The Family Cook Book

Whilst on holiday in Tuscany Gus took load of lovely food shots here are a couple of them

I'm not sure if this recipe is Moroccan or from somewhere else of a Moorish persuasion. This is Joe's favourite marinade and we use it on grilled prawns and Chicken. It couldn't be simpler... so here it is Joe .... go on you can do it! Ingredients 2 tsp Cumin seeds 2 garlic cloves 1 tsp sweet paprika i lemon 1 tsp red wine vinegar 3 tbs chopped coriander 3 tbs olive oil salt Method crush the cumin seeds in a pestle and mortar. Remove and set to one side Put the garlic clovs into the pestle and mortar and crush to a paste with some salt. Add the paprika, the juice of half to one lemon, the crushed cumin seeds and the coriander and bash to a pulp (you can do this in a blender) Then add the olive oil and mix again. marinade your chosen food for at least an hour leaving a little of the marinade over to 'dress' the food once it's cooked.

These brownies aren't just brownies. They are food porn. They are culinary corruption. In the wrong hands they could be dangerous. This recipe should come with a coronary advisory. We here at krow believe that they may just be our finest new business tool. Make them and judge for yourself. The recipe is an adaptation of one by the buttoxsome Nigella .... Thank you Mrs. Saatchi Ingredients 375 g soft unsalted butter 300 g lindt 70% cocoa dark chocolate 6 large eggs 1-tablespoon vanilla extract 500 g caster sugar 225 g plain flour 1-teaspoon salt Directions Preheat the oven to 180C. Line your approximately 33 x 23 x 5 1/2cm brownie pan with baking paper. Melt the butter and chocolate together in a large heavy based saucepan. In a bowl beat the eggs with the sugar and vanilla. Measure the flour into another bowl and add the salt. When the chocolate mixture has melted, let it cool a bit before beating in the eggs and sugar mixture, and then the flour. Beat to combine and then scrape ou

In the picture you will see our sausages cooking on what appears to be a medieval instrument of torture but is in fact the rather excellent barbeque supplied by the villa owners (which turned out essential as on day two the oven went on the blink) It has a rather interesting mechanism that meant that once you had trapped the meat you did turn the meat but turned a handle which in turn flipped the whole grill. We had Luganica (the long thin ones) Piccante (the big fat one) and normale (the rest) They were fantastic. Lisa suggested we set up ' The Italian sausage company' ... not such a daft idea methinks. We accompanied them with the usual rocket salad but also some lovely little castellucio lentils cooked for about 20 minutes with some celery and garlic. Once you've drained them remove the garlic and celery and then add a good handful of chopped flatleaf parsley and basil and some good quality extra virgin. The finishing touch was provided by some salsa verde made with Ingr

Holiday in Magliano in Toscana with tutte la famiglia including Nona ... or Grandma Betty as we like to call her. Our Villa was perfectly situated, beautiful to look at and the weather was fabulous. Martha was slightly freaked out by he 65 hunting trophies dotted around the villa, including a giant wild boar head with eyes that follow you .. well that's Martha's view anyway. Every day the lovely, if slightly out of breath, maid Guiseppina would leave us some vegetables from the garden. On the first day she left fresh courgette flowers, or fiori di zucchini, as she would say. Mrs Cook and I made the batter together in a rather fetching piece of matrimonial and culinary harmony : 2 tbs flour cold sparkling mineral water (thanks grandma) We mixed the batter with enough fizzy water to make a smoothish batter (the cold sparkling mineral water makes it light and a little tempura like) and then dunked the flowers in and deep fried them in small batches in some olive oil for about 2 -

Our momentous year continued with the celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary. Fifty of our nearest and dearest for dinner in a marquee chez Cook. The whole evening was a great success with the catering done by the estimable Jan Gosht We had a kind of Italian feast. Everything was delicious but one of the hits of the evening was the drink we offered on arrival which was prosecco mixed with fresh raspberries. The recipe is from River Cafe. They suggest 500gms of raspberries (fresh NOT frozen) mixed with 150gms caster sugar then pulsed in a blender and pushed through a sieve so that you have a completely seedless juice or coulis. They then mix this with a bottle of prosecco in a jug and give it a good stir .. To my mind this, whilst delicious, is a little too sweet for my taste, particularly if the raspberries are in season and of decent quality and sweetness already. So maybe you could reduce the sugar content a little or do as we did and dilute this quantity of juice in about one a