Autumn Tales from Ruler's Wit

The fourth short-story anthology from Ruler's Wit, Autumn Tales, has an abundance of seasonal stories and is available from Amazon.

To give an idea of the genres, the stories are as follows:


The Bonfire is a tale of moving on. Who would want a Thai bride? Most appropriate for this time of the year.

Pilates, Pumpkins and Prosecco is both funny and heartwarming. It sees the members of a Pilates class preparing to celebrate, but why isn't one member as popular as she might be?

Dave & Dave and the Halloween Surprise - Are you afraid of spiders? Find out how Dave and Dave cope in this hilarious story set around a night for tricks and treats.

Time For Tea sees strange happenings around a little girl when a new tea shop is being prepared for opening.

Chocolate Makes My Clothes Shrink - Who is eating all the chocolates? Set in and around an MP's surgery in a town library, the librarian there needs to find out as well as fending off unwanted advances.

Hunting in Plain Sight - A femme fatale finds her intended on the spookiest night of the year, but is she all she appears to be and are her intentions honourable?

Life on a Silver Spoon 2: Part Two - Amber Hawkins returns to continue her quest to marry the Lord of the Manor; will she succeed?

The Child Inside - A special little boy has a strong relationship with his child-minder, so strong that his remarkable talents draw them to a disturbing conclusion.

Lee’s Painted Dragon - When Lee finds out that his life is not all he once thought, his dragon tattoo takes him to a dark place.

Medium Rare - Have you ever had your cards read? This humorous story sees two friends visit a medium to see what their futures might hold.

Retribution - A retired scientist finally perfects the invention that will change his life, but perhaps not in the way he had hoped.

A Hidden Clue - Caitlin Blake and Florence Carter have returned from their summer holiday and it seems that Caitlin's husband's death wasn't without suspicion, and she is threatened as a result.

Some Kind of Sign - The luckless DI Sandbach investigates a gruesome murder without a body to be found. You may not eat bacon sandwiches ever again!

What Alice Left Behind - Based on Alice Through the Looking Glass - the Alice in this story needs to return to the party and asks the mantel clock to help her.

Keeping the Peace - What would have happened if the Armistice hadn't been signed in 1918? Our time-travellers need to help to keep the peace.

Poppy Day - A moving story of remembrance set in the National Arboretum in Alrewas.

Autumn Tales is available from Amazon and on Kindle


You might also like:

Spring Tales

Summer Tales

Winter Tales

Runner Bean Harvest Festival

The North-South Beanstalk Divide

Having relatives at opposite ends of the country doesn’t bode well when they are also competitive gardeners.

Our Family’s southern contingent live in Devon where it’s warm, sunny and almost frost-free. The northern cohort are in Cumbria where it’s always wet, cold and frequented by late frosts.

We are happily situated in the Midlands and enjoy a fairly temperate climate.

The issue of competitive gardening first arose when it was time to grow runner beans. May the 12th was the designated date for planting and we Midlanders happily sowed the seed and left the rest to nature.

The southerners paid a visit in August and on seeing slender beans hanging in clusters from our plants, which still had masses of red flowers on too, declared that their bean harvest was over and green beans had been enjoyed since June (not sure I believed them, but all’s true in love and garden-war).

Then in September the northerners visited and were astounded by how many beans we had as theirs hadn’t even started cropping, but a smugness then settled upon them as they pronounced that they will be enjoying beans long after ours had turned ‘stringy’ and tough. (Not sure I believed them either.) Their parting words were: “They’ll all be over in Devon, you know!” – Yes, we know.

Mum, also a Midlander, always used to say that it was a sure sign that Autumn was on its way when beans were part of every meal, so along with the Last Night of the Proms, enormous house-spiders, harvest festivals and misty mornings, a bean-fest is a great way to enjoy the transition from summer sunshine to autumn leaves.

I put this recipe together to encourage vegetable-hating, bacon-loving offspring to enjoy what has to be the best vegetable ever created and its short-lived season makes it that much more celebrated than those available all-the-year round.

Autumn Bean, Bacon and Tomato Festival

Ingredients:

A pan-full of prepared runner beans (topped, tailed, stringed and sliced)

4-6 slices of bacon, chopped into pieces the size of a postage stamp*

1 onion, sliced

1 or 2 cloves of garlic, crushed (optional)

1 teaspoon mustard seeds (optional)

1 teaspoon sesame seeds (optional)

1 tablespoon toasted pine nuts

Vegetable oil

A handful or two of cherry tomatoes, red and/or yellow, halved

Soy sauce

* For vegetarians, slice and add a courgette or two instead

Method:

Pour boiling water over the beans and simmer them for about 20 minutes.

