Tana Ramsay’s Family Kitchen: Simple and Delicious Recipes for Every Family

dedication

For my mum and dad.

I hope my children grow up with the same sense of love and comfort that you gave me. Thank you.

contents

cover

title page

dedication

introduction

breakfast

school-rush smoothies

fruit salad with oats and warm yoghurt

wholemeal pancakes with caramelized apples

porridge with blueberries

fruit gratin

boiled eggs with cheesy fingers

field mushrooms on toast

poached eggs on wholemeal toast

muesli

homemade baked beans

full english

herring roe on toast

smoked haddock kedgeree

lunch bites

ham and cheese muffins

danish pastry pizzas

coleslaw crunch

salami and rice salad medley

golden puff pastries

stuffed potato cakes

sandwich fillers

easy sausage rolls

omelette

chocolate chip cookies

oatmeal and cranberry crunch biscuits

chocolate nut temptations

date and hazelnut fingers

tea-time treats

banana and apple loaf

chocolate crunch brownies

orange sponge fingers with lemon icing

mini jam doughnuts

homemade jammy dodgers

peanut butter and raisin cookies

fresh ginger cake

real hot chocolate with baby marshmallows

apricot and oatbran muffins

shortbread

almond and apricot yoghurt-coated bites

trying new tastes

lettuce wraps and dippers

fool-proof houmous

crispy pancetta with mushrooms and spring onions

bulgar and mint salad

cherry tomato and mozzarella salad

classic prawn cocktail

soft-boiled eggs

home deli temptations

smooth soups

beetroot soup

pea and mint soup

roasted butternut squash soup

curried parsnip and ginger soup

roasted sweet tomato and sweet pepper soup

cooking from the cupboard

homemade fish fingers with buttery mash and peas

spaghetti carbonara

pea and parmesan risotto

corned beef hash

butter bean and chorizo stew

macaroni cheese with tomato and crispy bacon

tinned sardines with avocado on toast

prawns with chilli and cheese

pasta with tomato and egg sauce

rice pudding

peaches with cinnamon, cardamom and vanilla ice cream

after-school suppers

chicken and butter bean casserole with basmati rice

fish chowder

lime and ginger salmon fillets with noodles

chicken breast with red lentil sauce

baked pumpkin and fresh pea risotto

pasta sauces

pesto

sausage casserole with savoy cabbage and butter beans

king prawn and monkfish curry

plaice with chunky chips and pea purée

tagliatelle with veal, orange and thyme

cauliflower and broccoli cheese

chicken thighs with pasta, bacon and cherry tomatoes

cooking in advance

slow-cooked lamb with apricots, ginger and cinnamon

red pepper and apple meatballs with sweet and sour sauce

moroccan chicken with couscous

stew and dumplings

chilli con carne

ratatouille

lamb shanks with balsamic vinegar and red wine

gammon with cloves

pork with apple and juniper berries

fish pie

bolognaise

cassoulet

mutton daube

weekend lunches

minestrone

new york sandwich

chicken in a pot

steak burgers with roasted red pepper sauce

osso bucco

roast rib of beef

moussaka

paella with chicken and prawns

leek and bacon pie

steak and guinness pie

chicken and mango casserole

calves’ liver with bacon

aromatic lamb burgers

puddings

raspberry meringue bomb

mint ice cream with chocolate sauce

hot chocolate puddings

frozen yoghurt

crème brulée

trifle with real custard and mandarins

lemon and lime pots

lemon and cranberry baked cheesecake

meringues and chocolate

vanilla custard

baked apples with currants and brown sugar

rhubarb and peach crumble

really easy fruit tarts

party food

party survival tips

cheese straws

pitta pockets

pasta twist salad

potato skins

potato-skin fillings

spicy baked beans and cheese

cocktail sausages with honey and mustard

egg mayonnaise bruschetta

peppermint creams

fruit jellies

gingerbread lollies

milk jelly

chocolate peanut butter squares

cinnamon and apricot fairy cakes

mini pavlovas

boy’s birthday cake

girl’s birthday cake

playdough

a bit about vitamins and minerals

kitchen equipment

acknowledgements

index

copyright

about the publisher

introduction

I must admit that I hardly cooked until I had children. Gordon was always working until at least midnight and I was working all day and studying for my teaching course in the evening – I became a Montessori nursery teacher. I more or less lived on quick and easy foods like beans on toast or breakfast cereal. My interest in food only really started when we had children and our first, Megan, began solids. Suddenly I was responsible for everything that went into her tiny tummy. Gordon was working and it was up to me to cook for her. That was when I started to really care about what was in the fridge.

I learnt how to cook as Megan’s diet became more interesting than vegetable purées. The fact that she was a good eater and showed excitement in what she ate, as subsequently did the other three, meant I actually enjoyed experimenting, too. So that is how I started cooking – never seasoning or overcomplicating, just simple, family food. I believe home cooking never needs to be any more sophisticated than this.

