Falling For Fall – My Most Favourite Time Of The Year

What’s your favourite season? Most of you will say summer for the sunshine (UK weather permitting), mum would say Spring (I’m a spring baby, so is she!) My favourite season is Autumn, fluffy jumpers, crisp leaves crunching under my feet, hot chocolates by the wood burner fire, what’s not to love!? Ok, maybe the dark mornings and the dark drawing in earlier in the evening isn’t a point to love, but, for me, is an excuse to snuggle up with a good book, at the weekend!

Leon loves the wood burning fire as much as we do!

I also love this time of year because there’s the buzz of Halloween, which I loved as a kid and secretly still do, who doesn’t love decorating pumpkins and watching a scary movie!? There’s also this lovely Christmas buzz, I’m so sorry, I did say the C word…are you getting ready for Christmas yet!? I know this Christmas will be so different with COVID, yes I think that’s a worse C word, despite this I want to make it as special as possible! For this blog I’m concentrating on Autumn, and a little bit of Halloween!

I have been loving our autumnal walks, seeing the leaves change colour, absolutely beautiful.

One of my favourite Autumnal recipes is a delicious Gluten Free Carrot Cake Recipe, click the link for the recipe, we like to make one up and pop it in the freezer for a rainy day, you can freeze the cake with the frosting on. One tip I’ve learned from baking this cake a few times is, if you make the whole recipe (we often halve it) use a couple of baking trays, or if you use one it will take a very long time to cook.
https://glutenfreecuppatea.co.uk/2019/05/07/gluten-free-carrot-cake-traybake-recipe-dairy-free/

I’ve already mentioned Christmas (sorry if it’s too early for any of you) but we like to prepare from September, we’ve made Cotswold Damson Gin, Sloe Gin, Blackberry Whiskey, Blackberry Jelly, Raspberry Jam and Spiced Plum Chutney. The Spiced Plum Chutney is a favourite in our house, being coeliac finding gluten free chutneys isn’t easy. In the recipe we’ve swapped the vinegar for white and red wine vinegar so it’s one hundred percent gluten free. The recipe states damsons but we swap these for plums. https://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/international/european/british/spiced-damson-chutney

I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog and enjoy making the recipes. Now I’m going to find a pumpkin to carve to get ready for Halloween. It’s a shame trick or treating isn’t allowed this year but I hope you have a spooktacular time nevertheless. For now, take care and stay safe.