Bake it Better- help Great Ormond St build the biggest collection of children’s recipes

January 20th, 2010

MyDish are working with the Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity as part of the Bake it Better campaign to build the biggest collection of children’s recipes to cook for or have fun and bake with children.

The best recipes will be chosen and featured in a special recipe book with proceeds going to the Great Ormond Street Hospital Chairty . It’s all for a good cause and a simple way to raise funds for research into the cause and treatment of childhood cancer. Join up NOW!

It’s really simple to join the Bake it Better group – just click on the link and hit the ‘join group’ button – there is a simple and short registration and then you can add your own recipe to the group. Don’t forget to invite all your friends to help us create the biggest and best collection of children’s recipes. Please tell all your friends and family.

How did we get involved with Gt Ormond Street Hospital?

My Son Oliver was cared for at Gt Ormond Street with a Kidney problem – he was rushed to hospital when he was 10 years old and we stayed in the hospital for a week with Oliver on some pretty serious medicines.  When he was well and came back for a check-up he wanted to give something back to the hospital to say thanks and to help the other children.  So when we started MyDish it was Oliver’s initiative to create the recipe books as a way for people to raise funds for their own charity and today we are working with Gt Ormond Street to create a book of recipes for children.

Here is a guest piece from Oli:

Hey, You probably don’t know who I am, but my name’s Oli and I was a patient at Great Ormond street hospital for quite a while when I was younger because I was diagnosed with neufrotic syndrome, a rare urinary disease.

It was a very hard time in my life as the cure was to put me on steroids so I undoubtedly gained a lot of weight, but all of the staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital made what would otherwise be a terrible experience a reasonably pleasurable one (considering the circumstances).

In my opinion, you can never really appreciate the work which Great Ormond Street Hospital does until you are treated there. I had often been given a sponsorship pack at school which would mean that if I were to colour in a picture, my parents and people I know would give me money to give to Great Ormond Street Hospital, but from this, I just saw it as another charity, oblivious to the lives it saves and people it helps. I would happily hand over my money without a moment’s thought as to where the money was going and what it was to be used for.

For the first month or so of me having neufrotic syndrome, I had very few symptoms but after about a month, I began throwing up repeatedly and this is when my mum first decided to take me to the GP. The doctor asked me for a urine sample and, once she checked it, immediately told me I should be taken to a hospital. I was first taken to Barnet general hospital but was moved to Great Ormond Street very soon as that was where the most knowledgeable person for this disease worked. He started me on my course of steroids and I was out of the hospital within a week.

I did have quite a few relapses of Neufrotic Syndrome, but now, we hope that it has gone away for good. I could definitely not have got through this whole thing without Great Ormond Street and especially without my mum, who was with me through the whole thing. My mum is a very talented chef and is the CEO of mydish.co.uk . Check it out by the way, it’s like a website where you give other people your favourite recipes and I think it’s really cool.

Thank you mum and thank you Great Ormond Street!

Oli Savage

Ditch the January Diet

January 4th, 2010

After the Christmas excesses, there’s something slightly masochistic about going from feast to famine and embarking upon a New Year diet in the name of self-improvement. With the bitter cold and various lurgies doing the rounds, a harsh and meagre food regime is the short cut to the miserable winter blues and leaves you wide open to colds and flus, if you’re not careful.

That’s why at MyDish we think you should ditch the January diet and indulge yourself with wonderful warming soups, stews and casseroles. These can be crammed full of lovely veg and pulses as well as meat and carbs. And why not treat yourself to a cake or two while you’re at it? A little bit of what you fancy does you good.

Remember, we’re not saying ‘be unhealthy’, we just think January’s grim enough without putting yourself on starvation rations too. It’s months until you have to squeeze into that summer bikini.

Here are some lovely tasty warming soups, stews, casseroles and winter warmers to keep out the chill.

7 Veg and Pumpkin Soup
http://www.mydish.co.uk/recipe/3231/7%20Veg%20and%20Pumpkin%20Soup

Barley Soup
http://www.mydish.co.uk/recipe/684/Barley%20Soup

Carrot and Coriander Soup
http://www.mydish.co.uk/recipe/6039/Carrot%20and%20Corriander%20Soup%20Zero%20Point

Beef Stew
http://www.mydish.co.uk/recipe/1367/Beef%20Stew

Roast Pumpkin Risotto
http://www.mydish.co.uk/recipe/1367/Beef%20Stew

Warming Winter Chicken and Vegetable Soup
http://www.mydish.co.uk/recipe/2433/Warming%20Winter%20Chicken%20and%20Vegetable%20Soup

2009’s Favourite MyDish Recipes

December 31st, 2009

We’ve dipped into the archives and discovered what your favouroye MyDish Recipes of 2009 were. And here they are. It’s based on the number of page views a recipe received and also dependent on a favourable rating from other users. Enjoy!

Basic Sponge Cake

Greek Potatoes

Thai Green Chicken Curry

The Best Apple Crumble

Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Mozarella and Parma Ham

MyDish Christmas Appeal

December 8th, 2009

We’re really getting excited about Christmas and we’ve seen lots and lots of visitors coming by looking for seasonal inspiration. You can check out our marvellous Christmas page for plenty of great cooking ideas suitable for families and friends. But we do need your help.

We need your special CHRISTMAS recipe!

Recipes are like places at the dinner table: there’s always room for more! And we know that there are people out there who would like your special recipes. So please tell us your Christmas specialities.

In particular we’d like to hear about:

- Your special veg dishes? Do you jazz up your sprouts?

- Spectacular stuffing. How do you make yours?

