The Wright side of life: Fun without the sun in Brighton!

Karen Wright writes: This week has been all go. I am still away, typing this up in the caravan after three days at the Brighton Foodies Festival. It has been great fun and I have met some interesting people including James Hillary who was on the Bake Off the year before me.
Karen at the Brighton Foodies FestivalKaren at the Brighton Foodies Festival
Karen at the Brighton Foodies Festival

I made those fruit tartlets that I talked about a couple of weeks ago. The challenge was always going to be preparing the pastry cases beforehand in our caravan oven. Pastry really needs to be kept cold and worked with cold hands and cold equipment. Not a problem this trip, the weather has been a bit on the nippy side down here so the 30 little cases I prepared earlier worked a treat.

The three days were all the same but different at the same time. I am starting to see that because I don’t work with a script I might say anything when I am on stage, so it is a surprise to me each time how the event plays out. Each day was brilliant fun and the audience were very appreciative, so I chalk the weekend up as a success.

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Both my girls were down to watch me in action, Kit lives in Brighton so that’s fab as our youngest Vanessa stayed over with her with her fella. I invited them all up to the camp site for a BBQ. The forecast had said sun…wrong, it tipped it down. We have probably all had that at some time, the indoors BBQ, frying pans and grill on et voila a party!

I made a ratatouille as a side dish, John really does not like it, but it was declared a winner by the rest of us. Ratatouille is a French vegetable dish, it uses courgettes, aubergines, peppers and onions, all flashed around in a frying pan with a little olive oil then transferred to a large pan where a couple of tins of tomatoes, garlic and oregano are mixed through. It simmers on the hob until all the vegetables are soft. It is also vegan and very healthy.

I made a cheat pastry to finish off with and here is what I did, very easy, very delish!

Puff pastry with raspberries and cream cheese:

1 roll of puff pastry bought from the shop

Punnet of raspberries

100g cream cheese

1 tbs icing sugar

Heat the oven to 200 degrees

Cut the pastry sheet into eight squares

Mix the cream cheese and icing sugar together

Place a tablespoon of cream cheese mixture in the centre of each square of pastry

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Bring each corner into the middle and press gently into the cream cheese

Put five raspberries onto each pastry, one in each corner and one in the middle

Bake until puffed up and slightly golden

Next up is Chatsworth House. I think there might be more indoor cooking as the forecast is terrible. To be honest it will be smashing just to cosy up in our caravan, do a bit of reading and maybe a bit of recipe development!

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

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