The Recipes - How to make Microwaveable Lemon Curd Sponge Pudding

 This is very easy to make. You don't need to use lemon curd though you can put golden syrup or jam in the bottom instead so it is versatile. No more steaming up a kitchen - four minutes in the microwave. Easy/ quick and simple. Using just eggs, baking powder, caster sugar, self rising flour and butter. This tastes divine and is always cooked right through in the microwave. 

Here is the recipe

 

The Recipes - How to make Home Made Lemon Curd

 There is nothing like the taste of home made lemon curd. Shop bought is no comparison. This is so easy to make too and if you can stop yourself eating it all before you put it in the jar well done you! Until you have tried the fresh version you haven't tasted real lemon curd at all. Then you can use it on sandwiches, or in the quick microwaved pudding also featured on the channel., or in home made lemon curd tarts. It's made with only eggs, lemons, butter and granulated sugar. 

Here is the Recipe

The Recipes - How to make A Vegetarian Style Seafood Dip with just Mayonnaise and Ketchup!

 This dip was shown to me years ago by a friend whose parents had a restaurant. It's a very simple dip with just Mayonnaise and Ketchup and tastes really good. We served it here with carrot and celery sticks but do try it for yourself. Even our cameraman liked it, he doesn't do Mayonnaise, and he is definitely a fussy eater! Result!

Here is the Recipe

The Recipes - How to make Celery Soup (Vegan friendly)

When making most soups I use a basic formula of sliced potato, chopped onion and chosen veg, then Oxo vegetable stock, cornflour, water and black pepper. This formula works for most of my soups. Celery soup is very easy to make and really good tasting too, and from a budget point of view it's relatively cheap as well. Celery is also low calorie, full of anti-oxidants and a good source of fibre. It has also been used in Chinese medicine for centuries.as an anti-inflammatory so should definitely help with Arthritic conditions too. I  always serve the soups with crusty bread or sliced wholemeal bread. 

Here is the Recipe

 

The Recipes - How to make Home Made Blackberry Jam

 Part of the fun of making the Blackberry Jam is the going out and picking them yourself. It's free food! You can freeze the blackberries too if you pick too many and use them later. Always check and wash them first for any little Caterpillar's etc. If you like you can make little blackberry jam tarts too like the jam tarts we used to make with leftover pastry bits. The children enjoy collecting them too. My daughter who was five at the time said, If you make it I will review it!" Flippin' heck. So I said "Ok then and I can always edit it if you don't like it!" What's editing? She asked. As it happened she did review it and she liked it! By the way you could also do this with raspberries or strawberries instead.

Here is the recipe

The Recipes - How to make a Proper Cheese and Onion Pie

Cheese and onion pie is a British institution just like fish and chips! You can definitely tell this as this recipe is my most viewed - by over 100,000 people! I tried a few recipes to make this and realised that with the addition of water it makes the pie more moist, so you can have it without a sauce. The milk brushed over makes it brown evenly too. My daughter has this with mashed potatoes and beans, but you can have it with a side salad, with chips and beans, or new potatoes and other vegetables like carrots, cabbage or green beans perhaps. I prefer the ready made pastry here but I have sometimes made my own and it has been just as good. This doesn't really work with any other cheese but mature, and extra mature cheddar.  You could try it with filo pastry too for a lighter pie if you like. Fussy guests never refuse this, and even ask for more....

Here is the recipe

 

The Recipes - How to make a Celeriac Soup (Vegan friendly)

What is celeriac? For those of you who don't know, it is the large root bulb of the celery plant. This is why this soup tastes like a sort of much creamier and thicker celery soup. It's a very good winter soup because it's especially thick and warming. It has a look of semolina when its out. The root can be hard to peel, it's best to cut it in half but maybe peel it with a potato peeler first. Then cut chunks off it. Don't make the chunks too large because you want them to cook through. If you smell it it does have a slight celery smell, though it does look like an old skull or something from Doctor Who, with the tendril bits coming off it. Try it out, I am sure that you will like it, and it's the crusty rolls yet again to serve....

