The Family Cook Book

Lisa 'cooked' this salad tonight. It's from Lucas Holweg in the Sunday Times again. We ate it in the garden and it was a very nice end to a day that involved four very hot journeys on the train. Chickpea, pepper and prosciutto salad  A real store-cupboard special, this, using not just tinned chickpeas, but a jar of grilled and skinned peppers — a colourful and supremely useful standby for salads and first courses. Serves 4-6   Ingredients  ¼ medium red onion, finely chopped 1 clove garlic, crushed 3-4 tbsp red-wine vinegar ½ tsp ground cumin 2 tsp fennel seeds, crushed or chopped on a board Sea salt and pepper 100ml extra-virgin olive oil 2 x 400g tins chickpeas (or Spanish ones from a jar), drained and rinsed — you want about 450g drained weight 3 roasted peppers from a good-quality jar, drained and sliced into rough strips 4 slices of prosciutto, cut into rough pieces 2 handfuls parsley leaves, picked from their stalks   Method Put the chopped

Allegedly I can become a bit 'stressy' when making pizza .... As if! Just in case there may be a little element of truth in this I think I may have finally perfected a way of avoiding any pizza tears. Firstly you need a good and easy Recipe for the dough .... This is the RIver Cafe's spin on the legendary Alice Water recipe and I think that it's really good. nb I can't get rye flour so just use the same flour as for the rest of the recip e. Pizza Dough Step 1 Ingredients 4 teaspoons granular dried yeast 125ml/4fl oz warm water 150g/5oz rye flour (I use tipo 00 Italian flour from wait rose) Method In a large warmed bowl, mix the yeast with the warm water. When “melted”, add rye flour and stir well. Leave in a warm place to form a 'sponge'for at least 30 minutes. It is important to cover the bowl while the yeast starts to work to make sure there aren’t any cold draughts. This is where a warming drawer is perfect ... I put mine on the lo

  We had some broccoli left over so I made this as part of a quick, thrown together lunch. It's from Angela Hartnett's 'A taste of home'. Pretty nice I thought.  Ingredients 450g sprouting broccoli  2 garlic cloves sliced 1 tsp olive oil 3 shallots sliced into thin discs 2 tbsp coarse grain mustard 1 tbsp chopped parsley 3-4 tbs classic vinagrette S&P Method Trim the ends of the broccoli stalks. Bring a pan of salted water to the boil, add the broccoli and cook until tender. Drain immediately and set aside at room temperature Sauté the garlic in olive oil but do not brown. Toss the broccoli with the garlic and shallots, then add the mustard, followed by the vinagrette and parsley. Season and serve

Apparently this has been a terrible year for asparagus growers here in the UK. The combination of early sun followed by a wet wet wet May has meant there isn't the usual bumper crop of those fabulous little spears of pee perfume. So enjoy them whilst you can, this recipe from Lucas Hollweg in today's Times is a new and rather interesting spin on the expected.The delicate blend of almonds, bread, oil and mint complements the asparagus really nicely but hurry allegedly there's not much British asparagus to go round.   Asparagus with almond and mint dressing. The dressing here is smooth and sweet from the nuts, but with a gentle savoury hit from the garlic and mint.  Serves 4   Ingredients 5 00g asparagus, trimmed 1 slice of rustic white bread, crusts removed 100g whole blanched almonds 1 decent clove of garlic, crushed 100ml olive oil (not extra-virgin) ½ tsp (at least) fine sea salt 1 tsp sherry vinegar A big handful of mint leaves Black pepper  

We had a selection of mezze type dishes last night and Lisa (who really likes this style of meal)said she wished all the recipes were in one place ... no sooner said than done Tzatziki ingredients 1 large cucumber, deseeded but skin left on 350grms greek strained yoghurt (I use Total) 1 or 2 cloves garlic crushed with sea salt 1 teaspoon dried mint 2 large tablespoons of chopped fresh mint juice of 1 lemon extra virgin olive oil for drizzling Method grate the cucumber and drain off the juice and put in a bowl combine with all of the ingredients apart from the olive oil. Put in the fridge for an hour or so to let the flavours combine. Before serving drizzle with olive oil you could also sprinkle some sumac over Guacamole no 1 (US version) ingredients 2 ripe avocados 1 cloves garlic 2 tbsp. fresh lemon or lime juice 2 tbsp. finely chopped red onion 2 tbsp. chopped coriander few drops tabasco Salt and pepper meth

