Karen Wright: Satisfying store cupboard recipe

It is astonishing how much can change in less than a week.
Karen's gigantes plaki recipe.Karen's gigantes plaki recipe.
Karen's gigantes plaki recipe.

As I write this the whole country sits on the edge of its seats waiting to hear more news as to how we can all engage in the battle to fight and eventually overcome the Coronavirus. My mam Glenys and Bob her husband were due to fly to Spain on Saturday and with just hours to spare the holiday was cancelled, my youngest daughter's dream holiday to the USA is also a casualty and the first of my events has just been cancelled and rebooked for late summer. I know that each of us will feel the impact of this unprecedented situation to some extent, some livelihoods will be devastated. I have decided that the only thing that I can do is to keep calm and carry on and do my very best to make the best of it.

With that in mind, today I have baked a couple of large slabs of chocolate cake. There is a charity fundraiser set up for a week on Friday to support the Rob Burrow motor neurone campaign. One of the presenters over at 5 Towns Radio has set it up and I have offered a cake for the raffle. The chocolate slabs are going into the freezer and will be defrosted and decorated next week.

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There has been so much in the news about the supermarket shelves being empty with people panic buying so I had a look in my cupboard yesterday to see what I could put together from the contents. I found a tin of tomatoes and a tin of butter beans. I know lots of people my age have bad memories of butter beans, harking back to school dinners from the 1960s but I have come to really like them. There is a recipe in Greece called gigantes plaki. It is just a dish of huge beans baked in a tomato sauce. What I did was to make a sauce first by cooking a carrot, a stick of celery and half a chopped onion in half a litre of vegetable stock. Then I added a good squirt of tomato puree, a squirt of garlic puree and some herbs and spice. The herbs I used were dried mixed herbs and the spice was a teaspoon of cinnamon. I added the tinned tomatoes and the beans and bubbled it all together until it was thick. As with every savoury dish I cook, I added salt and pepper to taste. The Greeks would have plenty of olive oil in the sauce but as I still have one eye on my waistline I did without.

On Friday last week I was invited to the Theatre Royal Gala Dinner which is held in the cathedral. Last year I took my mum as my guest but as she was meant to be in Spain this time my cousin Janet came with me. It was a super night, starting with a fancy meal and then an auction. I was auctioned off once again which I always think is hilarious - sold to the highest bidder! Afterwards we made our way to the theatre for a fantastic variety show. We were dancing in the aisles, I was dancing with the aid of a walking stick as my back was playing up, but the music was too good to keep me from joining in.

This week I am doing an after-dinner speech in Ripon. Another first for me, they only want me to talk for 20 minutes so the challenge will be knowing when to stop. The event is held at Ripon Golf Club so it's best bib and tucker time once again.

So, readers, it has been an odd week for all of us, let's stay strong and look out for each other, pin on a smile and keep our chins up! You know the saying, “If you can’t be good be careful”.

For more tips and recipes go to http://www.karenwrightbakes.co.uk