PUMPKINS WITH PURPOSE.

Recipe of the week... Pumpkin Soup!

Hello readers,

How are you this evening? Are you feeling well? Has it been a good weekend? Did you get to see any friends or family? Launch your Halloween celebrations? Crunch any autumn leaves?

However you’ve spent your weekend, I hope it’s been a really good one, readers. Can you believe it’s almost the end of October?? And the clocks have turned for winter?? It's crazy how time flies!

As I write, we’re two days off November 2016 (which sounds very wintry to say!) and the clocks have gone back an hour so it’s seven in the evening and it’s been dark for hours now. Crazy! Titanic is on TV (*weeps*) and my house is filled with cobwebs as I threw a Halloween party last night!!

I really got into Halloween this year, readers, and I’ve had fun this week party prepping. It’s been quite the project – every lunchtime at work I’ve gone out and picked up something new – booze, shot glasses, jelly, gummy eyeballs, candles… was determined to be the hostess with the mostest!

Finally, it all came together last night. Me n CoolyColey carved some (sort of) frightful pumpkins to light party goers way and I decked out the livingroom with spooky decorations! The guests arrived in some super impressive costumes and we launched a triple assault of Halloween drinking games.

Pierre and Frankie greeting the guests

The house all trimmed up for Halloween

Though I may have put more thought into the house décor than my actually costume (a sign of aging!), and ended up going out as a sort of skeleton/mime/panda, it was great to see everyone. Any excuse for a get together with the friends!

How’s your Halloween, readers? Did you do any partying yourselves this weekend? Or are you saving all the fun for the 31^st tomorrow? Whatever you’ve been up to and whatever you may have planned for tomorrow, I hope you get to see your friends and have a grand old spooky time!

Your guess is as good as mine

Some cracking costumes from the girls though!

Once you’re all partied out, readers, my Recipe of the Week this week is here to provide you with the ultimate solution to your what-to-do-with-the-pumpkin dilemma! If you find Hungover You thinking ‘maybe I’ll just chuck it’… don’t do it!!! That’s one giant vegetable you’ve purchased right there, readers, what a shame it would be to throw it away.

Let’s not be wasteful, readers. I say save that pumpkin til you’ve recovered from the jelly shots and you’re well enough to stand at length. And then do something great with it! Maybe scroll back to my last blog post and check out the recipe I shared for maple roast roots? Pumpkin can definitely be roasted! Get it in the oven!

Don't let your pumpkin go to waste!

Or think of all the things you can buy in the supermarket that come in a pumpkin flavour. There’s pumpkin pie, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin ravioli… why not have a crack at making one of these at home? I ate out this week at an Italian and tried a pumpkin risotto from the specials menu… blew my mind! Who know you could put pumpkin in a risotto?? But so good.

Or, if you’re heading into the office this week, why not turn your pumpkin into a delicious soup that you can heat up for your lunch some days? This is what I’ve done! Rolling out a ChefBeHere classic recipe for Pumpkin Soup… which you can find HERE.

This is a really simple recipe, readers, you just need to make sure you have onions and stock cubes in and nip out to the shop for some double cream. There’s very little skill required and it’s quite fun! If you didn’t get all your aggression out, when you were carving the pumpkin earlier this week, well now you get to go to town and hack it into tiny little pieces.

A very straightforward recipe

Go for it, readers! I think homemade soup is in a whole other league to soup from the shop. You know there’s nothing weird in there, and it’s so flavoursome and tasty! You’ll be hard pressed to find a pumpkin in a week or two, once the supermarkets kick them back out, so make the most of your pumpkin… and I hope some of you have a go at transforming it into Pumpkin Soup.

Meanwhile, readers, once I’m done weeping over Jack and Rose I think I might run a bubble bath and have an early night. That’s enough excitement for one weekend. Wishing you all a lovely, calm week ahead… and some scrumptious pumpkin recipes in your belly.

My Pumpkin Soup all Tupperwared ready for work

Soup safely,

Hayley

ANOTHER USE FOR OATS... AND MICROWAVES

Easy Apple Crumble

 

Time taken: 20 mins, more or less

Ingredients: 1 apple, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, plain flour, corn flour, granulated sugar, light brown sugar AND OATS.

 

Hi readers,

Your eyes do not deceive you! Today, on this momentous day, I’ve found a banging new way for students to use microwaves, this time to make magic with oats! Today is SO GOOD. Today I had a lie in, tidied all my shit, went for a really good jog in the sun and NOW THIS. I’m not sure today could be improved upon. Literally, that good.

 

So aside from blogging, readers, my one true love of online media HAS to be Instragram. I depend on it so much. There isn’t a day I can’t document with at least one good photo. And I’m so nosy! I love to see people’s pictures from all over the world. And to check in on Yoga Girl.

 

But in my house the big craze is for Pinterest. One of my flatmates in particular, let’s call her Tiddy, lives life for her pins! Fashion, hair, food, inspirational quotes… all the kinds of things I like on Instagram she pins on Pinterest! And as I follow barely anyone in Pinterest, my homepage is literally an insight into the world of Tiddy.