Whilst the beans are cooking, pour a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil into a large frying pan or wok and heat for 30 seconds.

Add the onion and bacon, and cook gently until onion is soft and bacon is starting to crisp.

Next add the garlic, mustard seeds and sesame seeds, if you are using them.

When the beans are cooked, drain off the water and add them to the pan along with the toasted pine nuts.

Shake Soy Sauce over the beans (about 5 shakes should do it) and combine all the ingredients.

Add the tomatoes and stir them in.

Serve into warm bowls.

For a more substantial meal, serve with rice.

Enjoy!

Italian onion and tomato soup with bacon and Paul Hollywood's crusty bread

Sundays at Fancy Pans are family days.  Newspapers, fry-up, Church, and – a lie in!  I always  have that satisfyingly-smug feeling when I turn off the alarm on the clock before going to sleep on Saturday night.

For Sunday, I wanted a soup which could be eaten as a starter if a full roast dinner was also  promised, or, if served with loads of crusty bread and olives as a light lunch or supper.  The first time I prepared this particular soup we had some friends over and they were of Italian heritage and I believe a similar broth originated in the Umbria region of ‘the boot’ (just north of Rome).  The Italians call it Cipollata (but it’s far from a small sausage).

As it’s Italian, I used olive oil instead of my usual butta, and glugged a good amount into a large saucepan – about 50ml (or three tablespoons for the less metric).  I checked the fridge for chorizo sausage - there was none so I decided to use bakun instead (one of my favourite basic ingredients), but of course it’s Sunday and we had the lean, back bacon for breakfast.  Then I spotted a pack of streeky bakun, checked that it wasn’t smoked (tick box) and decided that would do.  I chopped it up then turned on the heat to warm the oil.  Olive oil moves in glossy arcs as it warms – quite soporific really. In went the bakun, but I didn’t want it crisp and brown like this morning’s, so I cooked it gently whilst I peeled and sliced a load of unyuns.  I got a bit carried away and ended up with almost two pownds – it can be quite therapeutic slicing unyuns into thin slivers.  

 

They take ages to cook so I tipped them in with the bakun, put the lid on and left them to go all translucent.  I think, at this stage, a nice cup of coffee goes down well, especially if it has a good slug of whisky in – the brown milk!  Time to do the crossword before adding the tomatoes.  I could have skinned, de-seeded and chopped a pownd of tomatoes, but it’s Sunday, so a can of Morrisons chopped tomatoes with Basil worked a treat.  Mind you, I did need to stir the unyuns often as I didn’t want them sticking to the pan and burning as this would make the soup bitter.  Coffee break over and time to de-seed and chop a red chilli.  I suppose I could have used chilli powder or flakes, but as we have plenty of fresh, there’s no contest.  Paramedic style gloves donned (health and safety) the chilli was finely diced in no time.  

After about an hour the unyuns were gorgeous and looked as though they were melting.  In went the can of Basil infused tomatoes and the chopped chilli.  I noiced that the stock of stock was depleted, but there was just under two pints of chikin, so I claimed it and poured it into the saucepan.  This soup isn’t any good for vegetarians seeing as it contains a lot of bakun, so chikin stock it was.  After a quick stir I ground in some fresh black pepper and left it all to cook. 

Whilst the soup simmered, I seized a handy French loaf and cut some half-inch slices from it.  I decided to rub half of them with a garlic clove and leave the other half au-natural.  Diners can then choose which they prefer.  After about half-an-hour the soup is ready and seasoning (i.e. the salt levels) has been checked. To serve I warmed the bowls then put one slice of the bread in the bottom and ladled over the hot zuppa (that’s Italian for soup).  To see Paul Hollywood make white bread, just click here

A brilliant supper soup for cold evenings – enjoy.

Ingredient re-cap

Olive oil

Chorizo sausage or bacon

Onions – about two pounds

Chopped tomatoes (with Basil) - or with torn basil leaves

Chicken stock – about two pints

Garlic clove

French bread stick

Salt and pepper

To make sure you don't miss any of the recipes, please add your e-mail to the "follow by e-mail"  box below and you will receive a message to alert you to a new publication.