Here is the recipe

The Recipes - How to make Garlic Mushrooms with or without Mozzarella.

Who doesn't like garlic mushrooms? If you haven't made this yet its quite easy and tasty. Make sure that the garlic cloves are a good size in here. This is as good with or without the Mozzarella. Use the closed cup or button mushrooms, and same again, only fresh and white ones. Use the curly parsley in here too, not the flat leaf, as the curly parsley has a far superior taste! I like this with the Lurpak or Kerrygold, but again use your favourite butter. We usually have this with maybe a fresh salad, and garlic bread can be good here too, to mop up the juices,,,,

Here is the recipe

The Recipes - How to make spicy carrot soup, with cumin and coriander.

This recipe again started out as a basic one in a book. By using more stock, and using the Oxo vegetable stock, taking away the milk, and using Chantenay carrots, this soup took on a really nice taste. You can use any carrots, but always make sure they are fresh, crisp and bright orange for this recipe. Carrots also are one of the cheapest vegetables that you can buy, so this soup is an all rounder for budget cooking and taste! Crusty roll anyone?

Here is the recipe

The Recipes - How to make Vegetarian Quorn Spaghetti Bolognese.

A friend suggested this recipe to me, and I tried it. Then I changed the mushrooms, removed the salt, topped up the garlic, and Voila! It was the first time that I had made Spaghetti Bolognese at home. It's tasty and you can feed a crowd with it. A one pot meal. Sometimes I grate a little vegetarian hard cheese, (parmesan style) over it, if I make it for guests, and this has been a staple in our house for years. This Spaghetti Bolognese works well with the Quorn because it has a mince style texture. It doesn't work half as well with the other commercial minces I don't think. Further on in the blog you will see how you can use this Bolognese sauce in other meals too, but for now

Here is the recipe

The Recipes - How to make Cauliflower and Broccoli Soup (Vegan friendly)

This recipe started out in a book again, shallots were used and a small carrot, so i changed it to a brown onion, a larger carrot, and Oxo Vegetable stock and got a really nice taste! You need to use the freshest broccoli and cauliflower though. I find it easier using in a ready made twin pack but always check the quality. The carrots here again provide the sweet taste to it. We sometimes have this one at Christmas too as it was my late brother's favourite, and he also insisted on it being served in a mug not a dish. There is always one! Grab the crusty bread rolls.

Here is the recipe

The Recipes -How to make Perfect Irish Coffee with Irish Whisky, Demerara Sugar, Instant Coffee and Squirty Cream

 Christmas isn't complete without Irish coffee, and you have to use proper Irish whisky as it has a mellow taste unlike Scottish. We used Nescafe because it's the best. I don't drink anything else! We also used squirty cream but you can use real cream if you want to as that's the correct way to do it! The squirty cream worked well though here too. These were served in Irish coffee style glasses too. Available here

Here is the recipe

 

The Recipes - Melon Ball, or Fresh Fruit in Fresh Orange Juice Starters

 It's always good when entertaining friends to have attractive and tasty, yet light starters. These two tick all the boxes! The first one, melon balls is done with a melon ball implement. You can get hold of one here  We chose three different coloured melons for visual effect which works well here. Then we presented them in Tulip wine glasses (available here). For added pizazz we later added a sprig of fresh mint on top which we always have growing in our garden! We served these here with flavoured Marks and Spencer's yogurt, in little dip holders so that guests could take as much as they wanted. 

The second starter features fresh fruit of various sorts, in fresh orange juice. Some of our older end viewers remember making a version of this sort in Domestic Science at school years ago! We chose strawberries cut up, green grapes, red and/or black grapes and blueberries for this and then simply poured some chilled fresh orange juice (not concentrated and not too much) in the bottom, of the dish just before serving. Here we like to do things in style...

