The Family Cook Book

we have just come back from a very quick trip to the lovely Little's villa in Ibiza. No kids, perfect weather and delightful company made the two days seem like a week ... it was a real treat. We did very little but ate and drank a considerable amount. At around 11.30 each morning our parched throats were lubricated by one of Julia's delicious elderflower mojitos (alcoholic or non-alcoholic as desired) The recipe is pretty simple but very delicious; take a load of ice, crush it in a blender,add a good portion of fresh mint leaves, Elderflower cordial to taste (Bottlegreen is our brand of choice), lime juice ...add Bacardi if you're feeling racy ... give it a muddle and top with sparkling water. Serve in a tall glass with a straw..... fab!

Ingredients 2 1/4 sticks Unsalted butter 1 Lemon 1 Vanilla bean 2/3 cup Blanched almonds 3/4 cup Pistachios 1 1/4 cups Superfine sugar 4 Eggs, organic 1/2 cup All-purpose flour Topping 1 Lemon 1/2 cup Pistachios 1/4 cup Superfine sugar Heat the oven to 300 degrees. Grease a 12 x 4 1/2 x 2 3/4-inch loaf pan with 4 tsp of the butter and line with baking parchment. Soften the remaining butter. Finely grate the lemon peel. Split the vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds. Finely grind the almonds and pistachios together. Beat the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add the lemon peel and vanilla seeds, then fold in the nuts and sift in the flour. Spoon the batter into the pan and bake for 45-60 minutes. The cake is ready when a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the pan, then turn out. For the topping, grate the lemon peel and squeeze the juice. Halve the pistachios. Mix the lemon juice with the sugar, boil until reduced to a syrup, then add t...

We finally made it to the lovely Levys lovely communal picnic. We had to leave early but I still managed to eat an unseemly number of Nushi's amazing Koftas. We took a fabulous plum tart made by Lisa and this salad from the Leon cookbook. This method of cooking gives the lentils a bit more bite which makes them better for a salad and also means that they will keep without turning to mush. As always be generous with the herbs and lemon juice,you want the finished salad to have a bit of zing. Ingredients 200g Puy lentils 1/2 stick celery cut into 1cm dice 1/2 a carrot cut into 1cm dice 1/2 a small onion chopped 1 small clove garlic sliced 1 tbs ex virgin olive oil 2 sprigs thyme 1 bay leaf 2tbs red wine vinegar 100ml chicken stock 1 tbs lemon juice small handful flat leaf parsley salt and pepper method Soak the lentils for an hour or so in water. heat the oil in a heavy pan over a medium heat and add the vegetables, garlic, thyme and bay leaf. Cook gently with the lid on the pan for...

One of Mrs Cook's birthday presents (from Steve and Neet) was an evening with Yotam Ottolenghi ... not just her and him you understand, that would just be weird! Apparently the evening was fab and each person left with recipes for all the dishes he cooked. The first one we have tried is this delicious beetroot recipe, which Lisa made last night. We were loving the combo of preserved lemon and coriander seeds in the relish and Lisa was particularly impressed with the ease of his pepper skinning methodology. definitely an unusual summer salad worth trying Serves four Ingredients 900g beetroot, thoroughly washed 4 heaped tbsp chopped dill 1 small red onion, peeled and very thinly sliced 160g creamy Greek yogurt For the relish 2 yellow peppers 3 tbsp olive oil 1½ tsp coriander seeds 400g tin chopped plum tomatoes 2 garlic cloves, crushed 1 tsp sugar Salt and black pepper 3 tbsp preserved lemon skin, chopped 2 tbsp each chopped parsley and coriander leaves First boil the beetroots whole...

Martha had a friend over and we weren't sure how 'experimental' she might be with food. We sometimes forget that shaved fennel and Turkish chopped salad aren't on every kids list of favourite things to eat so we wanted to make sure that we weren't labelled as the weird foodie parents ......but given we were going to eat it too we wanted it to be something at least a little bit interesting. It was also a beautiful day so we thought we should barbecue. These Lamb Koftas from Jamie sounded a bit more interesting than burgers and the introduction of pistachios and Sumac just adds a little bit of Middle Eastern magic ... ps after not being able to find Sumac anywhere I can now announce that it is available in Esher Waitrose. Hooray Serves 4 ingredients • 500g trimmed shoulder or neck fillet of lamb, chopped into 2.5cm chunks • 2 heaped tablespoons fresh thyme leaves • 1 level tablespoon ground chilli • 1 level tablespoon ground cumin • 4 level tablespoons sumac, if you c...

I was talking about my lack of blogging this morning with one of my very few followers, yes that's you Will. He was remonstrating (well maybe observing rather than remonstrating) that I hadn't been blogging much. Sometimes that's because I am in a bit of a revisiting rather than discovery phase. This recipe from Allegra Macavedy, that I have already written about once, is an absolute breeze to make and is really different and delicious. The salad here is a little spin on the last entry as it has the addition of radish and lemon juice ... definitely an improvement..... and maybe, just maybe, that justifies a second entry. Lisa and I had this with Joe who returned to Uni today and is therefore unlikely to have Monkfish couscous for some time! Ingredients (Serves four) 180g cous-cous ½ teaspoon ground cumin ½ teaspoon cumin seeds 3 spring onions, thinly sliced 1 preserved lemon, golf-ball sized, roughly chopped 10g fresh coriander, washed and roughly chopped 10 cherry tomatoes...

I got the new Mark Hix book for my birthday and one of the things I spied was his recipe for picallili. I love picallili, I associate it with my childhood and in particular a ham and picallili sandwich, which is still one of my favourite things in the whole world..... well ok maybe not in the whole world ... but its pretty damn lovely. The recipe is very very easy. I can't tell you what it tastes like yet because I have to let it sit for at least a week ... which is torture. I will report back when I unleash the turmeric hued loveliness from its darkened lair in the cupboard above the pasta. Ingredients * 1 medium cucumber, halved and seeded and then quartered * 1/2 large cauliflower, cut into small florets * 1 medium onion, diced (I had to use a red onion) * 1 tbsp sea salt * 150g caster sugar * 70g english mustard * 1/2 tsp ground turmeric * 1 small red chilli, chopped * 275ml cider vinegar * 125ml white wine vinegar * 1 tbsp cornflour ...