October means ...pumpkins

I'm not a great fan of Halloween, but have become more interested in it once I found a good recipe for pumpkin curd. 'PUMPKIN CURD?' I hear you say. I agree it does sound a bit strange, but it's largely like lemon curd but with a slight pumpkin taste.

The good thing about pumpkin curd is that you can scrape out the pumpkin you're going to make your children's lanterns out of. Because of this, I've almost convinced myself it's free. Although I have got three pumpkins this year and not just one as normal.

The recipe goes something like: scrape out a medium/large pumpkin (which gives about 4lb of pumpkin flesh). Cook this in a pan with about 25ml of water until it's soft. Then handblend it. Add about 3.5lb of sugar, the rind and juice of 6 lemons, and 300g of butter or marg. Cook it on a low heat so it only just boils (apparently it can curdle, but I've never seen this). After about 15 minutes, turn off the heat and add 3 beaten eggs. Unless you strain your eggs (which is a hassle) you'll get stringy white bits in it, no matter how well you stir it. So... hand blend it again until it's nice and smooth. Jar it and eat it before the end of the year.

So far I've only tried it on toast and in sandwiches, but I've had the idea of making halloween pumkin curd tarts. I'll report back on this if I do.

For those of you who read this blog due to an interest in fell running. I'm afraid this is my 3 month off-season. Luckily, Mrs Noel will continue racing through the winter. She's been doing some short hill reps this week to build up her leg strength. No races to report for a few weeks.