I’ve tried to keep the recipes in this book as real and accessible as possible. I’ve included all of my favourites that I use to feed the family, which also means that they have been given the thumbs up by the children. Some of the recipes are more child-oriented – like fish fingers, for example – but most of them are for the whole family to enjoy.

I’ve also tried to include tips on how to adapt some of the recipes to make them more adult. A splash of wine or a bit of extra seasoning is often all it takes. Not only does this save you the time and effort of cooking two different meals, but it also makes eating, especially at weekends, as much about being together as a family as eating good food. That for me is just as important.

The recipes are organized with most people’s weekly routines in mind. In the Breakfasts section, for example, I’ve included a mixture of quick and easy options for weekdays when you are rushing to get the kids to school as well as a few more leisurely recipes for weekends and holidays. The most popular with my children is probably the fruit gratin, so if you can’t quite squeeze it into a busy weekday morning, do indulge at the weekend. I’ve organized main meals into After-school Suppers and Weekend Lunches for the same reason.

I also thought a section on Cooking from the Cupboard was essential. If you are anything like me, sometimes you are just too busy, tired or disorganized to get to the supermarket and you end up staring at the contents of the fridge and cupboards trying to figure out what to feed everybody. I do try to keep a few staples in the house at all times, a few of which I have outlined at the beginning of that chapter. If you can get into the habit of keeping all of these in stock then you’ll find it actually quite easy to rustle up something delicious.

I actually find cooking ad hoc makes me more creative as I match flavours and ingredients that I might not normally. With this chapter, if you don’t have a particular item you can often substitute it for something else. I have tried to include notes on how you could do this in a number of the recipes throughout the book. For example, I really enjoy cooking with pancetta, but if you can’t get hold of it, you can substitute unsmoked streaky bacon or bacon lardons. Don’t be afraid to experiment! It’s how we all learn and more often than not it’ll go down well.

This is also why I’ve included a section on Trying New Tastes. Children – and mine are no exception – can have very fixed ideas of what they think they like and dislike, when quite often they only need a food presented to them in a different way or just as a sneaky aside to other things they know they already love. The recipes in this section are designed to be made in combination with each other so you can end up with a wide variety of flavours on your plates. We tend to use our fingers for these informal pick and mix sessions and they always end up being great fun.

The section I found the most fun to write was Party Foods. I think the children enjoyed it most too as I was testing the recipes to make sure they would work when I wrote them down! I’ve tried to include ones that have worked well at my children’s parties. Most of them are very quick and easy to make and will help you cut as many corners as possible. There is always so much to think about when you have to organize a children’s party that I find every extra minute counts.

Above everything else, I really hope you enjoy using this book. From being a complete novice I’ve come to love cooking for my family – yes, even for Gordon! I also like to know that the children are getting all the nutrients they need. (I’ve included a chart with basic nutritional information at the back of the book as I always find them handy.) When I was little it was such a comfort coming home to my mum’s cooking. I hope that my children and yours will grow up with the same feelings of love, comfort and satisfaction around food.

breakfast

The most important meal of the day!

Weekday breakfasts are tough ones. Like most people with young children, my house is always completely chaotic between 7 and 8 a.m. on a weekday. The children are all still fast asleep at 7 and have to be literally dragged out of their nice warm beds. Then we have one hour to get dressed, eat, clean teeth, wash faces, do several sets of plaits/bunches/ponytails, persuade my son to introduce his hair to a hairbrush and get out the door. I also have to make sure the beds are made and curtains open if it is a work day, as I don’t want to come home to a mess in the evening. They do this themselves, but often need a reminder (or two or three!) – a little treat is always a good incentive!

school-rush smoothies

Smoothies are the most fantastic way of making sure that even a reluctant eater starts the day with a good percentage of their recommended daily intake of fresh fruit inside them. There are no hard-and-fast rules about what makes a good smoothie (although you will obviously need a liquidizer), but the ones I’ve included here always seem to go down well with my lot.

These are the combinations of fruit I often use, but you can vary the quantities according to your needs (and the contents of your fruit bowl).

Mango mania

1 mango

1 banana (preferably ripe)

orange juice

Berry blast

1 cup frozen berries

1 mango

orange juice

Green monkey

4 kiwis

1 banana (preferably ripe)

apple juice

1 Wash, peel and roughly chop the fruit.

2 Put into a blender and pour over enough juice to cover the fruit.

3 Blend until smooth. Enjoy!

Tips

• You can of course make your own fresh orange or apple juice, but I always ‘cheat’ by using a good-quality fresh fruit juice as a base. It’s much easier and quicker.

• I find it incredibly useful to keep a bag of frozen berries in the freezer just for making smoothies.

fruit salad with oats and warm yoghurt

This is one of those breakfasts that is a bit fiddly, but in spite of this I try to prepare it once a week because the children love it, it is incredibly healthy, and my being lazy is a terrible excuse!

