Browsing Tag:

pumpkin

How to Style an Autumn Porch

Posted in Dwell by
Autumn Porch

Have you noticed our love of decorating with pumpkins yet? Big ones, small ones, blue ones, glass ones! It is turning into a bit of an autumn obsession.  But it makes us happy so we’re not going to apologise. So we have decided embrace autumn and pumpkins for all it’s worth!

Autumn Porch

Our Autumn Porch

We are currently staying at Rich’s folk’s cottage whilst we are midway through buying a new house. They live in a very cute 17th Century cottage. The front porch is a tiny little doorway that we both struggle to get through without banging our heads.  We have hit our head more times than is funny in this low ceiling-ed home!

Autumn Porch

Pumpkins and Chrysanthemums

To make the tiny front porch more autumnal we decorated with pumpkins and chrysanthemums.  We also used our lovely autumn wreath that we found in Homesense and used some heathers, some hardy herbs and some old garden boxes and terracotta pots.  Chrysanthemums were thought as criminally old fashioned for a very long time, but in recent years they have had a bit of a rehabilitation.  In terms of Autumn colour, there really is no competition to the masses of blooms on each plant.  Our local garden centre had a great selection of autumn shades to choose from, we opted for a soft purple and a golden yellow.

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What do you think?

Do you decorate your outside for autumn, or just for Halloween? We love the colour and interest at the front door and have received many nice comments from our visitors and neighbours about our Autumn Porch. What do you think, let us know in the comment’s section?

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Autumn Porch
19th October 2016
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Our Autumn Harvest Table Setting

Posted in Gather by
Autumn harvest table setting

Time for Harvest Festival

Now we are into October and the weather has turned we start thinking about cosier parties inside the cottage. The past weekend we had an autumn harvest dinner for a group of friends to celebrate the season. Harvest Festival is the traditional British celebration around this time of year, it is the less well know cousin of the American Thanksgiving.  We both have memories of our churches harvest festival celebrations from when we were little, and many churches continue to celebrate.  We though this is a perfect excuse for a party (we don’t need much encouragement).

Autumn harvest table setting

Pumpkins Galore

To us, autumn decorations for can only mean one thing, pumpkins! We used this Mottled Rose Gold Pumpkin Battery Light from Lights4fun to create a table centre.  Fresh pumpkins are now in the supermarket so it was easy to pick up a couple of small ones, along with a mini variety known as munchkin pumpkins.  In addition to this, we mixed in some ornamental squash and gourds we picked up on a recent trip to Garsons farm shop in Esher. We found a mix of different colours and shapes to compliment the pumpkins.

Autumn harvest table setting

Our Harvest Table

When we were laying our harvest table we added in some eucalyptus foliage from the garden to create a base, and placed this on a plan linen table runner with some decorative autumn maple leaves for colour. We then arranged the pumpkins, squashes and gourds and twisted in some micro fairy lights, again from lights4fun to give some warmth and interest.

Autumn harvest table setting

A great night

We finished laying the table, put on our Autumn Jazz playlist and opened some English sparkling wine. It was a great evening celebrating with our friends. Calum cooked pumpkin soup (obviously) followed by a lovely roast pork followed by a delicious orange ginger and treacle pudding.

Autumn harvest table setting

What do you think?

What do you think of our Harvest Table? Do you celebrate at this time of year and if so how do you go about it? let us know in the comments, we’d love to hear from you.

Autumn harvest table settingAutumn harvest table setting

Autumn harvest table setting
12th October 2016
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Cocktail of the Week | Pumpkin Cocktail

Pumpkin Cocktail

After making a pumpkin cake using our Nordic Ware bundt tin we found ourselves sitting with a few teaspoons of pumpkin purée.  Rather than waste it, we decided to create a cocktail using it.  There are very few pumpkin flavoured ones, but did take inspiration from Serious Eats and came up with our own Pumpkin Cocktail.

The pumpkin is ubiquitous with Autumn.  It has received a massive push in the last few years thanks to a certain coffee based drink!  None the less, it is a great ingredient to use for many things. Calum has been known to make a pumpkin and chilli ravioli in addition to the pumpkin cakes and soups.  We also like to carve our pumpkins for Halloween, so keep an eye out for efforts in the next few weeks!  We may find a need to try a different pumpkin cocktail when we do!

For this week’s cocktail, you will need;

  • 2 tsp Pumpkin purée
  • 1 measure Vanilla vodka
  • 1 measure Pressed apple juice
  • Ginger beer
  • Ice

Take the pumpkin purée, vanilla vodka and the pressed apple juice and pour into a cocktail shaker with ice.  Shake the mix well before pouring the mix into a tall glass with some ice.  Fill the glass with the ginger beer.  Add a straw and there you have our pumpkin cocktail.

The drink has a lovely smooth taste and certainly would be a hit and any Halloween or autumnal party! It even has Rich’s Mum’s seal of approval!

Pumpkin Cocktail Pumpkin Cocktail Pumpkin Cocktail

Pumpkin Cocktail
6th October 2016
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