KUMPULAN MASTER BLOG

Garlic Red Cabbage- a simple vegetable dish to add colour to your roast dinner. Red Cabbage and garlic with added zing from red wine vinegar. In winter, I usually get quite lazy about vegetables, rotating between carrots, peas and broccoli, carrots, peas, broccoli. Occasionally adding some sweetcorn to the peas doesn't really qualify as changing things up, does it? In the summer, there's all sorts of excitement with different types of salad, avocado, spring onions, so many colourful veggies! But in winter, I am often totally lacking in vegetable inspiration. One way of having a bit more variety, is to look at what's in season. The supermarkets tend to have everything in stock all year round, so it can be hard to eat seasonally. I find the Great Grub Club website as well as the BBC Good Food Seasonal section good for info on this subject. Red cabbage is coming into season now and will last into December, so it's a great choice as a dinner vegetable. It really brighten...

Hearty Slow Cooker Beef and Bean Stew- a really filling slow cooked beef stew with carrots, potato and haricot beans. Syn-free on Slimming World and just over 300 calories. Jump to recipe When you ask someone what they make in their slow cooker, invariably they say 'stew'. It's a slow cooking staple. I have made it quite rarely myself though. I think have been so determined to find other things to make in my slow cooker that I have rather neglected the humble stew! This week I decided to remedy the situation and make a Hearty Slow Cooker Beef and Bean Stew. I had a late meeting coming up and took the chance to put this stew on overnight and portion it out in the morning. It was so nice to walk through the door at 7pm and know that it only needed a quick zap in the micro and it would be ready. I call this beef and bean stew hearty because it's so filling. As you're using a cheap cut of beef and packing the stew with veg and beans, it's also very low cost to make....

It was the first ever Batter Week on GBBO last week, and after a great deal of umming and aahing, I have made a Banana Toad in the Hole as my contribution to the #GBBOTwitterBakeAlong Batter is a tricky beast. I have great success with pancakes, but home-made Yorkshire puddings are a bit scary. It's partly because my mum is the absolute Queen of Yorkshire Puds. Hers rise to epic proportions and everyone fights over the last one. Her Yorkshire tin got a bit past its best after so many years of use, so she threw it out and bought a new one. She claims that her Yorkshires have never ever been as good again, but they taste pretty great to me! As I had chickened out of doing individual Yorkshire puds, I decided to go for what is effectively one giant Yorkshire and make Banana Toad in the Hole. I sweetened the batter with caster sugar, added cinnamon and laid sliced bananas in the batter. Yum! It's a bit like a pre-built pancake. Even better when you pour some of the chocolate sauce ...

Chocolate Brioche Twist- a classic brioche dough twisted with milk chocolate and baked. Perfect as an Easter breakfast treat. This week, for the #GBBOTwitterBakeAlong, I have made a Chocolate Brioche Twist. My heart sank a little when I saw the challenges in last week's GBBO. I love watching Bread Week and I love making bread in my breadmaker but I have little to no experience of any kind of fancy breadmaking. So when I saw twists and sweet dough and showstoppers using 3 different types of flour, I wasn't sure how I would get on with trying something similar out for myself. I decided to make a Chocolate Brioche Twist as it didn't seem too scary or complicated and I was very pleased with how it turned out. It's absolutely delicious for one thing, and it looks pretty impressive when it's baked. Brioche is made of an enriched dough using eggs, sugar and butter which gives it a slightly more cakey, buttery texture. As you'd expect from the name, it's French, bu...

Maple and Thyme Roasted Carrots- sweet, sticky roasted carrots with thyme. Delicious as a side dish to your roast dinner. I made Maple and Thyme Roasted Carrots to go along with dinner this week. Carrots are hands-down my favourite vegetable because they are so versatile. Grated on a salad? Cut into sticks and dip into houmous? Roasted? Boiled? Put them in a cake? All good. They also complement a lot of different flavours and are especially good when a little extra sweetness is added to them. These Maple and Thyme Roasted Carrots have that sweet edge to them from the maple syrup, complemented by the garlic and the thyme. When you roast them and they caramelise slightly, they taste even better! If you don't have maple syrup to hand (we've still got some of the really good stuff from our holiday in Canada), then you can easily substitute it with honey. I served the carrots as an accompaniment to Lime and Ginger Turkey Steaks along with some new potatoes. They would also make a g...

Well, we're back to school after the long summer holiday and that means I have to start thinking in advance about what I want for lunch. No more deciding on a whim, no more choosing what I fancy at the time, no more lazy mornings with no lunch prep. I actually don't like getting my lunch ready in the morning, I find it strange thinking about lunch while I eat my breakfast! Soup is my go-to lunch, especially for the Autumn and Winter. You can make it in big batches, it freezes well and you don't have to put much thought into it. This recipe is for Slow Cooker Carrot and Coriander Soup. Carrot and coriander is a classic flavour combination that works beautifully; the sweetness of the carrot and the spice of the coriander are perfect. It's full of veggie flavour and goodness with the bonus of not having to stand over it while it cooks. Thank you, slow cooker! I added an orange pepper for additional veg and some potato to bulk it out and make it go further. This recipe make...

If you watched the Great British Bake Off last week, you'll have seen the group of bakers tackling Viennese Whirls with mixed results. I watched them myself, thinking that it looked pretty difficult. Actually, they are fairly easy if you tackle them with confidence! In today's post, I am going to show you how I got on with making Viennese Whirls using a slightly adapted recipe from The Hairy Bikers and give you some top tips for trying it yourself. So, if you are wondering how to make Viennese Whirls and want to have a go, keep reading! Viennese Whirls are an entirely British creation that get their name from being inspired by Austrian pastries. They are biscuits, very similar to shortbread but with a much lighter texture. What makes them distinctive is the fact that they are piped biscuits in a swirl pattern, which are then filled with buttercream and jam. Usually the jam is strawberry, but you can use whatever your favourite is. I made half with strawberry and half with blac...

So it's Back to School this week after the 6 week summer holiday. Back to timetables and strict bedtimes and homework and early get-ups and school runs! For the coming weeknights, I will definitely be relying on my go-to quick dinners, as I'm too tired usually to think of anything elaborate, and if I can make something that I don't need to stand over, so much the better! The absolute ultimate in easy cooking though, is a one dish meal, or a tray bake; less fuss, less washing up. Always a winner for me. Have a look through my compilation of 10 Quick Dinner Recipes and you're sure to find something quick, easy and delicious to make for dinner on those really busy weeknights.