What have you been trying your hand at?

On VE day I made a 'wartime stew' just using what they would have grown in their gardens.

I made a boiled fruit cake, it must be 30 years since I last made one ,saw the recipe on here yesterday.

Delicious but as I live alone will be eating cake every day.

Biscuits. I made Mary Berry's "Fork Biscuits" which were so successful that I have varied them by replacing some of the flour with ground hazelnuts and then with ground almonds - both delicious. The latest experiment was digestive biscuits - those are excellent with cheese.

Pikelets.
My daughter gave me a tin if dried yeast with my bread machine at Christmas.
I fancied crumpets, but do not own any crumpet rings. So pikelets it was.
They were very successful too. I enjoyed them with butter and raspberry jam.

Ginger nuts.

The hardest Ginger Nuts I have ever dunked in my tea .

God Bless McVities is all I can say

I recently tried a recipe for brined chicken breast. Brined for at least 30 minutes. Then grilled with a mix of olive oil, Rosemary, lemon juice and chopped garlic brushed on both sides. Served with pasta.
The breasts were so tender, I'm going to use this recipe from now on.

Bunches of hetbs in everything and eating leftovers cooking for 2 days I've been baking bread. I believe we are lucky as the local flour mill has never closed.

I have been making my own bread for years but have now got a productive sourdough starter so really enjoying SD bread and pizza base.

Hot cross buns and tea loaf have been a huge success.

The meal that my OH is loving the most is chicken and egg fried rice!
He adores Chinese food, I am not so keen but found a recipe and I have to say it’s very good.

I made naan breads yesterday and they were fantastic! Infact my son said he liked them better than the bought one, so I was chuffed for the afternoon. I’m also going to make some bread for the first time since going to school which is light years away! I’ve also made loads of banana loaves (Mary berry’s recipe), walnut shortbread, chewy date bars, walnut and date loaf and my own pastry. This lockdown has brought me back to baking once again as I used to make all of my own stuff years ago.

DH has bought a Ken Hom Chinese cookery book and we have had some really lovely dishes out of it. All made by DH.

Stay safe and sane. X

I’ve made all sorts. Loads of veggie curries. Trying to be healthy when I have shopped. I bought loads of veg then forget to cook it. I make lots of soup and always have cream of coconut in the cupboard. So I cook all the veg up and throw the cream of c.nut in with curry paste. Then put in tubs in the freezer. So when I use it I can decide if its a meat or meat free day.

Made a boiled fruit cake for my son's birthday last week. Doing more gardening so no time for cooking apart from the usual meal cooking . Most last for two days, some for up to four!

Flapjacks! It's been hard to get hold of flour, had a big container of oats (probably from last year) that was airtight, a tin of golden syrup I hadn't opened and either butter or Flora.
So easy to do - didn't even weigh anything - why haven't I made them before???

Worried about using up eggs and milk I found a smashing recipe for a cider apple cake from Hugh Fearnly Wittingstall. I have made it 3 times now as we really enjoy it and being moist it keeps all week. I am also making all sorts of soups instead of buying cans as I used to. It is much healthier with no sugar and very little salt and excess can be frozen. So far I have boiled up a lamb bone for scotch broth, used chicken carcasses for chicken vegetable soup, Made spiced carrot soup, carrot and leek soup, nettle soup and yesterday leek and potato soup.

Apart from cooking all meals from scratch, I am busy writing down all the family stories told to me by my mother whilst I can remember them! Lemon and meringue pie today.

I don't do baking. Of course I can but I don't have a sweet tooth. My eating habits are no different than before

Not really food but I have just made 3&1/2 gallons of elderflower champagne.

Rosyanne please tell me how you did that.

We have a huge elderflower bush which has been covered in flowers for weeks and every year I mean to do something with them and forget. Most of them are getting brown now so it's too late I could kick myself

Purple pixie could you post recipefor nanbread .or does anyone have a good recipe for mans or chapati thanks

Forgot to say I have made no sew face masks I know they don't protect you but I thought if we were told to wear one outside at least I had some .

I love cooking & make a lot of my own bread anyway. I have made some nice cakes over this time- a great Banana one & a very moist Apple cake.
However the real find is that DH can cook!! He asked if he could have a go at a recipe he saw on a Waitrose card in the kitchen. OK- we did not eat until 9pm that night but it was delicious ( & yes- I did have to clean up the kitchen afterwards- you cannot expect miracles & it looked as if he had used every item available.)
He then made a chicken tray bake which was also nice but we had to eat it the next day & I froze the rest- I have explained about looking to see how many a recipe is supposed to feed now.
He now wants to make some bread which I think he will be good at as men are stronger & it will be well kneaded.
Watch this space!!

Elegran - I too made Fork Biscuits from Mary Berry's recipe. Could not believe how easy they were to make, I was so chuffed. Easy and extremely tasty, def recommend them.

I've been sewing face masks., would bake but OH would eat it all as I haven't got a sweet tooth and he is eating too much as it is. Next door neighbour passed a large fruit ginger cake over a few days ago and he has almost finished it already. No baking for that reason

I made vegan banana bred (as I had no eggs) with almost black bananas which usually I would have thrown away. I used 2 year old self raising flour bought when I last wanted to make a cake. Then the baking soda which was ancient. The resulting cake was lovely!! got the recipe from the internet.

Brunette If you can buy ground hazelnuts or ground almonds, substitute some of that for some of the flour, or add a tablespoon of cocoa for chocolate biscuits. I sometimes press them down with the base of a tumbler, (dipped in flour to keep it from sticking) for thinner biscuits than the fork biscuits. They cook faster then so don't need as long in the oven.

The digestives proved a bit sweet, so next time I shall use less sugar. They are good with cheese as an alternative to fattening sweet snacks with a cuppa. Recipe available if you would like it.