Here is the recipe

The Recipes - Fresh Tomato Soup with celery, carrot, onion, veg stock and cornflour. (Vegan friendly)

Well, who doesn't like fresh tomato soup? Especially in winter. The problem is though tomatoes are out of season then, so its best to make this soup in summer when they are always ripe and freshly available. If you do choose to make this soup in winter, Christmas say like we do,  always source the supermarkets' reddest and juiciest tomatoes you can find. The carrot content in this recipe replaces sugar as they provide the sweet flavour to it. If you want it more sweet shall we say, like a certain very popular supermarket brand, just add a little extra carrot than specified. But be careful!! And always serve this with a nice crusty bread roll.....

Here is the recipe

The Recipes - Roasted stuffed peppers with aubergine, coriander, tomatoes and goat's cheese.

This recipe started out as basic one from a book. I tinkered with the ingredients, lost the breadcrumbs and decided to brush the peppers with olive oil, because when they are roasted in the oven in this way the taste is amazing! The peppers look better served in a little dish at the side of whatever you are having with them. You can serve them with fresh salad, or new potatoes and veg, or roast potatoes and veg - any way you want. 

Here is the recipe

 

The Recipes - Microwaveable Old School Chocolate Pudding with a Mint Custard.

 Well who doesn't love a chocolate pudding. Microwaveable as well, so it's fast and easy. Maybe too easy ha! The chocolate pudding we had to mess about with the water content to get it just right. So we had to try many samples.....that's our excuse anyway. Then there was the mint custard. Although my daughter who was five at the time and didn't like mint, would say mint was the worst thing that she had ever tasted! So we have to do a custard version just for her. Oh well more for us...i could have made it a pink colour but she would still know. Kids have amazing sensory perception. There never seems to be any of this particular chocolate pudding  left over for the next day either? Oh and it's good with custard too, and cream, and.....you choose.

Here is the recipe

The recipes - Tzatziki

This is a real cooling, refreshing dish. You can even use fresh garlic instead of dried in it if you wish. Don't forget to put it in the fridge as soon as you have made it so it is properly chilled. The first time I tried out this dip was on my mum and her friend when i bought some onion bhajis. Her friend frank said he didn't like cucumber. Fast forward to the end of the meal and mum's friend picks up the bowl and said "Can I finish this off?" So I let him - even though I also had my eye on finishing it off too! This goes really well with the onion bhajis on the YouTube channel even though it is a traditional Greek dish!

Here is the recipe

The recipes - Cauliflower Cheese.

You  can't beat a good cauliflower cheese. You need to use the whitest and freshest cauliflower though! My daughter didn't want too much mustard in it so this is why we ended up using just half a teaspoon. To be honest this gives  a more subtle taste. We usually have this with mashed potatoes, steamed carrots or cabbage. You can even use little portions of it on your main Christmas dinner.

Here is the recipe

The recipes - Spinach and Edam bake

 This recipe was one that I tested out from a book. I then added more spinach, messed about with the ingredients and got a much nicer taste. If you want a runnier bake and to put them in small separate dishes, don't drain the spinach as in the video and you will end up with little creamier bakes. We sometimes have this with just a salad or you can have it with new potatoes and veg of your choice! 

Here is the recipe.

The Recipes - Lancashire Egg, Cheese and Milk Oven Supper Dish

This dish is what my father used to make for us when we were little, and it was really good, to say that it was only three ingredients. One of our viewers wrote in with this little snippet of information for us: C Lou1 day ago (edited)

Saw this in the book "The Craftman", a murder mystery by Sharon Bolton. She was raised in Pendle, Lancashire. Here is the quote, it is near the front of the book. "I’ll just give them their tea.’ Nancy carried a metal dish to the table, where four young children sat, and began spooning food onto waiting plates. It was a supper dish I’d seen before in the North-West: an egg for each child, drowned in milk and crumbly local cheese, and then baked until the whole thing set."  

Served with sliced white bread. Yours is the only real reference I can find, other recipes have beaten eggs, tomatoes, cream, onions or other things and are more like a baked omelette. Very cool to find a unique regional dish. Thank you for the video.

I like it just as it is though, without the bread - Paige

Here is the recipe