Author / Karen

Recipe

Vegan Chickpea Curry

This is a quick curry that is perfect for a speedy dinner. Great on its own or with rice, chips, or – like I have included here – a quick pan fried naan bread. I developed this speedy store cupboard recipe for the NEC Caravan, Camping and Motorhome show live food demo.

Ingredients (serves 4)

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 large sliced white onion
  • 1 heaped tsp garlic paste
  • 1 heaped tsp ginger paste
  • half tsp chilli paste
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp curry powder
  • 1 tin chopped tomatoes
  • 1 tin chickpeas
  • 1 tin coconut milk (stirred well with 3/4 cup removed for the naans)
  • 1 tin spinach (optional)

Optional Extras

  • 2 Chopped fresh tomatoes
  • 2 red chillies thinly sliced lengthways
  • 3 Handfuls fresh baby spinach
  • Handful crushed cashew nuts
  • Handful coriander

Method

  1. Chop all the vegetables and rinse the chickpeas
  2. Put a frying pan on a medium heat. Once hot, add the oil and onions.
  3. Sautée onions for five minutes until soft.
  4. Add the garlic, chilli, and ginger with the curry powder. Cook for 30 seconds.
  5. Add the tomatoes, chickpeas, and coconut milk. Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer.
  6. Cook for 10 minutes and serve.

Quick Panfried Naans

Ingredients

  • One and three quarters cups plain flour
  • 1 heaped Tsp Baking Powder
  • 1 Tsp Salt
  • 2 Tsp Sugar
  • 2 Tsp Oil
  • 3/4 Cup coconut Milk
  • Olive Oil and garlic paste mix for basting
  • Garlic Oil Fry Light

Method

  1. Add the dry ingredients to a bowl and mix together.
  2. Add the coconut milk gradually and mix until smooth.
  3. Split into four and shape into balls.
  4. Roll out to the thickness of a £1 coin.
  5. Spray a frying pan with FryLight and cook the naans for few minutes on each side.

by Karen
Recipe

Brazilian Picadillo

This week I have been doing live demonstrations at the Caravan and Camping Show. As part of this, people were invited to submit their favourite camping recipe for me to cook on stage. I had a wonderful day with my husband John and my girls Kit and Vanessa plus the amazing Terry from Bake Off to support me.

Press pass!

I selected this recipe because I had never heard of it and it sounded delicious. I have cooked it a couple of times since and have added it to my rotation of recipes.

Ingredients

  • 750g lean minced beef
  • 1 tbsp coconut oil
  • 1 sliced red onion
  • 1 sliced white onion
  • 4 crushed garlic cloves
  • Half green pepper sliced
  • Half red pepper sliced
  • 50g black olives sliced
  • 50g green olives sliced
  • 75g raisins
  • 75g capers (rinsed)
  • 2 cans chopped tomatoes
  • 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground cloves
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika

Method

  1. Soften the vegetables in the coconut oil in a large pan.
  2. Add the minced beef. Stir until meat has browned.
  3. Add the spices, olives, capers, raisins, and the white wine vinegar along with the tomatoes.
  4. Simmer for about twenty minutes and serve.

by Karen
GBBO Recipe

Weekly Roundup

Celery Soup

Following on from last week’s column I am relieved and happy
to report back that my Game of Thrones themed cake was a success. It’s always a
worry that something is going to go wrong, and disaster will strike at the last
minute when making a cake for something special. In Pre-Bake Off days I used to
take days to build a cake but my experience in that big tent taught me many
things, one of them being time management and to think on your feet if disaster
does poke its finger in your direction.

