I spent all day (!) in the kitchen the other day, with a pumpkin, some home-grown tomatoes and some cooking inspiration. I desperately wanted to cook something wholesome, spiced and autumnal, using-up as many odds and ends as possible. The decision was made to find a pumpkin pie recipe, and with half of the pumpkin make a pie, with the other half, a soup. I must admit, I thought the pumpkin pie would be not only a disaster, but an icky disaster, as I completely failed to see why anyone would like to eat such a thing, but as I'm a glutton for deserts of all kinds, I went along and had a go (and very glad I did so, too!).



I made my own pastry, because a) I enjoy making the stuff, and b) nothing bought is as good as my own - so there! It was a pâté sucrée (or sweet, rich shortcrust) from Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall's River Cottage Cookbook. I blind-baked it first, having got the pumpkin itself softened, cooled and blended. To that you then add the makings of what is, essentially, a custard-tart (eggs, cream, spices, sugar). Mix, add to pastry, cook. It did set, to my sheer delight, and what's more, it tasted absolutely amazing. I made two and have frozen one, for a cool night when nothing less will do but spicy, warm treats. A recipe similar to the one I used is here, although I didn't use honey (preferring light soft brown sugar) and I altered all of the ratios of ingredients to taste.

The soup is a simple thing to do, so simple I can do it by rote, because soups have to be one of the most comforting foods possible (and so yummy!). Did I mention I also roasted a tray of our home grown tomatoes, with herbs and garlic, until beautifully soft and caremelised, blitzed them thoroughly and used them as the pasata topping for Nigella's My Involtini (it can't be Nigella's, it's been changed so much over the months to suit my moods, and pantry). The sharp tang of unripe tomatoes mixed with the ripe, and also garlic, olive oil and herbs just made this pasta sauce heaven (see below)!



All in all, a pretty good day's work!

[Image from windpower.org]
It's been a while since I posted about my own Green Revolution, but we're still doing our best to make this little house of ours as green as it can be! Which makes today's news even better - B&Q, the British DIY magnate will be selling wind turbines, the first high-street chain to do so. Making green power finally accessible to the masses, which leaves me with the niggling feeling that this is all a bit 'too little too late', but according to many climate-change experts and the Micropower Council, this will herald a new Green Revolution, with mainstream households choosing to go with microgeneration. How much will this little lot cost? For a side-fitting Windsave turbine it'll set you back £1500, with possible additions to cost, such as bespoke brackets if your house isn't 'standard'. I am truly excited about this, and like all new technology, the prices will come down with time. B&Q are also stocking some very nifty water-heating solar panels, a set of three costing around £2498. Don't get these panels confused with photo-voltaic (PV or electricity producing) panels, which actually produce electricity. Those cost significantly more, and whilst having the benefit of not being dependent on their exact placement (they only need to be somewhere sunny and preferably south-facing), they were found not to be as productive as a small wind turbine. However a large DIY supermarket making the first tentative steps into the Green is a Very Good Thing - I await a price drop, then we're coming off grid, baby!

Just a couple of the vegetables that have graced our table over the last couple of days, not to mention the potatoes, peas, broccoli, chard and onions! The garden is still looking good, despite having pulled so many of the summer annuals up. The two smothered roses, Rosemoor and Felicite Parmentier are starting to enjoy their new-found freedom, and William Morris is literally dripping with huge buds, waiting to burst. The pumpkin is one of 5, the others still not quite ripe, but nearly so - the definite sign of Autumn.

I feel like my feet have not touched the floor for the last week. My mother came up to visit, as well as working, it feels like I've not been home for so long that I'm just enjoying being able to catch up on the computer for a few moments of unadulterated bloggy bliss. Nothing much has been happening per se, but with my mother up to stay I've had a lovely week of doing very little except what we both wanted to do, although our days were always cram-packed with activity. It proved to be a very busy rest-cure, but just what the doctor ordered!

On our travels around charity shops (an obsession teetering on the ridiculous), my mother and I came across what has to be the most beautiful dining table. It's a 1920's art-deco style solid oak Beautility drop-leaf table, which has definitely been through the wars, but with sanding to remove the standard-issue toffee-coloured polish, it'll be beautiful. Utility furniture was created during WWII, with furniture manufacturers being forced to produce regulation-design products which were built to withstand the rigours of daily life, use a set amount of materials, and often push the boundaries of design. I fell in love with the curved art-deco legs. It now sits in our 1920's/30's dining room, with new curtains (hurrah for throwing out cheap Ikea venetian blinds!) and a new lamp.

