The Recipes - Pizza Margherita

With this one you can roll out the base as thin as you like. My daughter who is 6 years old likes the crust a little thicker than on the video, so i make her base about 8 Inches across. I also slice some ball mozzarella very thinly and pop a few pieces on, then cover with the grated mozzarella as on the video. Mum likes this thinner crust version too so do try them both ways! Oh and always use the Italian tomatoes passata as the home brands are no where near as good.

We updated this recipe slightly to make it even more tasty. We added half a teaspoon of garlic puree, (just squeeze the tube and it comes out in a line, just the line length), to the passata base, and sometimes I make this pizza topping with sliced mushrooms, thinly sliced red peppers and the jalapeno green chilis that come in a jar, on top. I also serve it with some sprigs of fresh rocket on top too in the middle for a sophisticated look! Delicious....

Here is the recipe.

The Recipes - Quick Jacket Potato

Jacket potatoes although very tasty usually take an hour in the oven to bake.
Then, one day, after scouring various bargain stores, I came across a tool that said you could make a great jacket potato in the microwave in 7 or 8 minutes.
So i tried it.
This tool turned out to be fantastic, and the quality of the potato wasn't very far removed from an oven baked one, so we started using it quite frequently. Try it yourself from Amazon here
In this recipe we added mature cheese and beans, although you can fill them with cauliflower cheese or chili from this channel too, or anything you like!
My personal favourite is cheese, beans, and coleslaw on top when it is cooked!
If you have a favourite combination do let me know...

Here is the recipe

The Recipes - Chocolate Cake

The Chocolate cake was a tough one to get right. After a few attempts we got the chocolate taste just right but it a was still a little dry. A this point we added milk in small proportions to both the mix and the cream and then voila! we had it just right. So as Marie Antoinette would say, "Let them eat cake." We say yes but not this one!
P.S. you don't need anything else with this one but if you are a cream lover I know that some of you will be adding a naughty dollop of cream on the side.......

Here is the recipe

The Recipes - The Dab Barm cake

This a traditional Lancashire thing. A Dab in Lancashire is a thinly sliced, about 4-5mm wide, piece of a large potato. This is then dried on a tea towel or kitchen roll, and then dipped in batter mix and deep fried until golden. It's a chip shop thing!
We like this one served on a buttered Barm cake, with a piece of iceberg lettuce, a slice of onion and a dollop of mayonnaise. Be sure to splash on a little more vinegar and salt when you put it on the bread. Currently we are working on a tasty chip shop style batter mix to fry them in at home. We will be sure to keep you updated on how this works out.

In the meantime here is the recipe.

The Recipes - Vegetable Broth and then Hash

With this recipe my father used to make Broth a lot and this is his own recipe. He also made dumplings - so I adapted them with vegetable suet and this is the result. It's a simple dish with celery, leek, carrots, swede, savoy cabbage, fresh and dried thyme, vegetable stock cubes, a dessert spoon of cornflour and some ground black pepper. This is a great and warming one pot Winter dish both vegan and vegetarian. For an even better taste add 18-20g of the fresh thyme to this recipe along with the dried.
On day two he would make up some mashed potatoes with a little milk, butter and black pepper, and then fry up some mash with a couple of ladles of broth mix, on a low to medium heat until the liquid reduced. Then serve it as it was with either a squirt of brown sauce in it or a squirt of tomato ketchup! I am in the brown sauce camp myself as was my father but it's entirely up to you.....

Here is the recipe

The Recipes - Garlic Dip

This recipe came from a friend of mine who's parents used to run a restaurant. He gave me the basics  which is mayonnaise, black pepper and crushed garlic. Try it first with two dessert spoons of mayonnaise, one small crushed garlic clove and some ground black pepper. For a hint of garlic use more mayonnaise then adjust to taste. I like it best served with carrot and celery batons.

Here is the recipe

The Recipes - Spicy Carrot, Coriander and Celery Soup

Part of this recipe came about when mum was making a recipe from a book. At the time I had some herbs chopped up and frozen in bags. Part of the books' recipe used Parsley in it and mum and her friend mistakenly used the frozen Coriander, luckily they dropped some of it on the floor or it would have been too spicy to eat. I liked the Coriander taste though in the soup and played about with the quantity so that it didn't overshadow the vegetables.With a little tinkering with the quantities of the other ingredients too this is what we ended up with. Hope you like it too.

Here is the recipe