Spooky!

To be honest, this is all about me indulging my inner child, though I hardly need to point out thatit's not so much an inner child as a loony, unrestrained outer child at times like these. I'd like to be able to say that it's all for the children, but that wouldn't be true. Even though neither of them really have any concept of what Hallowe'en is all about (or rather what it's become), I have jack o' lantern candles on the mantelpiece and couldn't resist doing something fun for supper tonight.


Hubble Bubble Soup for Hallowe'en


garlic-infused olive oil
1/2 an onion, chopped finely
3 handfuls frozen peas
500ml vegetable stock
30g grated cheddar cheese

toast, to serve (and see below)

Heat the oil and fry the onion until soft. Add the stock to the pan with two handfuls of the frozen peas. Cook until the peas are nice and tender, then purée. Return the pan to the heat and add the remaining peas and the grated cheese. Stir well and simmer until thesecond batch of peas are cooked through.

I served this with some toast cut out with some spooky-shaped biscuit cutters; bat, pumpkin, ghost, that kind of thing. The boys both wolfed it down and Christopher was very taken with his bat toast, even if he doesn't really get it just yet. Wait until next year, there'll be no stopping us!