The Family Cook Book

This is yet another simple gem from Bill Granger. This recipe is in the book 'Holiday'. We had the ingredients to hand and I knocked it up in half an hour, we ate it with his green bean recipe (last blog) and some chicken breasts wrapped in ribbons of courgettes and bunged in the oven for 25 mins. Not bad for a left over knock up Serves 4-6 ingredients 1 Tbspn olive oil 1 red onion, finely diced 2 tspn grated fresh ginger 1 tspn ground cumin 2 tspn ground coriander 1 kg sweet potatoes, peeled and diced sea salt freshly ground black pepper 1 Tbspn chopped fresh coriander 1 golf ball sized preserved lemon, flesh and pith removed, finely diced Method Heat the olive oil in a large deep frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Add the ginger, cumin and coriander and cook, stirring for another minute. Add the sweet potato and 1 cup of water to the pan and stir well. Cover, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 12 minutes. Remove the l

Had this yesterday with Jamie's Spanish Chicken (elsewhere on the blog) it is incredibly simple but really rather good.I added a couple of handfuls of rocket to bulk it out. For the dressing you are meant to use pomegranate molasses which I have never even seen, so I added a little honey instead which seemed to work rather well. It was Mothers day and we had one grandmother, two mothers, one father, one son, one daughter and one grandaughter ... but there were only four of us Serves 4 Ingredients 350g small green beans, topped but not tailed 1 small red onion finely sliced Rocket 1 small handful of mint leaves (roughly chopped) 1 small handful flat parsley leaves (roughly chopped) sea salt freshly ground black pepper 4 heaped tbs pomegranate seeds, to garnish For the dressing: 2 tbs extra-virgin olive oil 1 tbs honey 1 tbs lemon juice pinch of caster sugar Method To make the dressing, whisk together all the ingredients and pomegranate seeds. Blanch the beans for a few minutes in a

I saw this recipe on Saturday Kitchen and thought it would be worth a try.It's by Michael Caines and I liked the fact that it used all seasonal ingredients. Whilst it wasn't an unqualified success I liked the novelty of a boned joint and it tasted very good so I will definitely cook it again. However I might make a few tweaks. The two things that didn't work for me were; 1. That the lamb needed more than 45 minutes in my oven .... I would suggest an hour is more realistic. 2. The crust is really difficult to stick on the joint in one move, I think maybe I didn't put enough water in .... or maybe I rolled it out too thin as it took a bit of sticking back together..... or maybe I just lack sufficient culinary talent one other thing The mixture for the crust needs to be seasoned pretty robustly and don't be tempted to cut back on the parsley. ... and another thing I added a potato cut into cubes to the roast veg and four of us easily ate it all, so if you're cookin