One example of this was in fact during cake week. I had
finished my Strawberry Fayre showstopper, it was a chocolate collar cake, we
all had to do collars. It was a roasting hot day, so I popped it into the
fridge. When I went back to bring it out for presenting, I was horrified to see
the collar at the back of the bottom tier was smashed in. I had failed to
notice the fridge light at the back and pushed my cake right into it. I cast
around for inspiration. I spotted my bobbin of bright red curling ribbon. I use
it often, if you try hard enough you can think of ways to use red ribbon,
cheers you up on a gloomy day! I made a ponytail of curling ribbon, tied it to
a skewer stuck it into the damage. Disguised and it looked triumphant. I nearly
got a Hollywood handshake!!

The healthy eating regime is going well. There are so many
things to make and devour once you get involved. My favourite this week
involves celery. I hear gasps and yawns of boredom. How can celery be on a
favourite list? Its transformed by cooking, no longer the last crudité left on
the buffet table, celery is amazing. Celery soup, two ingredients, a stock cube
and salt and pepper, here is the recipe.

Celery Soup

1 pack of celery

1 pack spring onions

1 veg stock cube

Chop the celery into approx. 2cm lengths (discard the
bottom)

Trim and chop the spring onion

Put into a large saucepan and cover with water

Add the stock cube

bring to the boil and simmer until soft

add more water if required

Blitz in blender or with a stick blender

Salt and pepper to taste

Celery Soup

If you remember I mentioned my Uncle Graham last week. He
lives around the corner from me and I visited him yesterday. He is an avid film
maker, home movies, he has 500 and they go back to the early sixties. I am
researching food trends and holidays from the sixties onwards. He was showing
me the old favourites. Most of us love a trip down memory lane. We were saying
how back in the sixties we had never heard of pasta and thought that spaghetti
only came in a tin, not having a clue what it was made from. When I got home, I
decided to take a risk and do some pasta for our tea. You see my human dustbin
husband John draws the line at pasta, he will eat it but not with a smile and
he will not eat rice, unless it is made with milk and sugar and baked in the
oven! He is old school you see when the only carbs found on a plate were
potatoes.

I got away with it and just by rummaging around in the
fridge. I sprayed my Wok with fry light and softened up and onion a red pepper
and a few cherry tomatoes. I had a bit of left-over chicken tikka breast from
the night before and a few rashers of bacon. That went into the wok. I added a
tiny bit of water and half a pot of quark. A few grinds of salt and pepper and
voila. I cooked off some tagliatelle, stirred it through the sauce and it was
done. Hey presto a quick healthy dinner and John scoffed the lot.

by Karen
Visits Yorkshire

Karen’s News Round

Closing words of my presentation.
Rounding up my Presentation

This week I made a New Year’s Resolution, I know I know, I am over two weeks late stepping up to the mark, but I have finally done it. I need to get the extra weight off that has been accumulating since my exciting summer in the Bake-Off tent. The first couple of weeks in the New Year most of us have odds and ends in the house that it would be a crime to throw away so hence I am two weeks late getting into my new regime. My husband John still has his instructions from me as to what his lunches must be, in fact he just poked his head around the door and asked if he was still on pate and cheese duties!

So, day one of my regime and I made brunch for myself. Not everyone can face spicy food early in the day, but I am not one of them, never too early in my book. I started by looking in my vegetable box and found a big cauliflower looking up at me, then a sweet potato that looked a wee bit sorry for itself, then half a yellow pepper was glinting at me and finally a red onion. Quick rummage around in my spice tin and before you could say “Bob’s your Uncle” I had a delicious veggie curry in my tummy. Just for the record I don’t have an Uncle Bob, but it sounded better than Uncle Graham or Uncle David, who are my actual Uncles.

That is a very healthy plate, and it is Veganuary too, so I am for once on trend!

A friend has asked me to make a small cake for her friends Birthday next week. It has a theme, everyone wants a theme these days. When I was small the theme that set a cake apart from any other cake at birthday time was having a candle stuck into it. Now you need a very good imagination, or a friend called Google to find inspiration for a cake. This cake’s theme is Game of Thrones. I have heard of the programme but not seen it. Google to the rescue. One of the many things that my experience on the Bake Off taught me was to think outside of the box, so using this lesson I have made a crown as I know crowns are significant on the programme, I have bought some cocktail stick swords to poke into the crown and I have filled the crown with Quality Street as crown jewels. When I make the cake next week, I will have red ganache (chocolate melted with cream) dripping down the cake as blood and my crown triumphantly on the top.

