Cracking my spine.

No, not literally (as if!)

I mean "Wreck this Journal."

 If, like me, you've been living under a rock, you may not be aware of this book.  Let me enlighten you...  Wreck this Journal by Keri Smith is a bit of a novelty in that it encourages creativity and thinking outside the box, using (often) bizarre suggestions to fill and destroy pages within the actual book.  You are only limited by your own imagination, and what you aim to be left with is your own unique journal, essentially a "work of art."

 One of the first tasks (and one I personally hate doing) is to crack the spine of the book.  Here goes....

Ouch!  OK, so it may have been painful at first, but actually it was quite liberating.  Talk about living life on the wild side!  I just realised on the back cover that at some point, I'm going to have to mail this journal to myself.... oh boy (sigh).

I think this book is meant to appeal to all ages, but I think teens may enjoy this the most.  Either way, at £6.47 on Amazon, I think it would make a cool stocking-filler for Christmas.  I'm quite looking forward to seeing how my journal shapes out.  I may even get Little H to contribute some of his Crayola handiwork...

Recipe for roasted butternut squash and chorizo soup

This is what autumn/winter means for me, food-wise.  Deep bowls of nourishing, warming, tasty soup.  This particular one with roasted butternut squash and chorizo is so good that even Mr H, who hates soup (?), is a complete convert.  It's quite a thick soup, so it's a good one to have as a meal in itself with crusty bread (or bacon butty if you're feeling extra greedy).  You could use pumpkin instead of squash, I suppose; it's a good way of using any leftover pumpkin if you've carved any Hallowe'en lanterns!  We like to have a bit of fiery kick to our food, so I've listed the ingredients as I would make it, but please feel free to adjust the dried chillies/chipotle paste to taste.

This recipe probably has about 6 generous greedy portions.

Ingredients:-

1 butternut squash, peeled and chopped into 2 or 3-inch chunks
250g of chorizo, peeled and roughly sliced
4 fat cloves of garlic, crushed
1 large onion (red or white), roughly chopped
2 cans of borlotti beans (pinto or butter beans would work also)
approx 2 cups (1/2 litre) of chicken stock
olive oil
a good pinch of dried crushed chillies
salt to taste
1/2 jar of chipotle chilli & smoked paprika paste (really handy and delicious ingredient for soups/chilli con carne- you can get this in Tesco in the World Food aisle, but if you can't find it, then you could use smoked paprika/add in extra crushed chillies instead)

Method:-

• Heat the oven to Gas Mark 6 (200 deg C, 400 deg F)
• Add the squash to a roasting tin, drizzle with olive oil, and toss so all the pieces are covered.
• Sprinkle on the crushed chillies, and half the crushed garlic, salt to taste.
• Roast in the oven for about 40 mins, or until the squash is tender.

• Next, in a large pot, brown the chopped chorizo.  (No need to add extra oil, as the heat will render the tasty paprika-infused oils from the chorizo, and this should be enough to fry off the remaining ingredients.)
• Add the onion and remaining garlic and fry until softened.
• Add the chipotle paste and stir until the onion/garlic is coated. 
• Add the roasted squash, stock, and beans.  Stir then cover and leave to simmer on a low heat for about 30-40mins.
• I then check for seasoning (I don't usually need to add any extra salt as the paste would already be salted, and no need for extra ground pepper!)
• Blitz the mixture in the pot using a hand-held blender to your desired consistency, or you could leave to cool and use a food processor (be careful!).  You could even just serve as it is: chunky and hearty.

This is my favourite soup in the whole world, and I like to enjoy it slobbed in front of the TV.  Try it.  I guarantee, you will never buy ready-made soups again!