Archive for the ‘- News’ Category

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

Wednesday, 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

2009’s Favourite MyDish Recipes

Thursday, 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

The Perfect Gift: A MyDish Personalised Calendar

Tuesday, 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

Monday, 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!

Friday, 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!

Getting More Recipe Views

Wednesday, 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.

Back to Business as Usual

Friday, September 11th, 2009

It has been an amazing few weeks since we were on Dragons Den. During and just after the show, the site traffic surged and for the week afterwards we saw a massive increase in visitors. Even though we did not enjoy a spike from a repeat (this was cancelled because of the athletics) the ‘iplayer effect’ definitely meant that people were watching throughout the seven days after the show.

We’ve also received thousands of email and calls from people who saw the show. Many were just wishing us luck and saying how they enjoyed the programme but there have also been some promising leads for business partnerships and developments. We’ve just about cleared the backlog and I’m overwhelmed by all the lovely messages you sent.

Since then we’ve been thrilled to be featured in a whole host of blogs and forums as well as in traditional media. There was a good piece in the Sunday Telegraph featuring some of my previous blog post.

Emma Jones of EnterpriseNation, a resource for people running home based business, also interviewed me and you can find that here.

I was also interviewed by eCommerce blogger Trevor Ginn on his blog, www.trevorginn.com. Like us, he’s based at the Truman Brewery in London. As well as blogging Trevor also runs the online baby business Hello Baby and likes cooking Shepherds pie, lasagne and moussaka.

And now as the excitement of Dragons Den fades into the past, we’ve got plenty to be getting along with. And we’ve got so many more recipes to try too!

My Experience in the Dragons’ Den

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

I have often watched Dragons Den and seen the terrible pitches some people make and thought : You are rubbish. Why don’t you learn how to present properly? It was not until I ventured to Pinewood Studios one day for my own turn facing the Dragons in their Den that I realised what a terrifying and stressful experience it is. I can honestly say it was the scariest day of my life.

I arrived at the studios early one morning to be recorded walking up the famous stairs and then nothing. I had to wait for hours and hours, nearly all day, in a hot room. I wasn’t allowed to talk to any other contestants because, I was told, it might scare me. It made me even more petrified! Whenever you needed the loo, a member of the crew ensured the coast was clear so we didn’t meet anyone on the way. As time passed, I became more nervous. I guess that’s the point. And in the end I didn’t even get to do my pitch. I had to go home and come back again the next morning after very little sleep.

The actual pitch was hell. I am an experienced and confident presenter and my pitch was rubbish. My throat closed up and I literally couldn’t speak. The enormity of the event got to me. Suddenly I was struck by how important these few minutes all caught on camera were for me, my business and even my family. I kept thinking to myself: “You are being rubbish girl.”

When the time came for the Dragons to ask me questions, and I had to start thinking on my feet, I came into my own. I know my business inside out and I stopped thinking about the situation and just answered the questions. Everyone has always said to me how important it is to ‘know your numbers’ I think that’s nonsense. Learning your business figures parrot fashion doesn’t work. It’s important to feel and understand your business perfectly so however the questions go, you can stand there and give a reasonable answer and defend your thoughts because you know what you are talking about.

What I hated about the whole thing is the combativeness. Some really enthusiastic, capable people, who might need some business support or expertise, were torn apart. I think people trying to set up businesses should be celebrated even if some of their ideas are impractical or silly. There are lots of people who have ideas but I really admire people who get off their behinds and have a go.

Sometimes, the ideas are great but the contestants don’t have the business acumen they need to take it further. What they do need is a good team on board to help them make it happen. Real business doesn’t have to be combative. But I suppose it makes great telly.

I didn’t see the programme before it aired. So I had no idea how I would come across. Lots of my friends wanted to watch it with me. But because 2 hours of Q&A and negotiations were cut down to 10 minutes and I had no idea how they had made me look, I had to watch it with my family first.

What do you think? How do you think it went?

MyDish.co.uk is on Dragons’ Den this week

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Hi everyone,

Carol here. I just wanted to let you know that I am on Dragons Den on Wednesday (the 12th) this week. Tune in at 9pm to find out how it goes. I have been sworn to secrecy as to whether any of the Dragons dig deep and invest in MyDish but in any case, as ever, Dragons’ Den is a really exciting programme. I hope you’ll tune in.

The preview and more information is all up there on the BBC website, so get a sneak peak and whet your appetite.

Carol on Dragons' Den

Going into the Den and facing the Dragons was, with question, the scariest thing I have ever done in my life and I’ll be back here blogging about my experience of being on the show and what it means for MyDish. I’ll also be on Twitter.

Cheers,
Carol

Carol’s Blog: Loving the BBQ Season

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

It’s that time of the year when my husband is often in charge of the cooking: BBQ season. He’s South African so he is obviously the world’s greatest barbequer. Cooking becomes a military operation with me as the galley slave because when it comes to the BBQ, it’s all a matter of timing.

Kenny is a stickler for perfection. Pre-packed BBQs are not allowed. He chops the wood himself and lights the fire with twigs he’s scavenged personally. While he is setting the fire, I will be marinading the meat (which would have been done the night before if we’d known the weather was going to be good enough).

When the fire’s going, the baked potatoes must be in the oven. And by the time he starts cooking the meat, the table must be laid and salads prepared. If I’m running behind schedule, he’ll let me know!

The fire isn’t ready to cook on until the flames have subsided and the coals are grey and glowing. This means the meat is cooked properly all the way through. If you start cooking on your BBQ whilst the flames are licking the meat, you’ll just char the outside and leave the inside red and raw.

It may be a man-style high-octane cooking, but my husband does cook the most delicious whole leg of lamb on the closed barbi. Maybe this year we’ll get the braii out on Christmas day: his dad used to cook the Christmas turkey on the barbie in the garden which we would eat once the sun went down.