Discovering Dishes

Mary Unwin from Whitwick and District U3A discusses how she is continuing to share recipes with her Discovering Dishes group.

Our Discovering Dishes group normally meets once a month in a member's kitchen  At the moment, I’m sending out two recipes that we haven’t tried before and inspiring people to try cooking different things. We’re a friendly group and appreciate the contact. We’re keeping in touch and keeping cooking.

We usually meet in members’ kitchens, with a different person hosting each time. We make a starter, main and a sweet – things that we’ve never made before. In a group situation, you get more confidence. Everyone’s on a level pegging as the recipes are new to everyone so no one has any expertise. Afterwards we all eat what we’ve tried. We’ve had some amazing dishes and we’ve had some disasters. It’s all part of the fun.

For our group, what it has done in given people who are not experienced cooks confidence. It’s nice to share in a group situation and share knowledge together. Some people live alone and it means they can become more confident with cooking. We can always share knowledge too: with some of the recipes I’ve made, I’ve had questions about what the ingredients are. It’s all about sharing: sharing knowledge, sharing ingredients, sharing utensils.

We all help each other and I can see that some members have really grown in confidence. Each member hosts once a year as I don’t want to put pressure on.

I find the recipes that I share in the newspaper or online - we all just come up with things. It’s given us ideas.

Now instead of doing the three course recipes to make in 2 hours t, I’m doing unusual things. I’ve shared a recipe for a bulgar wheat salad, and a flapjack-esque thing in the newsletter, a store cupboard soup. Things that people can just do in the food processor but things that are slightly different to maybe what people would make on their own.

Here are some of the recipes, so you can try them too.

Quick Tomato and Lentil Soup

l tin Chopped Tomatoes

Half tin Cannellini beans or any other beans (not baked beans) drained

1 tin Lentils drained

half chopped onion

30g natural yogurt

2 tsp dried basil

1 tbsp olive oil

Put all ingredients in food processor or blender.

Season salt and pepper

Heat and enjoy.

Fruity Bran Loaf

100g All-Bran or similar (not bran flakes)

90g  Caster or Brown sugar

100g Sultanas or any other fruit

50g chopped apricots

50g dried figs

50g chopped dates (can double dates and omit figs)

1 beaten egg with approx 200ml milk

100g wholemeal Self Raising flour

Put all ingredients in mixer or bowl and mix well let stand for 30 minutes

If looks too stiff any some more milk.

Oven 180/160 fan/350F/Gas 4   Put in oiled loaf tin  and bake for approx 30-40 minutes

Turn out immeditely and cool on rack.    Good buttered.

Overnight Oats

40g Porridge Oats

150ml milk

1 tlbsp plain yogurt

10g chopped nuts

1 tsp runny honey

Simply put all ingredients in bowl and stir thoroughly or screw topped jar and shake.  You can rest in a fridge  overnight or all day.