January 2024

Hello, I am Susie Drage - welcome to ten years of sharing recipes.

I began my Cookery website in March 2014 and then in April 2018, it had grown in size that meant that it needed to be turned into a dedicated Cookery Website with a new website host.   The link to this website can also be found on my main Music Art & Cookery website - www.susiedrage.com

I am simply a housewife, a home cook and love experimenting in my kitchen with new ideas.    I was given huge encouragement and inspiration by my Mother who was a fabulous cook and happily this love and enthusiasm is now very much a part of the ethos adopted by my own children - and I love the constant competitive dishes proudly shared on WhatsApp.

In addition to my own love of cooking, I am also a musician and artist and you can look at the videos and music I have produced in my studio, as well as commercially produced albums available on all global download sites, including Spotify, iTunes and Amazon, etc.   The rest of my time is taken up as a Wildlife Artist specialising mainly in pastels and watercolours.    www.susiedrage.com and www.susiedrage.co.uk

The recipes on this website are a variety of my family's, friend's and my own creations or simply shared on from other sources in magazines, news articles, or on the internet, where we have tried them, tweaked them and enjoyed them! 

Interestingly, many online recipes are inspired or simply shared on by other cooks and where I have been able to find provenance, it is important to give credit to the original chef or cook.

Although we enjoy eclectic tastes, my daughter has greatly influenced our preference for more vegan and vegetarian dishes.we tend to eat more and more vegetarian or vegan based recipes and now, where possible, without sugar, usually substituting this with a more healthy alternative.   

During the Summer months, we take huge pleasure in growing a variety of vegetables in our super veg garden and we also grow a variety of soft fruits like red, white, black currants, red gooseberries, mulberries, apricots, peaches, nectarines and various types of cherries and several varieties of espaliered apple trees.   In addition to the usual potatoes, we grow the heritage carrots and beetroots, sugar snap peas, runner and French beans, Pan Choi, spinach and so the list goes on.   In the greenhouse, we are growing all sizes and shapes of heritage tomatoes, different types of lettuce, magnificent cucumbers and even melons as well as a variety of herbs both in the greenhouse and specially built raised beds which only contain herbs.    There is something extraordinarily exciting about nurturing and harvesting your own produce and the planting starts in March and we are still usually harvesting up until about Christmas, so rewarding.

Like so many people I know, I have a huge collection of cookery books, but the style of cooking has dramatically changed over the years with a tendency now to eat as healthily as possible and using fresh ingredients.   Although, just a kitchen cook - nothing beats eating totally fresh produce from your garden as well as cooking with all fresh ingredients and trying to avoid eating processed food.

Browsing through some of my very old cookbooks, I feel it is a tragedy for some really lovely ideas to go forgotten and so very often these are tweaked and some ingredients replaced to make them healthier and less rich.

I do all my own photography and occasionally use library photos until I can replace temporary library stock with my own images.   I try to keep the Index up to date and unfortunately, this website host doesn't support linking my 600 recipes to the actual recipes themselves - so for now, it means searching the category on the Home Page and then scrolling down the alphabetical index until you find the image you want and then click on that.

On LINKS, above, I have another website - 

Susie Drage Music Art and Cookery and also

DO TAKE A LOOK!

For now, I do not have a Blog but occasionally will share some thoughts as below!

13th December 2021

Another strange year almost at an end, once again - still in the grip of the Pandemic.   I had hoped to complete my Christmas section in time for this season, but it was not to be!  However, most of the recipes are there and the rest will be added by the end of the month.

I am continuing to experiment and add new recipes to us but faithfully shared from the various sources that I find.  It is so convenient to either use a laptop or iPad in the kitchen when cooking and from what I gather, books are rapidly becoming rather more obsolete at the expense of modern technology!

Our traditional Christmas fare very much comes from a friend of the family who, in the past, has had a successful career and published many books.   My family love her recipes and I am gradually including more of them in this section, in addition to others.   Our continued thanks to Rosemary Wadey.

17th September 2020

My web host has made a major update on the format of this website.   This means that I am now systematically having to check every recipe - to date, roughly 500! to check that the format is readable!

This is a seriously laborious task and I have only managed to check six categories to date, but am slowly working my way through each recipe!k   Some pages are requiring a re-format - so if you see any that require attention, do please let me know on the CONTACT US above.

Currently, the final collection of recipes collected over the past 40 years or so, are now in the process of being added and in time will have photos.

In the meantime, I am using library stock photos as a temporary measure until I can replace these with my own.   Others are just being presented without photos for now.

On the INDEX page, all recipes in BLUE are live links, the black ones will go live shortly.

16th September 2020

In February 2014, I started a new section on my Music and Art website to include Cookery - over the following four years, this quickly grew so big, it was unmanageable in that particular format.

In March 2018, I began the laborious task of transferring the cookery website which was now incorporated with

 Susie Drage Music Art and Cookery  to a brand new online Cookery Website - the initial phase took me nine months to complete.

Since then, I have gradually re-designed and expanded the categories as this new dedicated cookery website began to take shape.

I am currently going through a huge collection of files (in addition to my vast collection of cookery books) which contain recipes, either hand written or torn out of newspapers, magazines, etc over the past 40 years and if I still feel they have appeal, I intend to include them on this website, before hopefully doing away with a lot of accumulated paperwork and files!

Personally, I have fairly eclectic tastes and, therefore, have not chosen to specialise with any specific category but our lifestyle is rather more inclined to using less rich ingredients and substituting cream with yogurt or crème fraîche etc.    Likewise, the puddings are usually now made with alternative ingredients to refined white sugar such as Coconut Sugar, Rapadura, Maple Syrup, Honey, Agave and Date Syrups.

We are also conscious of trying to cut down on carbohydrates and so very often a recipe will be inclined to being low carb in content.

In spite of pursuing healthier eating habits, the odd treat is a must - even if it is somewhat decadent!

Puddings, in general, are made when we are entertaining, otherwise we simply don't eat them!

15th September 2020

In 2009, my website also featured my Art - I am a wildlife artist and my first love is pastels, although I do paint in other mediums.

I am a member of The Pastel Society, London and have exhibited at The Mall Galleries and submitted to The Royal Academy.    I have completed a number of successful commissions and my artwork has gone overseas to a number of countries.

After a three year break, I am now back painting birds and hope to have some new material to display on my website shortly.    I belong to various art groups and am currently enjoying a new medium of Pan Pastels, but somewhat over-awed by the tremendous talent out there on the online art groups.