Happy Belated Halloween

Yesterday we had a lovely day. It was my other half's sister's birthday and to celebrate I cooked them lunch while they enjoyed a few cuddles with Harry...or at least tried as he's been a bit our of sorts with something that feels like a bit of a cold. I wonder if he took after me with heavy sinus once the air turns cold. Let's hope not!
It's amazing the difference a few weeks make, I felt a lot calmer having people over now that he is 4 and a half months than just over a month and a bit ago. Not only he is a lot more sociable now and in fact he loves seeing people but feeding is a much more pleasurable and a lot less demanding routine now.

Of course it also helped that I've chosen a really easy and quick dish for lunch instead of the more elaborated  meals that I've been known to put together.

Also to celebrate Halloween and auntie R's birthday I made my very first pumpkin pie and i have to say, I like it! Again of course I looked up the simplest recipe possible - I'm addicted to recipe websites and if you do research a bit you'll realize that there are just about millions of different versions to this humble dessert.

So if you wish to have a go yourself just mix a can of condensed milk (carnation milk but NOT EVAPORATED, make sure if condensed), the same measure of pumpkin pie - thats about 1 cup - 2 eggs and about 3 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spices (click here for the recipe). bit it all to combine, it will be a very liquid mix. Pour over pastry crust and bake for 15 minutes on pre heated oven at 220C then turn it down to 180C and bake it for another 30 to 45 minutes (mine took 40) until the edge of the pie seems cooked, the middle will finish cooking as it cools. When you cut into it you should see something like a NY cheese cake type of consistency.
Just FYI; I cheated here and used stored bought shortcrust pastry to save me time, you can use whatever you fancy, I think anything will go with it but it has to be a pastry that will take 1 hours in the over
Let it cool and serve it. You can easily freeze it but I doubt there will be any left overs lol.
The Americans serve it with whipped cream but I went for vanilla ice cream and it was just perfect!