SIO Tips no. 22

If you want to fill your garden with colour next spring, plant bulbs from October to December, before the first frost. Daffodils, Tulips, Crocus, Grape Hyacinths and Fritillarias are just some of the plants to choose from.

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SIO Tips No. 21

Want to capture aspects from your wallpaper or curtain fabric to use elsewhere in your room design? Carefully and neatly cut out and frame. Cover the backing wood of the frame with a nice silk or other fabric as the base for your image, then very carefully adhere the cut out design to this backing fabric.  Use as clever accent pieces.

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SIO Tips No. 20

Honey has a high fructose content which means you can use less honey than sugar to achieve the desired sweetness in recipes. This means less calories and more goodness.

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SIO Tips No. 19

Prepping Leeks for a recipe? Make sure you get all the grit out of the leaves - slice vertically down the green stem to the white flesh & rinse under the tap. This is less fiddly than peeling back each layer and yields more for the pot.


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SIO Tips No 18

To get the last bit of glue out of your bottle set it in warm water for a few minutes so it will flow easier.

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Grown up bonfire or Halloween...

There are all the obvious duties around Halloween and Bonfire night, pumpkins to hollow out, bonfires to build but what can you do for a grown up party or to make something from the efforts you put in for the kids?

• Keep the pulp from the pumpkin, no time, freeze and use for soup base later.  Make a rich soup by adding to the pumpkin, chopped peeled potatoes, celery and chicken or veg stock, seasoning, dash of chilli paste, plus a couple of bay leaves.  Cook till soft, remove bay leaves, blend till smooth, adjust seasoning.  Re heat gently adding a little cream or crème fraîche, stir well and serve with crusty bread and hunks of farmhouse cheese.  Warming, spicy and delicious.

• Buy orange and black felt to make your own little pumpkin's, add some cloves to the stuffing to make some grown up decorations to hang up, which also smell so sweet.  Find an old slim branch, silver birch is a good, put this in a tall vase and hang your decorations on the branch or make into a mini string of pumpkin bunting.

• Terrified of losing a filling, skip the bonfire toffee and make/buy a rich sticky toffee pudding instead to serve up to the night time revellers. 

• Drivers amongst the party goers then non-alcoholic mulled wine is nice.  Replace the wine with cranberry juice, add a dash of orange juice, a sachet of mulled spices and heat gently.  Un-sweetened apple juice with shards of peeled root ginger, slices of fresh lemon and a slug of honey, heated also makes a fab winter drink.  Do not like ginger use a cinnamon stick instead.  Mulled wine spice sachets come in little boxes containing several, tea bag like, bags. Get them from the herb and spices display in larger supermarkets.

• In parts of the North of England a tradition on Bonfire Night is hot pork pie served with mushy peas.  Get the best pork pie(s) you can afford and heat in the oven till piping hot and the pastry top crisp, then serve with mushy peas. Not keen on mushy peas, then you could serve baked beans. Mushy peas can be found in the frozen section in supermarkets or from your local fish and chip shop.

Never eaten pork pie hot, well you're missing something lovely.  The better the pie the better the results, check out local farm shops, traditional butchers and farmers markets for those real gems.  Not ideal for those on a diet but as a once in a while treat it is fantastic. 

Now you have no excuse than to party hard - enjoy!


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© Smileus - Fotolia.com  Autumn

© ppfoto13 - Fotolia.com pumpkins

© kellyschulz - Fotolia.com  pork pie

 

Craft Tips No. 17

Old jumpers make fab cushion covers, remember to overlock or hem the edges well to stop fraying



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Craft Tips No. 16

Press & dry colourful autumn leaves, then stick to cards for unusual gift tags.  Cut around or simply make a small presentation card, tie with ribbon or string to your parcel.  Clean pressed leaves also make a nice base for a plate of nuts in their shells on a festive table.

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Craft Tips for Newbies No. 15

Thread looks darker on the spool than it will on fabric. Choose a thread a shade darker than the material you'll be using it on.

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Craft Tips for Newbies No 14

Before throwing out clothing you no longer wear, stock up on notions by saving any usable zippers, buttons, or decorative trim. These can come in handy when you're trying to replace a fastener.

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Feast on Autumn

The wonders of Autumn have arrived, the stunning burnt oranges, the deep reds and the golden tones of the trees are finally here.  When the sunshine shows through the world looks wonderful.  Many fruit and vegetable crops are well down this year all due to the weather hampering everything from the pollenating bees to rotting the potatoes in the fields. In the SIO HQ garden we have a lovely old apple tree but only 5 apples this year, which is a huge shame as normally it is laden.  

However, there is fruit out there and recently we went in search Wimberries (Bilberries), only found a handful or two, not enough for a pie but enough to flavour one.  Add any of the tart fruit to apples, the greatest bulker of pies or crumbles, and you can enjoy the flavour of your red fruit however little you have.  Often, berries and fruiting currants are expensive, so eking out with apple is a really cost effective way to make lovely food go further.  These days you can even buy tinned apple slices in supermarkets if you have no time to peel, these tinned apples are not the gooey pie filling, that is something totally different.

Crumbles can be made more exciting with some of the flour being replaced with oats, adding a little sweet spice such as nutmeg, a touch of honey or even some crushed nuts.  When replacing flour with oats it is normally double flour to oats - so for 8 oz. of flour it would be 4 oz. of oats.

Serve with lashings of hot custard for a real winter warmer.

We found some good examples at http://www.recipes4us.co.uk/Crumble%20Toppings.htm including some excellent savoury ones.  Crumble is so easy to make and you can even store uncooked crumble topping in a air tight box in the freezer to save time later.  Naturally you can also freeze, if well covered/sealed, a fully made crumble too.  Why not stock up when autumn fruits are at their best.  We decided to try out some packet toppings, they vary greatly and only one we really tried we felt we would recommend to stand in for home made and that was Greens. Of course this was not a scientific test and we only tried a few. http://www.greenscakes.co.uk/recipes/desserts/rhubarb,-strawberry-and-coconut-crumble.aspx

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© Smileus - Fotolia.com  

© Colinda McKie - Fotolia.com