Today is nothing but washing, ironing and 'puttering' - as I work on Sundays, the husband gets everything nice and tidy for me to come home to, with dinner always gorgeous (he is a great cook) and something relaxing for me to do afterwards, it makes the hard work all worth it! I am considering getting my husband to give lessons to other husbands, a potential goldmine there, I'm sure hehe! Oh also rock buns, I feel like I could do with some baking today, it's the only time these days I get some quiet meditation - with the added bonus of gorgeous rock-bunny goodness too!

These days are just flying past, perhaps because I am having a fair bit of fun. Work is marvellous, absolutely hectic, tiring and sometimes stressful, but I'm enjoying every moment. I didn't think I'd say that, but working part-time is proving to be a very stimulating, enjoyable occupation indeed. I will miss working during the week, as I have been recently, doing my stint at training has been excellent.

I've also been nose-deep in Coming Home by Rosamund Pilcher. It's a book I've fallen in love with, having seen the ITV drama some years ago and adoring not only the romance and the costume-drama-ness of it, but also the Cornwall that I know and love so well. A long, meandering book, always pricked with sorrow, but inevitably followed by a happy ending. Having finished Coming Home, I was scouring the book shelves, wondering which book would be next. I have a pile already neatly formed in my bedside cabinet, waiting to be devoured and savoured. Instead of reading something easy, I want to expand my literary horizons, dip my toe into different wordy waters, and see what I can find and learn from the experience. I looked onto the shelf and saw, looking back at me, a very very old copy of Laclos' 'Les Liasons Dangereuse'. It's a thick tome of a book, and one that can be wordy in the extreme, but nonetheless is a good book, the storyline is riveting, if a little slow in places. I got about half-way through the book, then we moved, it got put into a box and forgotten about for a while before it was unpacked and left to fester on the shelf. I will one day start it again.

Then my eye wondered to Homer's Odyssey. I love the Classics, I must've been the only girl in boarding school who loved Latin class, and could've quite happily spent an afternoon reciting "Winnie ille Pu". I found a beaten-up old copy of The Odyssey a while ago having completely forgotten about it. Heavily foxed and musty-smelling, it was just the book I need for cool nights and cooler mornings, in between work-work and house-work. It got me thinking about the meaning of an odyssey, usually described as:

"A long series of wanderings or adventures, esp. when filled with notable experiences, hardships, etc."

Which then led me to thinking about my funny little life of late, how many things have changed and how I've done things recently that I never thought I'd be able to do. Life is peppered with wanderings and adventures, notable experiences and usually some hardships somewhere. It's as though every few years something causes change, like the Incas and their pachacuti (pachacuteq) or world-changing/world-disrupting event that always brings in the new. The one certain thing is that there are no certain things.

But this year has been nice and I've achieved far more than I expected, and good things to boot. I got married, got myself an interview, and a job! I don't know where my own personal little odyssey is going to take me, but it's enjoyable to wait and not-know all of the details! It's what keeps life exciting.

You're all wondering where this is going, right? I don't quite know. It is more a stream of thought, the strange things that can spring upon us, good and bad. I don't think I'm going to be as lucky as Judith Dunbar, the heroine of Coming Home, and have an aunt leave me ridiculously rich, with no choice but to buy a wonderful house in Cornwall. But when I catch myself thinking about all the funny little things that happen, you never know what's just around the corner on this little odyssey of ours.

If anyone would like to add to my 'to find/ to read' list, please feel free!

My current books and authors include:

A tale of two cities
Anya Seaton
The Man in the Iron Mask
Laurie Lee
Gore Vidal
Cathy Reichs
Barbara Pymm
James Joyce
Louisa May Alcott
...and others!

Remember me mentioning I had something very exciting to tell you all, but wouldn't, for fear of jinxing it? Well, I can now reveal that I have got myself a little job and can now be considered a working girl! It is the first time I've been employed by someone else, and the first time I will be working a 9 to 5, but it's only one day a week, so I can still be at home and doing all of the things I want to do here! Perfect!

I won't bore you with details, but everyone there is lovely, friendly local lasses (all women) who are really helpful. I have another two half-day training sessions, and then I am ready to be left to start doing all that's required of me! It was an experience, my knees were killing me and my feet three sizes bigger than usual, but I actually kept thinking how much I was enjoying myself. For me, that's not only unusual but highly unlikely, given my usual penchant for pessimism.

