass without blogging :(

In my defense I did move house 1 week before Christmas.

This is what has been happening...

Wordless Wednesday

Mumma's Making Vegan Gumbo

Last night I made my first ever Gumbo (vegan gumbo at that!)

I had always shied away from making Gumbo as it is normally made with meat and seafood (and I'm a vegetarian.)

However, my veggie friend made a fantastic vegetarian one and I thought I would give it a bash, I must admit I did not follow a recipe, I looked at a few for inspiration and then made it up as I went along.

Recipe...

• First mix equal amounts of vegetable/olive oil and flour together over a medium to high heat to make a brown rue. (I probably used about 1/3 of a cup of each.)
• Next chop in large chucks/slices 2 red onions, 2 cloves of garlic and 3 sticks of celery. Fry these off in the rue for around 7 minutes.
• Whilst the onion, garlic and celery are frying prepare 4 cups of veggie stock (1 stock cube per 2 cups of hot water) and chop 1 green bell pepper, 4 spring onions, 1 pack of okra.
• After the 7 minutes, add the stock and then all these spices...
• ... 3 bay leaves, 2+ tablespoons of cayenne pepper, paprika, chili powder, Cajun mix (chili powder, oregano, dried garlic, dried onion, black pepper, paprika, cayenne pepper, dried chilies), oregano, thyme, sage, black pepper, dried chilies, 4 tablespoons of vegetarian Worcestershire sauce, 1 chopped green chili.
• Then add the remainder of the chopped veg and add some sweetcorn (optional) and add 3 chopped vegetarian/vegan sausages of your choice.
• Then add enough brown rice to feed 2-4 people.
• Let it cook for 30 minutes to an hour.
• Add more spices to taste if you feel it needs it.

Take out the bay leaves and enjoy :)

My Halloween Weekend...

... Looked like this!

Friday evening was spent at a Celebrity face mask themed birthday pub crawl!

I was Nigella Lawson :)

I was up until 2am Friday night, then up at 6am Saturday morning caring, baking and sewing for our Halloween Party Saturday night (I made my costume and parts of OH's) I finally finished my patchwork dress in my lunch break at work on Saturday :)

Happy Halloween :)

Some more Autumn firsts

This week has seen some more Autumn firsts for me.

On Tuesday I had my first Hot Cider of the year, I was so excited. All of last winter I drank Hot Cider in my local and I've been waiting all year for it to make a come back!

Yesterday I made my first Pumpkin Pie of the year. However, it didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped.

I used this slightly adjusted vegan recipe...

Pumpkin Pie Filling

Ingredients:

• 750g of roasted pumpkin blended into puree
• 150g cup muscovado sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 1 1/2 soy milk with a teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 4 Tablespoons cornflour
• 4 Tablespoons water

1. Mix the pumpkin, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and allspice together in a large bowl.
2. Heat the vanilla soy milk in a small saucepan over low heat.
3. Dissolve the cornstarch or arrowroot powder in a small amount of cold water.
4. Add the dissolved cornstarch to the heated soy milk. Bring to a boil for one minute, then remove from heat. The soy milk should resemble vanilla pudding.
5. Stir the thickened vanilla soy milk into the pumpkin mixture.
6. Set the vegan pumpkin pie filling aside and make the crust, or use a prepared crust and skip to the “Baking the Pumpkin Pie” instructions below.

Pumpkin Pie Crust

Ingredients:

• 125g flour
• 75g non-dairy margarine (I used Pure)
• 3 Tablespoons water

1. Pour the flour into a medium bowl.
2. Cut the margarine into the flour using two dinner knives or forks, until all the margarine is small, flour-coated chunks.
3. Add the water to the flour and mix thoroughly, forming a ball of dough.
4. Spray a pie pan with non-stick cooking spray, or coat it lightly with margarine.
5. Roll out the dough into a circle and place it in the pie pan, or simply press the dough into the pie pan. Make sure the crust is an even thickness throughout, and covers the entire pan.

Bake the Pumpkin Pie

1. Preheat the oven 220 degrees.
2. Pour the pumpkin pie filling into the crust. Bake the pie at 220 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 180 degrees. Bake the pie for 40-50 minutes, or until the pumpkin is firm.
3. Let the pie cool for about two hours before serving.

This wasn't the best Pumpkin Pie I've ever made, so I'm on the hunt for a better one, let me know if you have a good one, I'd love to try it out.

For the original recipe I adapted slightly please see here

In 6 Weeks...

My goodness, I can't believe 6 weeks has past since I last blogged, and as always I have to look back through my photos to remember what on earth I have been up to...

1) I've made lots of risottos...

2.) Dog came back from being missing for 2 Weeks :)

3.) I did lots of baking...

4.) I saw a life size remote control Dalek!

5.) My fruit bowl has seen many a squash...

6.) Minni has just been Minni...

7.) I've made some scrummy food...

8.) We've seen a lot of this guy (a cat, who's name we don't know, but I call Fwiend. He lives on OH's street and has no tail)

9.) I drank Tequila...

10.) We saw some chickens...