Tonight, I have been invited to speak at a local Women’s Institute meeting https://twitter.com/thehorburywi. I need to spruce myself up and get my stripes out of the wardrobe. Everyone is very keen to hear the Bake-Off story and I love to tell it, so it is a good match. They want me to judge their bakes, but I can’t as I am on my healthy regime now and with the best will in the world, I can’t get Victoria sponges and scones to fit in the regime. Think outside of the box, what to do? My trusty husband John, better known as a human dustbin will come along, he can taste I can look, between us we will work it out, teamwork!

by Karen
Visits Yorkshire

Rhubarb Rhubarb Rhubarb

Glorious Pink Stalks

Its the first week in January and I hear on the rhubarb line that the first forced juicy pink stalks are out of the sheds and in the farm shop. I am keen to get my hands on some as I am doing a live food demo this year at Wakefield Rhubarb Festival (Sunday 24th February 2019) and need to practice some ideas.

When I arrived at the Rhubarb Triangle Farm Shop and explained my mission I was invited to have a quick peek in the forcing sheds, what a privilege! I have seen inside on the TV before but never expected to be in among the beautiful pink stalks in person. The sheds were dark and warm, it was a bit muddy underfoot. Despite this, the atmosphere strangely serene, with the pretty pink stalks standing proud with their crowns of soft green leaves like a bouffant beehive hairdo – I think of them as ladies, pink ladies. If you listen very carefully you can hear them squeak as they grow. Off I went back into the shop, picked my selection and off away to my kitchen to think up some delicious ways to cook it up.

by Karen
Baking Recipe

Simple but classic poached pears

Last Sunday, I was making my shopping list and checked the fruit bowl. It was empty except for a few pears that were getting past their best. Not being one to waste food, I thought I’d give poached pears a try for dessert that evening. They were very quick to prepare and tasted amazing – my mother loves tinned pears and she gave them 5 stars!

Ingredients (serves 4)

  • 4 pears
  • 150g caster sugar
  • 500ml water
  • Tsp ground cinnamon
  • Tsp vanilla paste
  • Juice of 1/2 lemon
  1. In a medium sauce pan, put all the ingredients except the pears. Put a low heat while you peel the pears.
  2. Once peeled, place the pears into the pan.
  3. Bring the syrup to a boil and reduce to a simmer until the pears are soft.
  4. Serve warm or cold. I like them with cream, but custard tastes great too!

by Karen
Christmas

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

It is very hard to believe its now the end of 2018. The most amazing year I have ever had. I want to wish everyone who has been so kind, so supportive of me on this incredible journey a very Happy New Year.

Thank You

Karen

by Karen
Baking Charity Recipe

Kids’ Fairy Cakes

In a few weeks’ time I have volunteered to spend a day working with school children at Miriam Lord Primary School in Bradford. They are having an Aspire, Achieve, Dream day, and I am going to be talking to them about my background, Bake Off, uplifting bits and bobs from my life, and something practical too, but what?

Well if in doubt, all kids love to decorate a bun or a cupcake, so I have made the first batch of kids’ fairy cakes just now, this recipe made 54 small buns using a Victoria sponge ratio.

I will freeze this lot and then make exactly the same quantity nearer the time, then they have the fun part of frostings and sprinkles!

