![\"\"](\"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/flowers-scaled.jpg\")
\nBefore you say anything, I know these are not pears, they are butternut squash. However, when I arrived home from work last Saturday for dinner at our house, where we were meeting Dan\u2019s girlfriend, Katie\u2019s parents for the first time, I was a bit tired and my initial thought was, \u2018What huge pears!\u2019 And if the title of my blog seems somehow familiar, I was nodding towards the famous Roald Dahl book, James and the Giant Peach! Talking of books, the title of my new book is confirmed as My Mother\u2019s Secret, and there is a picture of the cover further down this blog.<\/p>\n
But back to Saturday evening; the butternut squashes were not the only gift Diana and Andrew brought us, homegrown in their allotment, by the way, they also brought these beautiful flowers. It hasn\u2019t been the best week weather-wise, but I just managed to catch them in a puddle of sunshine on Monday morning \u2013 the colours scream Autumn, don\u2019t they?<\/p>\n\n
We had a really good evening getting to know a bit more about Katie\u2019s family and her as a little girl, and I managed to avoid getting the naked baby pictures of Dan out to embarrass him \u2013 next time maybe? I\u2019d made my Vegetarian Lasagna, an Eton Mess and a Luscious Lemon cake before leaving for work, and Chris did Tricolore as a starter (mozzarella, avocado and tomato) \u2013 clean plates all round, so hopefully they enjoyed it. And I\u2019ll be making Sage and Butternut Squash Risotto for dinner tomorrow night.<\/p>\n
Talking of Italian recipes, I mentioned on my live reading on Instagram (juliagroberts) and Facebook (JuliaRobertsTV) last Friday that we were having Minestrone Soup for dinner and someone requested the recipe, so here it is:<\/p>\n
Ingredients<\/strong><\/p>\n Method<\/strong> I\u2019ll be reading some more from Alice in Theatreland tonight at 8 p.m. and also the book blurb for My Mother\u2019s Secret to give you a flavour of the story \u2013 you see what I did there? My mind is still on food! The cover was revealed on Tuesday and thanks to people pre-ordering, it has spent the past couple of days at number one in the Hot New Releases in Women\u2019s Popular Fiction chart \u2013 that\u2019s a first for me so I\u2019m really thrilled! I absolutely love the cover that Bookouture have designed for me, with strong and evocative colours, as did our lovely QVC guest, Lorna Ko who has read all my books. She also said she was intrigued by the \u2018shout line\u2019\u2026 Will the truth hurt or heal? It\u2019s not actually published until January and there\u2019s still some fine-tuning to do as the copy-edit arrived yesterday, but I\u2019m really excited to share this story with you.<\/p>\n That will be me spending a lot of time at my writing desk in my five-day break from QVC, mind you. Now that the weather has turned, I think we all spend much more time indoors. We managed (the ‘royal we’ there, as Chris actually did it) to get the covers on our garden furniture on a nice dry sunny day before the rain set in \u2013 it all looks tucked up and cosy for the months ahead.<\/p>\n Speaking of which, Wilfie hasn\u2019t been anywhere near his Silentnight Orthopaedic Pet Bed<\/a> that he so loved last winter, for the whole of the summer. He\u2019s barely been out of it for the past few days, so winter is definitely upon us again. It\u2019s hard to believe it\u2019s almost November and that Christmas is eight weeks today!<\/p>\n First, though, is Halloween. We don\u2019t normally do anything special, but there was a request on our local residents What\u2019s App group asking if any of us would be prepared to offer trick or treating for the children who live on our lane as they\u2019ve already missed out on so much fun stuff this year. Chris immediately said we\u2019d be happy to and headed off to the shops to buy sweets and spooky decorations. He\u2019s even planned how the sweets can be delivered to the children at a safe distance by using our Velux window opening pole! He\u2019s quite enthusiastic about it and filmed this little video to show me what he had planned \u2013 the candles are flameless by the way, if you were worried about safety.<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/minestrone-ingredients-scaled.jpg\")
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\n1. In a large saucepan, fry the diced vegetables in a little oil for 5 minutes.
\n2. Make the vegetable stock with boiling water and the stock cube, and stir into tomato pur\u00e9e, then add to the pan with the chopped tomatoes \/ passata, basil, oregano and black pepper. Bring to the boil then cover and simmer for 25 minutes.
\n3. Add the frozen spinach, frozen peas and the spaghetti broken into 2 inch lengths. Bring back to the boil then simmer for a further 15 minutes.
\n4. Serve with the grated parmesan cheese and herby garlic bread or ciabatta.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/minestrone-scaled.jpg\")
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/book-cover-scaled.jpg\")
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/garden-furniture-scaled.jpg\")
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/wilfie-in-his-ebd-scaled.jpg\")
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