Get a perfect Mother’s Day gift with MyDish

It might seem like it’s too early to start thinking about Mother’s Day on 22nd March but actually now’s a great time to get started on building your unique cookbook for mother dear. Rather than the usual flowers or chocolates, why not gather together your favourite family recipes, add some family photos and create a fabulous personalised cookbook? Find out all about out cookbook here.

Don’t worry if you don’t have lots of recipes, we can help. We’ve created some ready made books that you can tweak and amend or you can pick some other recipes from other people on MyDish to build your book.

To get your Mothering Sunday book ready in time, you need to have ordered it by the 4th March because they have to be printed individually. And if you need any help, don’t worry, the MyDish team are happy to help.

Carol Savage on Home Cooking and the Credit Crunch

Should we be eating more squirrel?

With a cull of grey squirrels underway in Scotland, Walkers punting out new ‘Cajun Squirrel’ crisps as part of their ‘Do us a Flavour‘ campaign and everyone looking to save money on food, there’s only one question on our lips at MyDish.co.uk: should we be eating more squirrel?

Often maligned as ‘rats with PR agents’, a quick look around the net has revealed plenty of great ideas. BushCraftUK has recipes for fricasse squirrel, barbeque squirrel and also invlaubale tips on skinning and gutting the blighters.

Last year, the Observer profiled Rupert Mitford, the 6th Baron Redesdale, and Paul Parker a pest controller who together form the ‘The Red Squirrel Protection Partnership’. Part of protecting the red squirrel is culling the grey one. The red squirrel is native to the British Isles and endangered, so if you fancy some squirrel stew you’d be breaking the law if you went for a red. In any case, grey squirrels are bigger, with more meat. In the article, David Ridley of Ridley’s Fish and Game in Northumberland described the flavour of squirrel: ‘They have no fat on them and they live mostly on berries and nuts so the flesh is sweet. I’ve roasted them. I’ve flash-fried them with fresh thyme.’ Ridley sells squirrel in his shop and apparently each has to be labelled: ‘May contain nuts’.

Have you got any great squirrel recipes? Should we be eating more squirrel? Would you even try it it? Let us know!

New Features on Mydish.co.uk

You might have noticed that in the past month or so that we’ve been adding some new features to MyDish. If you want to find out more, read on.

At MyDish we’re passionate about food and cooking and we’re always looking out for new recipes to try. But MyDish is so much more than a recipe website. That would be boring. We’re much more interested in building and being nation’s favourite online food and cooking community. Sure the recipes are great. But we’re much more interested in people.

So, the new features we’ve been introducing of late are all about people. First of all, we’ve given MyDishers the ability to become friends. Just like on other social websites you can now add people on MyDish to your ‘friends’ list. Additionally, if you know someone who would love MyDish, or have someone in mind you would like to share your recipes with, you can invite them to join tooand build you network.

When you’re friends with someone, we’ll automatically let you know when add a new recipe, leave a comment or join a group. This means that you’ll be getting fresh idead every time you log into Mydish. And finally we’ve made it easier to communicate with each other. Using the new communication wall, you can publish a ‘shout’ addressed at your friends.

MyDish TV: Carol on Angel Funding and the Credit Crunch