Olive, Pumpkin & rosemary bread

Ingredients:

• 500g strong bread flour

• 10g salt

• 20g bread yeast

• 250ml warm water

• 50g black olives (sliced)

• 80g peeled and grated pumpkin or squash

Method:

Mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl, add the yeast. Slowly add a little water at a time, while mixing together with your hands to form a dough.

You can add more or less water depending on how your dough feels.

Tip out onto your worktop and knead for a few minutes.

There are various ways to knead your dough, I like to stretch it out, then roll it back in, and give it a 90 degree turn, before stretching it out again.

Cover with a damp cloth and leave to prove for about 20 minutes.

Lightly dust your work surface with a little flour and roll out the dough to form a rectangle a quarter inch thick.

Drizzle the surface with a little olive oil. Spread the olives, and pumpkin, evenly over the surface.

Roll the dough up from the short end and tuck the ends in to form a loaf. Place on a baking tray.

Leave the loaf to prove for a further 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 250 degrees Celsius.

Slash the top of the loaf along its length, and leave to prove for a further 10 minutes.

Pour some boiled water on the bottom of the oven.

Cook for 10 minutes before dropping the temperature to 200 degrees if the crust is looking pale, 180 degrees if the crust is noticeably browning, and 170 if it seems to be browning quickly. Cook for a further 40 mins.

Remove from the oven, the loaf should sound hollow when you tap it on the bottom, if not return it to the oven for a little longer.

Leave to cool fully before cutting.

Pumpkin Beer

Pumpkins are for more than just carving. Get ready for the Halloween season with this lovely winter beer. It usually comes out at 4.5 %

Ingredients:

• 1kg pumpkin

• 35g hops

• 500g dark malt extract

• 375g sugar

• 12 pints of water

• Beer yeast (or Young’s super wine yeast extract)

Method:

Cut the pumpkin into fist sized pieces and roast for 20 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius.

Put the pumpkin into a large pan with the hops and cover with 6 pints of water, boil for 30 minutes. Meanwhile put your sugar and malt extract into a fermentation bin. Strain the pumpkin water through a muslin cloth into the fermentation bin. Stir well to dissolve all the sugar and malt extract.

Pour in 6 pints of cold water and stir. Make a note of the gravity, it should be around 1040.

Add your yeast and leave to ferment for 3 weeks. Whilst a lot of recipes state much shorter times I find the beer benefits from this extended time.

Don’t forget to check your final gravity, if you haven’t already and want to know the percentage of alcohol in your brew.

Add a level teaspoon of sugar to each bottle and siphon the beer into the bottles. Cap the bottles (or use swing tops) and place somewhere warm for 2 days before moving to somewhere cool.

The beer should be ready to drink in 2 weeks, 3 is better.

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:

• 150g plain flour (sifted)

• 75g unsalted butter (cut into cubes)

• Water

• 300g pumpkin

• 90g dark brown sugar

• 1/4 can coconut cream

• 1 egg (whisked)

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

• 1/2 tsp mixed spice

• 1/2 tsp ginger

• 1/4 tsp nutmeg

• Pinch of white pepper

• 1/2 tbsp cornflour

To serve;

Icing sugar

Method:

Add the butter to the flour and rub it between your fingers and into the flour. Keep rubbing until the mix resembles breadcrumbs.

Add a small drop of water and mix together. Keep adding a little water at a time, until the mixture comes together to form a stiff dough and leaves the bowl mostly clean.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the pastry out as thin as possible - 1 or 2 mm is best. Grease a tart tin and use the pastry to line the tin.

Blind bake (line the tin with greaseproof paper and baking beans) for 10 minutes at 180 degrees, remove the beans and cook for a further 10 minutes at 160 degrees.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 5- 10 minutes, while you prepare the filling.

Peel, de-seed and dice the pumpkin. Add it to a pan, cover with water and boil until soft (approx 10-15 minutes). Drain and mash.

Whisk in the rest of the ingredients.

Pour the pumpkin filling into your precooked pastry base and cook in the centre of a pre-heated oven at 220 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes, reduce the temperature to 180 degrees and cook for a further 10 minutes.

Leave to cool, and serve dusted with a little icing sugar.