Who doesn't love a chicken wing? For the family Cook and the family Sweeney it usually means a trip to the Hydeaway restaurant (the table in the bar please) for the lip shrinking saltiness and nuclear reactor orange colour of their buffalo wings ... lets face it they're not good for you but with a Long Trail beer or a cold cold Heineken they are one of life's guilty pleasures. This recipe from Allegra Macavedy gives the wings an asian-y spin but they are really really finger lickin good.... as the colonel would say Leon's Sesame chicken wings ingredients 1kg chicken wings 2.5 tbs dark soy sauce just under 2 tbs fish sauce 10 cloves garlic smashed 150 g ginger root 1 and a bit tbs sesame oil 1.5 tbs sesame seeds Method Whizz the garlic, ginger, fish sauce and soy in a food processor to make a coarse puree Pour onto the wings   and mix thoroughly with the sesame oil leave to marinate (overnight would be great but a few hours will also do) Pre heat

For the very few of you who are interested (Peter and Lulu) I lost. It was close but I blew it I did lose to the doyenne of cake club the very talented Tanya who came in with an incredible confection of chocolate cake and frilly knicker type icing in pink and white. It was amazing but I did have a few people tell me that whilst mine was a bit 'rustic' looking it tasted pretty good .... maybe if the balance of voters had been a bit more biased towards blokes I might have fared better. Still it means that I can now focus on tasting and voting rather than cooking and sweating about getting it to the office in one piece!

This weekend Martha is off doing her Duke of Edinburgh trial run. We have the house to ourselves, for us the day involves a bit of exercise followed by the papers, the FA cup final and dinner for two at Riva in Barnes. For Martha it means a six hour march fuelled by sandwiches, energy bars and dried fruit followed by an evening under canvas. At least the weather isn't like last weekend.  I saw this recipe by Stevie Parle in the paper and thought it would make a nice easy, healthy lunch as well as being a way of using up the courgettes in the fridge that were getting to the end of their sell by date.  In fact this recipe is so healthy I might even have a dessert tonight.  serves four, as a starter Ingredients 2 tbsp olive oil for cooking 1 small red onion finely chopped 6 courgettes roughly diced 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped juice of 1 lemon 1 generous tbsp fresh mint, chopped 1 Chilli, seeded and finely chopped 2 tbsp of your best extra virgin olive oil

Greg Malouf is the new chef at Petersham Nurseries, he is another superstar Australian but he brings a middle eastern vibe to things. We have been meaning to go and check his food out but to be honest his arrival has coincided with so much rain we decided to give it a miss until the weather improves. We dont mind eating in a posh garden centre but when the earth is sodden it doesn't seem so enticing. Funnily enough just after reading of his arrival in Surrey I came across his book 'New middle eastern food' whilst we were mooching around the shops in Lewes and despite its considerable heft and price I decided I had to have it. It's a bit of a 'Moro meets Ottolenghi' but it looks like there could be some gems in there. My first outing involved a few different dishes including this middle eastern spin on guacamole. Only little changes but the extra spice of the chillies and the unmistakeable taste of preserved lemon make a change to the usual version and

Did this again on Saturday night and have made some vital adjustments to the recipe. We also added green beans with tomatoes which went pretty well. As usual too much meat and too many potatoes were consumed but .. who cares. It was also washed down with a couple of very nice bottles of Il Bruciato 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 - 15 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 using half the sprigs, place the fillet on top and then cover with the remaining rosemary. it should be completely covered. Now tie with butchers string (or the great silicone ties Martha gave me) Choose a roasting tray in which the beef will fit snugly. Drizzle t

  We gave this to Joel and Nushi on Saturday. They had never had it before ... I think they will be having it again. It's not really a recipe but it's one of my favourite ways to end a meal. Apparently affogato means  "drowned" in Italian Ingredients Vanilla Ice Cream   Espresso - one shot per person (adjust to taste) Method   Place a serving of vanilla ice cream in a bowl Pour over coffee eat/slurp