4 tbsp oat flakes

4 tbsp blueberries

4 tbsp raspberries

2 tbsp water

golden caster sugar

4 round tbsp natural organic yoghurt

4 tsp runny honey (1 tsp per portion)

Serves: 4 children

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 5 minutes

1 Lightly toast the oat flakes in a small frying pan until golden brown. Take care not to burn them. Take off the heat and remove a few oat flakes and put aside. Meanwhile, place the blueberries and raspberries into a small saucepan, add water and a sprinkle of golden caster sugar and heat gently, stirring occasionally.

2 Add the yoghurt to the pan of toasted oat flakes and gently stir through.

3 When the fruit is nicely warm, serve the yoghurt and oatmeal into a small bowl, spoon on the fruit, drizzle over the honey and sprinkle over the reserved oat flakes.

Tips

• This is really tasty with banana, and a good way to use up any over-ripe ones laying in the bottom of the fruit bowl. Simply slice them into the yoghurt when it is in the frying pan.

• To serve this as a dessert you can simply leave out the oat flakes and crumble digestive or ginger nut biscuits into the yoghurt and add fruit.

• You can also toast some flaked almonds with the oats.

I measure the ingredients in spoons – it’s too early in the morning for weighing!

wholemeal pancakes with caramelized apples

This is a delicious sweet treat for breakfast. I mix the wholemeal flour with some plain white flour, as using just wholemeal flour makes the pancakes too heavy.

75g/3oz plain flour

25g/1oz wholemeal flour

250ml/9fl oz semi-skimmed milk

2 eggs

3 Bramley apples

50g/2oz butter

½ tsp cinnamon

1 tbsp soft brown sugar

Serves: 4 children (makes about 8 pancakes)

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 10 minutes

1 Start by putting the flours, milk and eggs in the liquidizer and blitzing for about 2 minutes.

2 Peel and core the apples and slice quite thinly. Heat half the butter in a frying pan and add the cinnamon. Let it bubble for a minute before adding the sliced apples. Sprinkle over the sugar and very carefully turn the apples over so that they are coated in the buttery syrup. Turn the heat down and allow to cook gently. Keep an eye on them while you are cooking the pancakes and turn them over from time-to-time to allow them to cook evenly.

3 While the apples are happily cooking away, melt the rest of the butter in another frying pan and start frying the pancakes. The first pancake always seems to be a disaster, so I usually eat it myself. Pile the pancakes on a plate beside you until you have made them all.

4 Divide the apple mixture between the pancakes and roll up. Drizzle a little maple syrup over each one to guarantee a good day ahead!

Tip

• It’s a good idea to make the batter the night before and leave in the fridge until the morning. As well as saving time, it improves the batter by allowing it to rest.

porridge with blueberries

I love sending the children off to school with a tummy full of porridge – you know they will have enough in there to last until lunchtime with great energy! If I am going running I know it helps my energy levels.

100g/4oz porridge oats

1 300ml/10½fl oz water

600ml/1 pint whole milk

150g/6oz blueberries

soft brown sugar or maple syrup

Serves: 4 children

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 10 minutes

1 If I am making this for breakfast the next day, I always try to remember to put the oats and water in a saucepan the night before and leave it with the lid on overnight. It just reduces the cooking time, which is always a good thing when I’m trying to get everyone to school on time.

2 Pour the milk onto the oats and water and gently bring to the boil, stirring all the time.

3 Turn the heat down and simmer for about 7 minutes, until the porridge is thick and creamy.

4 Divide between four bowls, sprinkle with blueberries and a little maple syrup or sugar.

fruit gratin

Although this might seem a slightly odd choice for breakfast, it is very quick to make, especially if you make the batter the night before and leave it in the fridge. You can then simply pour the batter into the dish, pop in the fruit and put it in the oven to cook while you dress the children and yourself!

The aim of this dish is that the fruit should be surrounded by a soft, only just set, cake. It’s almost like having Yorkshire pudding with jam on top! You need to serve it straight from the oven, otherwise it will continue to cook and become hard and stodgy.

butter to grease the dish

6 plums/apricots/nectarines

425ml/15fl oz milk

3 eggs

75g/3oz plain flour

50g/2oz caster sugar

50g/2oz ground almonds

1 tsp good-quality vanilla extract

seeds from vanilla pod (optional)

Serves: 6

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 20–25 minutes

1 Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/GM6

2 Grease the dish and put to one side.

3 Slice the soft fruit in half and remove the stones.

4 Put the milk, eggs, flour, sugar, almonds and vanilla into the liquidizer and blitz for about 2 minutes.

5 Pour the liquid into the prepared dish and then gently arrange the fruit, cut-side down, so that all you see is the softly rounded fruit peeking out from the batter.

6 Place in the oven and cook for about 20 minutes.

7 Serve immediately.

boiled eggs with cheesy fingers

My children think this is the ultimate treat for breakfast – again, it’s more of a weekend breakfast, as it takes too much thinking about for a weekday morning …

4 large organic free range eggs

4 slices wholemeal bread

100g/4oz mature cheddar cheese, grated