Welcome to Sheila’s Pantry! I am a foodaholic chef and have been running The Abbots House bed and breakfast in Charmouth, Dorset with my film maker husband, Nick for the last 10 years. We now have a luxury 2 x1 bedroom self-catering accommodation “The Abbots Retreat” and The Hideaway, where our guests can relax and enjoy the beautiful Jurassic Coast, and every month I create a different menu of food around the world for our pop-up restaurant, where I cater for up to 40 guests – Oh wow! it is such fun and I love it. I hope with the extra time to be able to devote myself to creating more ideas to share with fellow “foodies” and hopefully to inspire others to have fun in the kitchen.
I have worked in all aspects of catering for nearly 40 years. I have been a School cook, private chef to a Brigadier ( fascinating!), commis chef in a game and fish restaurant, food developer for a major cheese company, run restaurants for other people before eventually running my own restaurants and outside catering business. I have,in the past, worked 14 hour days and most weekends, so now I have more time, I want to spend it putting down my foodie ideas.
With a great love of food I have always had a lot of tips and new recipes buzzing in my head,and have even talked about writing a “dream” cookbook, as I even think up new ideas in my sleep! So- this is my opportunity to share my ideas with you. My passions lie in food with flavour and I love raiding the cupboards and fridge to experiment and test out a new recipe.
How many times do you have to go through your cupboards and have a clear out of out-of-date spices, flours, baking ingredients etc.
How many times do you want to use the recipe, only to find it has ten ingredients, six of which you have to buy, only to find yourself left with a lot of spice pots or packets from which you have only used half a teaspoon or 10g?
Imagine having access to regular recipes every month which include the ingredients/stock items, which you have bought at the beginning of the month.
These recipes will be based around the seasons and would show how you can use your stock cupboard ingredients in a variety of tasty dishes – sweet and savoury, vegetarian, fish and meat, with some food intolerance suggestions.
With some supermarkets offering great deals weekly and monthly, some of the recipes will take this into consideration, to offer budget recipes.
I have found through years of catering experience and a love of cooking, that recipes can be “re-jigged” to cater for your tastes, budget and dietary needs as well as “what’s in the fridge or cupboard”.