 

This morning, I was hibernating in bed with my phone and I checked in on the World of Tiddy, and found a recipe that made me want to get out of bed it looked so good!! I powered through my to-do list and made this for the world’s best lunch. It’s an apple crumble for one person that you can make without any special ingredients, and you can make it in the microwave! Genius.

 

I adapted it a little, but the original recipe this was based upon (thank you so much Averie for inventing this beauty!) can be found here…

http://www.averiecooks.com/2013/09/5-minute-microwave-apple-cinnamon-crumble-for-one.html

 

To make your apple crumble just follow these ten easy steps:

1. Stick the kettle on for a cuppa and gather together your ingredients.

2. To make your crumble topping pop into a bowl: 2 tablespoons of butter, 2 tablespoons of light brown sugar, 2 tablespoons of oats, 2 tablespoons of plain flour, a small shake of nutmeg and a big shake of cinnamon.

3. Use a fork to stir it all up! Your mix should combine into a sandy, pebbly, beachy mix. Set this aside for now.  

 

4. Use a sharp knife to chop your apple up into cubes.

 

ChefBeHere Top Tip: I left the apple skin on as I hear this is where all the goodness is stored. :) This worked out fine!

5. Pop your apple cubes into a bowl along with a tablespoon of butter.

 

ChefBeHere Top Tip: I scooped a spoonful of butter out of the tub, then used my sharp knife to dot little bits of it all over my apples. For an even spread of the stuff.

6. Pop your bowl of apple n butter into the microwave to warm for 2 minutes, so your butter melts.

7. Take it out and add to your bowl: 2 tablespoons of light brown sugar, 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon of cornflour, a small shake of nutmeg and a big shake of cinnamon. Stir it up!

 

8. Sprinkle your crumble topping over the top.

 

9. Pop in the microwave to heat for 3 minutes until it's bubbling and all cooked.

 

10. Safely transport your crumble into your hibernation zone.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: I burned my tongue on mine. Maybe leave it a minute or 2 to cool.

And you just made yourself a crumble using the microwave!

 

I cannot believe that this works… but it does! This recipe makes for a crumble which is EXTREMELY sweet. And it makes like a bear-sized portion of the stuff. But I am complaining about neither of those facts. Not at all. This tastes utterly scrumptious and it’s so easy to make, I’m going to be adding this to my regular repertoire, fo sho. Mmm.

Please, go give this a go. For your belly’s sake and for your happiness levels. And share with me your thoughts on microwave apple crumble! What do you think of the smell? The taste? The quantity? The crumbliness?? I challenge you to find a bad word to say about this recipe! Fill me in on your crumble feedback.

 

And keep on loving your weekend!

Microwave safely,

Hayley

 

SUPER SUNDAY SMOOTHIE

Kiwi-Apple Smoothie

 

Time taken: 15 mins

Ingredients: 4 kiwis, a good glug of apple juice, 2 tablespoons of natural yoghurt & 4 ice cubes.

Morning readers,

This post is a bit of a fly-by-hi from me! HI READERS. Basically, I’m back at work this weekend earning a living, having somehow blagged a 6-week Christmas break from work (?!). It’s such a shock to the system to be back again! So, this weekend I’m off feeding the people of Newcastle International Airport, once more. Or I will be when I remember how everything works! And I don’t have much time for recipe excitement, unfortunately.

 

HOWEVER, I do have a top idea for how to throw together a healthy, energy-packed, really tasty snack for when you’re on-the-go like me!

 

So, my idea is a green smoothie and I know these are really popular now among dieters and healthnuts, alike. There’s something about a smoothie being green that seems to give it ‘cool’ status. BUT I don’t want vegetables or leaves in my smoothies. Just no. Noooooooo. It’s like… ick! No.

 

So here’s how to whip up an ace green smoothie, with no weird things inside it…

1. Chop up your kiwis and throw away the skins.

2. Pop the kiwi pieces in your blender.

3. Add 2 decent tablespoons of natural yoghurt.

4. Then, add around 4 ice cubes.

5. Pour apple juice over this all.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: I poured until it looked like there was a glassful of stuff in my blender. This isn’t very precise sorry but y’know.

6. Whizz it all up!

7. Serve in a tall glass with a straw.

Like this!

 

And you just hashed together a bountiful boost of a snack. Slurp away on your smoothie while you rush about doing things and you won’t be drooping before the next meal time!

 

How do you like your Kiwi-Apple Smoothie?? Tasty, huh? At very least, I think it has to beat any kind of drink involving spinach or kale! It’s just so odd to me putting leaves into your smoothie! So, join me, and make yourself one of these bad boy smoothies, because they’re super cool and green, and they taste like the bomb! But there isn’t any weird stuff lurking within. I guarantee it.

 

Smoothie safely this weekend,

Hayley