The Family Cook Book

It was lovely to have everyone home for Xmas. Whilst we were preparing for the big event we also managed to spend a bit of family time in the kitchen, watching the telly, catching up and snacking at the bar. Here are some great canape recipes from Sybil Kapoor that we found in House and Garden. Roast tomato relish ingredients 750g baby plum tomatoes 1 medium red onion, finely diced 1 fat clove garlic, finely chopped 4 tbs ex virgin olive oil method heat oven to 180c mix rest of ingredients in a roasting tray. Roast for 45 mins until everything is soft. Leave to cool roughly mash together and season to taste. Spiced Lamb burgers ingredients 4tbs olive oil 1 medium onion finely chopped 1 clove garlic finely chopped 1 thai red chilli seeds removed and finely chopped 2 tsp ras al hanout or garam masala 1 tsp ground cumin 1 tsp ground coriander, finely chopped 1 small bunch fresh coriander 500g lean minced lamb finely grated zest of two lemons salt and gr

The 27th was pretty full on day of entertaining with the Sweeneys plus Sam, Bob and Bobs new wife, tomiko (sp?) arriving for lunch and the Bryant family coming for tea. We needed something easy to make and we were also in need of a bit of healthy food after two days of absolutely stuffing ourselves. This recipe (which I have blogged about before) was absolutely on the money. Serves 4 Thai Chicken burgers Ingredients * 600 g minced (ground) chicken * 1 onion, finely grated * 85 g fresh white breadcrumbs * 1 garlic clove * 1 lemongrass stalk white part only, finely chopped * 2 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) * 2 teaspoons finely grated lime zest * 1 tablespoon fish sauce * 2 teaspoons caster (superfine) sugar * Fresh mint and coriander (cilantro) leaves * sweet Chilli sauce (bottled) Method Put the chicken mince, onion, breadcrumbs, garlic, lemongrass, coriander, lime zest, fish sauce and sugar in a large bowl and mix together well with your h

We had the whole Cook family over for lunch on December 28th. We had overdosed on turkey by this time so were in need of some good old red meat. This deceptively simple recipe for cooking fillet of beef is easy to prepare and absolutely delicious. Although I should warn those who don't like their meat on the rare side of pink that this is not for them, you could of course cook it for longer but it would be a crime to cook fillet until it was grey! We had it with one of our favourite standby dishes from the same River Cafe Classic cook book, Roast potatoes from Lucca. Roast Beef with Rosemary Ingredients For 6 1kg - 1.5kg Piece of beef from the thick end of the fillet sea salt and ground black pepper 10 sprigs of fresh rosemary (or more if they are short. You need to cover the whole length of the meat) extra virgin olive oil 1 glass red wine, preferably Chianti. Method Pre heat oven to 225c season fillet all over with s and p Make a layer of rosemary on a board us

It was Xmas at home this year and we did more than our fair share of entertaining. Seven for Xmas day, twenty three over two shifts on the 27th and twelve on the 28th. It meant that we took out shares in Waitrose and Vinoteca but had a lovely time. Xmas day was Turkey and all the trimmings a la Jamie, his failsafe two day programme combined with our new kitchen made easy work of Turkey, stuffing, pigs in blankets, roasted vegetable megamix, roasties, red cabbage, sprouts with chesnuts and bacon, bread sauce, cranberry sauce and gravy. The twenty-seventh brought some respite from the carbs courtesey of Bill Granger's asian slaw and chicken burgers and the twenty-eighth was a combo of the River cafe fillet of beef in rosemary and roast potatoes from Lucca.  Santa also bought me the usual cookery book haul as the photograph above bears witness to, I cant wait to get at them. Both the Locatelli and Elizabeth David have great articles interspersed amongst the recipes which I have a