A very humble crumble

I love autumnal cooking, there’s so much available. I love pumpkins, squashes and more autumnal recipes like cottage pie, pumpkin risotto, stews, casseroles, pies and my favourite roasts! I‘m enjoying discovering new recipes and ways of cooking in my style!

I roasted a stuffed pumpkin which took way too long (it was still cooking by the time I put my Christmas decorations up lol! That was a few years ago (not to be repeat that size!)

My pumpkin risotto was a recent recipe and that was lovely as was the scallops starter!

Back to, todays recipe which is a very British autumnal comfort food and pudding-the Humble Crumble! For those of my non British friends, it apples with a sprinkling of cinnamon/nutmeg, Demerara sugar (brown sugar) butter and flour to make the crumble topping which you rub together until it looks like crumbs! I know people twist it too by adding things like biscuits (your cookies I think?) to give it extra flavour I think a biscoff biscuit might work as it’s very sweet and toffee-y! You then add the brown sugar to the top once you’ve eventually sprinkled a good layer of the crumble over your apples! We normally fan the apples in a pretty pattern too if you’re being a bit of a “Mary Berry“about it!

Yes I’m peeling my apples after I chopped them, as they are from the garden I had to check no extra visitors had got in (I have a major fear of bugs- accidentally eating them, crawling in my ears or up my nose. In Cambodia they tried to make me eat fried tarantulas and didn’t even disguise that’s what it was and one night I felt a spider run over my face!) Anyway with the bug check over I then I had to peel all the slices!

I popped mine in the slower cooker just because I wanted them to cook and caramelise a bit! I will then add the crumble on later and put in the oven to get all golden brown! This is perfect with hot custard or if you’re like my uncle who really can’t stand it I recommend vanilla ice cream, Madagascan vanilla pod ice cream with the tiny flecks of black in is really delicious!

I use my frilly blue pie dish (I think it’s flan dish!) I also forgot the brown sugar! So had to use white sugar (not as golden but tasted delicious!)

I wish I had one of the those brûlée blowtorches! It would make it much more of an even gold brown I think!

Now I made a cottage pie for a very autumnal dinner. Now again, for my non British friends, a Cottage pie is minced beef and a Shepherds pie is minced lamb and just to clear something else up mince pies nowadays only has fruit in it (but it used to have minced beef and dried fruits like raisins and spices from the east (more on our Christmas food later!)

So my Cottage pie consists of mince (beef), onions, chopped carrots, cans of chopped tomatoes, Lea & Perrins (which is Worcestershire sauce!) I then added some different combinations of stocks and herbs to get a strong base of flavour and a slosh of red wine! I then served this with purple and yellow carrots! I made the mash with potatoes, milk, butter and cheese (actually quite a bit of cheese and butter!) I make my mash quite loose by added more milk and butter to make it more easy to spread! Not going to lie my version isn’t the healthiest with the amount of butter and cheese but it’s comfort autumnal food so……..! It was delicious bar the carrots which I mistimed I think I should have part boiled them first instead of just roasted straight but you live and learn, I won’t make that mistake again! Looked pretty though! I did glance at my ‘Kirsties Kitchen’ cookbook just to make sure I wasn’t too off piste!

I really enjoyed cooking and I put on some music it may or may not have been Christmas music I can neither confirm or deny! I then set the table so we had a proper sit down meal and we all got dressed up a bit too! We made it special after not being able to see anyone (after feeling ropey for a week!)

As I have previously explained we had a Harry Potter themed Halloween this year to made these cute tickets for the table setting! I also got some purple moon and star plates and napkins!

It was lovely!

Right ToodlesXX