- Party tricks! What snacks keep your guests happy?

- Drinks: do you have a favourite seasonal snifter?

- Alternative roasts: if it’s not turkey, what do you cook?

- And, last but not least, we’re also keen to hear about vegan and vegetarian Christmas dishes.

The Perfect Gift: A MyDish Personalised Calendar

November 17th, 2009

If you’re stuck for ideas for a great Christmas present gift for family and friends who love cooking, why not try our unique MyDish calendars?

Simply choose twelve recipes (one for each month): these could be your own or one of your Favourites recipes added my another MyDish members. And we’ll transform your choices into a wonder calendar. If you’re stuck for ideas, we’ve even put some together for you, to save time.

Once you’ve chosen your recipes, you can add dates to remember. Special days, birthdays, anniversaries: just pop them into your calendar using our easy-to-use software and they’ll be printed in the calendar too.

The finished calendars are glossy and professional and best of all are a totally original gift. Find out all about making your calendar here.

Pick of the Pops: The MyDish October Top 10

November 9th, 2009

Not Arf! Ahh ha! Set the sounds going before you check out the MyDish Top Ten Recipes for October 2009. Get that Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman vibe going.

1) Greek Potatoes

2) Basic Sponge Cake

3) The Best Apple Crumble

4) Halloween Butternut Squash and Pumpkin Soup

5) Roasted Tomato Soup

6) French Onion Soup

7) Thai Green Chicken Curry

8 ) Traditional Lancashire Hotpot

9) The Ultimate Chicken Korma Curry

10) Lemon Drizzle Cake

Pumpkins Galore!

October 30th, 2009

My husband is a recycling nut and all our veggie waste goes to the bottom of the garden where he and the kids have made compost units out of pallets and bits of old wood. Last year we did the Halloween thing and all the waste as usual went to the bottom of the garden.
This spring, when Kenny was doing the front flower bed and he put his own compost onto the top soil and a few weeks later it grew into what we thought was a jungle of weeds. My dad came by and said he thought we should get our boys to do a bit of gardening and tidy up the front flower bed.  To our surprise Tom came back and showed us vine tomatoes, potatoes and about 20 pumpkins that had grown from the waste in the compost. The result has been a bumper crop of pumpkins we’ll be using for Halloween!

We have also made so much pumpkin soup for the winter with all sorts of different variations including ginger, coriander, turmeric and someone showed us a really nice finishing touch – you can fry a thin slice of pumpkin and then bake it to decorate the soup

So, if you’re carving out a pumpkin this Halloween, don’t waste the insides. MyDish has loads of pumpkin recipes for you and remember it’s very much like butternut squash so those recipes work for pumpkin too. Enjoy your pumpkins!

We *heart* the Green Granny

October 26th, 2009

Barbara is Britain’s Green Granny courtesy of Oxfam. We love this video from her showing how to use leftover, stale bread. Go Barbara!

Getting More Recipe Views

October 14th, 2009

We’re constantly tweaking the way that MyDish works and especially how recipes appear in search results. We want visitors to the site to find the recipe they want as quickly as possible. In the past few weeks, quite a few people have asked me how they can ensure that their recipes are viewed by as many people as possible.

Here are some tips:

The Recipe Title is vital

One of the most important aspects of your recipes that helps it get found is the title. So ‘cottage pie’ is fine but more detail is better: ‘easy cottage pie with beef mince’ or ‘vegetarian cottage pie with lentils’ or ‘quick cottage pie for the family’. The added info gives the search engine a bit more to play with. As long as it’s accurate and relevant, add it.

We love recipes that are called something like ‘Granny’s winter soup’ and ‘Donna’s killer dessert’ but personal titles don’t necessarily help people find you. Try adding some of the major ingredients to the title to make it ‘Granny’s winter soup with lamb, carrots and leeks’ or ‘Donna’s killer dessert: white chocolate cheesecake’. If in doubt, if it’s relevant, add more details.

Pictures

In search results, visitors to MyDish love to see a picture of what they’re looking for and recipes with snaps really do attract more attention. If you can, add a pic to your recipe to draw in more readers.

Add more details

On the second page of the Recipe Input process, you have an opportunity to tag your recipes by course type (starter, main course etc) and also by recipe type (vegetarian, family recipe etc). Adding these extra fields means we can offer up your recipes to more browsers, if they’re relevant. If you want to add more more detail to recipes you’ve already posted, don’t forget that you can edit your recipes any time.

A curry beats a bunch of flowers

September 29th, 2009

You know when you have done something completely out of order? You are in the wrong and you can make many excuses: bad day at work, awful traffic on the way home, nothing in its right place at home. But really, I’d had a stressful day and I just went bang!

It happened to me last week and when I took it all out on my nearest and dearest (my husband) he rightly wouldn’t speak to me all night. So rather than getting into a big debate about it the next day, I decided to take some radical action.  I went home the day after (another long day) with a completely new recipe – and cooked his favourite, an Indian Curry.

I was looking through the MyDish recipes and different sections and couldn’t decide what to make and then I knew that the only thing that would work was a curry.  I like Thai curries but am only just getting into Indian Curries: I have never cooked an Indian Curry at home and have definitely never done one using all the spices from scratch. But I thought it was worthy of the apology needed – I chose Anitak’s Authentic Chicken Curry.

It wasn’t as tricky as I’d feared and the results were sensational, so I’m looking forward to trying some more Indian recipes. Thankfully my husband Kenny accepted my apology and it shows the way to a man’s heart – and forgiveness, is through his tummy. Mission accomplished.