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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