Anyway, this is just a quickie update, before we rush off out to do *something*, because we want to celebrate, go out, do something fun. Perhaps a train ride, or maybe just a potter around local cafés, or making use of the HistoryMatters free open days at historic locations all over the country!



And for an added bit of weekend randomness, I'll leave you with this, found deep in the woods. Is it art? Or merely a cup left on a trunk by a passing wanderer?

The last couple of days have cleared my head wonderfully. Along with other excitements I've had my windows cleaned (lovely pair of chaps do it monthly - honestly, me, up a ladder?!), done heaps and heaps of ironing, vacuumed downstairs (duct tape is a wonderful thing...) and for the first time in aaages I've been in the mood to bake. I left my sugar-free regimen on hold, because during times of stress I felt I needed something to make life a little sweeter. But I am now returning to a life without sugar, which is nice and safe, because there are foods that as much as I may want, I know aren't helping me in the slightest, so out they go! Though, I must admit, my love of M&M's has been re-kindled, thankfully only briefly.



Today was a biscuit day and no mistake, my darling husband will appreciate these peanutty creations without doubt.



I mentioned the kitchen was in a green state of anarchy, well now is is more sedately painted all over, in a shade of sage-green that I'm finding most appealing. Not usually a green fan; I saw an item of loveliness when perusing Fenwicks at the weekend and proclaimed that yes, most definitely, the kitchen is going to be this colour, and walked off leaving the poor husband a bit bewildered but accepting.

We found three colours, the kitchen is now "tea-tree" and is divine. We bought another two tins, one called champagne which is pale cream and a warm, mucky grey-green which is also absolutely perfect. That will be for the dining room, anything to get rid of the Royal Blue in there at the moment!

See? Not all doom and gloom!

Days at Chez VintagePretty are manic. This, my dear readers, is an understatement. It has been the strangest two weeks possible, ending in the most frightening event of my life to date. So apologies for not posting or commenting! Hokey dokey, where to start? Well, the whole strangeness started a couple of weeks ago - at least this is where I can remember things starting to get a little weird... Our hoover decides it's going to spew out dust. It is just out of warranty, but so new that even the repair man can't get any parts to mend it! Our second hoover's (one up, one down - hey, I was a cleaner!) tube has an enormous hole in the pipe - which was remedied by duct tape (the saviour of all saviours) and a firm talking-to. Then the toaster, a mere year old, dies...

Last weekend one of the goldfish was looking unwell, so we kept an eye on her and removed her from the tank and nursed her on her own, thinking she was stressed from one too many unwanted advances from her tank-mate. She died a day later from "dropsy", we don't know what caused it but online it is unanimous that it can't be treated. She was given a beautiful burial in the nicest bit of the garden - the herb bed, layered with flowers and scented things, so she may travel sweetly elsewhere.

So, two hoovers, a toaster and the goldfish have all died (or are dying) a death. Then fast-forward to yesterday, driving home in a mild shower from the DIY shop, having purchased paint to enliven our kitchen, when coming slowly off a roundabout my car suddenly swerves and before I know it we've done a 360º pirouette, and have nearly rolled the car over into a ditch. And would you believe it, we weren't the only ones to have done the same. Not 10 metres from the car is another, sportier-looking thing which an hour before had swerved identically to ours and sent its owner to hospital. Thank gods for off-duty police officers, one of which was attending to the first accident when he comes by and sees me do my manic pirouetting act. He rushed over to see if we were ok, and whilst talking to him, another car does the same thing. I kid you not. 3 accidents all within an hour of each other, on the same bit of road. Thankfully no one was seriously hurt - but scary! SO scary. The car is fine, ironically, although we are both completely shaken. Of course, I took my car to a local garage to have it checked over by mechanics, for my own piece of mind, and spend 4 1/2 hours waiting there for them to give me new brake-pads (mine were fine, but "would need changing within the year - why don't we do it for you now?"!). Ugh. The police decided the reason for the accident was the hot weather had caused a coating of rubber to be left on the road surface and with the rain, caused a skid-pan effect.

I come home to a house that looks as though Godzilla has tromped his (her?) way through the place, with our entire kitchen in the dining room, the dog having broken a plate, and the kitchen in a half-greened state of anarchy. I hear punk is coming back into fashion - my kitchen could be a trend-setting Vivienne Westwood affair!

I do have some good, positive stuff, but for fear of laying the jinxes on it, I am keeping Mum until I'm sure ;-) Please excuse my absence, insanity is slowly calling.