Ingredients:

400g Soft Margarine
400g Caster Sugar
8 Medium Eggs
375g Self Raising Flour
40g Cocoa Powder

Method:

1. Cream the margarine and sugar together
2. Beat in the eggs with a large spoon of flour
3. Fold in the rest of the flour
4. Spoon the mixture into small bun cases
5. Bake in the oven at 190 degrees (or 180 degrees in a fan assisted oven) for about ten minutes
6. Leave to cool on a wire rack

by Karen
Recipe

Green Tomato Chutney Recipe

I got a call from my Uncle Graham this morning asking me if I could use a few green tomatoes which were left over from his summer tomato crop. Well, in actual fact, I had never done anything with green tomatoes before but not wanting to turn down his offer I said “Of course, that’s fab Uncle” and popped around the corner to collect them. (We live like a dozen houses from each other).

The only recollection I had of green toms was when I was a kid, my dad was always trying to ripen them, either in a drawer in the dresser or on a sunny windowsill, they never turned as far as I can recall.

When in doubt in these situations, I call upon chutney. My family will tell you, should you bother to ask, I am a bit of a condiment queen. When I was a kid the best thing about mam’s salad on Sunday tea was the Heinz Salad Cream.

Chutney is a big fave of mine, so I made some, took about half an hour to cook down and Bob’s your uncle. (I don’t have an uncle called Bob, but my kids do)!

Ingredients:

175g Brown Sugar
150ml White Wine Vinegar
1 Onion (finely chopped)
1 Cooking Apple (finely chopped)
125g Sultanas
500g Green Tomatoes
1 tsp Chilli Flakes
1 tsp Ginger Powder
1 tbs Garlic Puree

N.B. I used dried spices and a tube of garlic puree as that’s what I had in the larder, but fresh would be fine of course.

Method:

1. In a frying pan, dissolve the sugar in the vinegar under a low heat
2. Throw all the ingredients in and bubble down until they form a sticky, chutney consistency
3. Bingo! Done. Pop into sterilised jars (2 x 500g)

Great with cold meats and cheeses, bang it on the Buffet Table!

by Karen
Baking Christmas

Christmas Cake Recipe

It is here once again, we are into November and it is time to get the big mixing bowls out for the Christmas Cake.

I know that not everyone is a fan, but I am! It’s a tradition to make at least one cake. My mam used to make a round one; royal icing peaked to make look like snow, a ruffled frill around it and plastic decorations: Father Christmas, robins, a snowman, and a Merry Xmas greeting.

I don’t bother with fancy pants stuff,  I just go with tradition. Mam also made two Christmas Cake loaves. My fondest memories of Christmas Eve are having a slice with some cheese and a little sip of cream sherry.

When I am doing the final stir up I get my husband and girls to take turns stirring and make a wish. (If they’re away from home they do it telepathically, I text them when to make the wish and I stir for them).

Here we go, this makes a big cake, like ten inches and tall. If you want to adjust to make smaller give me a toot and I will send quantities.

Ingredients: 

450g Sultanas
450g Currants
450g Raisins
150g Chopped Prunes or Dates
100g Glace Cherries
100g Candied Peel
6 Tbs Brandy
450g Plain Flour
A large pinch of Salt
1 Tsp Cinnamon
2 Tsp Mixed Spice
2 Tbs Cocoa Powder
450g Unsalted Butter
450g Dark Brown Sugar
8 Large Eggs
100g Ground Almonds
100g Flake Almonds

Method:

1. Soak all the dried fruit in a bowl with the brandy the night before you bake your cake
2. Grease a 10inch springform tin and line with baking parchment
3. Preheat the oven to 150 or fan 140
4. Sift together the flour, spices cocoa and salt
5. Whisk the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy
6. Beat the eggs in a jug and beat in to the sugar and butter gradually
7. With a large spoon, mix in the flour/spice mix and fruit together
8. Make a wish
9. Spoon into the cake tin and level the top
10. Using newspaper or brown paper and string protect the outside of the tin
11. Bake for about 3 and a half hours, or until a skewer come out clean
12. Leave to cool in the tin then wrap in foil and store in a cool place
13. Feed the cake with brandy every week until it is time to decorate (liberally spoon brandy onto the cake)

by Karen