So this month has been a busy one, the children have been on holiday so things have been busy and the fields around me have changed noticeably. The trees have turned from green to bright yellow and the silver birches drape their pretty yellow leaves over everything. All of our wine has been bottled and the ale we made has been going down well. The spiced Christmas ale will be made next week so it will be ready in time and on our walks we have gathered pinecones for Christmas crafts and they have dried out on the Rayburn.
A week ago a kind of madness set in and I bought a huge pumpkin to cook down and make into bread. The experiment, while foolhardy, went well and resulted in 8 loaves of bread. The taste was far better than anything I expected considering I made up the recipe as I went along. My most beautiful loaf so far came out of this bake; a boule, proofed in a banneton and slashed to perfection. I froze most of the loaves ready for stews and soups and we have already enjoyed one of them. My addiction to baking hasn't helped the electricity bill at all so I will be trying to cook it in the Rayburn soon. Every day she is lit and the cat curls up next to it while JR lurks by my ankle. I have some bad news; it looks as though Fat Pigeon has met his end as I have not seen him in over three weeks. Admittedly the happy cat and the pile of feathers only added to my suspicions so it does look as though the cat got him but hopefully he just went elsewhere for a few weeks in an attempt to scare other people as they open their curtains in the morning.
I have been thinking about getting a camera in order to take some pictures of the world around me in this beautiful place but let's just say I am not gifted in this area so for every good picture I take there are several fuzzy ones that get deleted. It's that time of year when most of my baking is spiced with warm flavours and fruit tea loaves are served alongside gingerbread men. Halloween crafts were minimal as we were out in the woods on the night but we still carved some little squashes, one each, and used some LED tealights (a first for me) and they worked brilliantly. Gone is the odd vegetable caramel smell of singed pumpkin and no risk of a repeat of the disaster year for me when the lid shrunk with the heat of the candle then fell inside the pumpkin.
October brought a new drink discovery for me and I can definitely recommend Cairn o'Mohr which is made in Perthshire. So far we have tried the Autumn Oak Leaf, the Elderberry and the Bramble and all of them are delicious so if you fancy trying some here is the link: http://www.cairnomohr.com/
Hugs from Haggis Land x
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