Home Cooking!

Red Wine and Chorizo Risotto with Peas
Home Cooking by Rachel Allen was published this Autumn. It won’t be any surprise to regular readers that I’m a Rachel Allen fan. Have all her books, and have cooked from them all extensively. As much as a fan as I am I did wonder if she could come up with another good cookbook so soon after the magnificent Bake of last year. However, she has done it again, another lovely book jam packed with the kind of recipes you can easily slot into your weekly cooking. It’s her sixth and biggest book to date, nicely presented in a feminine fashion, with good pictures. It has a TV series on Good Food channel to go with it, but there is a lot more in the book than the recipes that appeared on TV.
It covers: Breakfast, Lunch, Sunday Lunch, Supper and Desserts plus some savoury and sweet treats . There is even a chapter on Baby Purees.

I don’t know about you but I sometimes draw a blank for inspiration midweek, when I’m tired but still want something good to eat for my family. I’ve been inspired though with Home Cooking, and the recipes I’ve made have produced comforting, homely, good home cooked food. Here is a taster of some of the things I’ve made. Have an amazing sounding orange and date syrup pudding on the cards next.


Roast Chicken
Easy and delicious roasted chicken.

Buttered Cabbage

Something I used to do a lot and then it fell by the wayside in favour of newer things. It’s back on the menu again now though.

Tarragon Cream Gravy
Creamy and just a little different from the norm. There are several variations for gravies and sauces to go with your chicken in the books.

Smoked Bacon Stuffing
Delicious! The stock I made with the leftover bits and pieces was all the better for a little of this stuffing. There are also several stuffings to choose from in the book.

Macaroni Cheese with Ham
I have a couple of macaroni cheese recipes that I make, but this was the one that got the little people cleaning their plates and asking for more!

Alphabet Soup
A lovely tomato soup to warm the soul. Could be veggie without the bacon. I found the pasta alphabet shapes in the baby aisle at the supermarket.

Chicken Curry
This is a cream and coconut milk free curry. It must be ages wince I’ve made a plain curry like this! It actually reminded me of a packaged curry that came in black boxes, when homemade curry was not the in thing yet. I added a few sultanas to make it more so. A gripe with this recipe, it only served two of us, and it would not have stretched any further!

Mayonnaise
A must in your repertoire.

Tartare Sauce
This version of this fish accompaniment has chopped hard boiled egg in it, which is a new one on me. It was a lovely tartare sauce though, given a little more body with the egg.

Red Wine and Chorizo Risotto with Peas (Picture at top of post)
I adore risotto and chorizo, if this hadn’t been good I’ve have been extremely surprised! It was a very pretty colour when cooked too, the purple rice and vibrant green peas with the drizzle of orange chorizo oil.

Mild Lamb Curry
I saw Rachel make this one on Market Kitchen. I did the very mild version with no chilli, and my non spicy little people ate it up. The novelty of poppadums and nan probably helped. We liked it too, you could always serve a spicy chitnry or pickle with it if you like it hot. I liked the aromatic gentleness of it.

Aromatic Crispy Duck
A really moist take on the Chinese recipe. You poach duck breasts and oven bake the skin = moist meat and crispy skin!

Strawberry and White Chocolate Tiramisu

This was soooooo good! Scarily addictive!!

Pork Meatballs with Tomato Sauce
A filling nice supper. I usually make meatballs with beef, so this was a little change.

Stir Fried Rice
Lovely! Sometimes I used leftover rice and sometimes cook and cool rice and keep it in the fridge till evening. A good stir fried rice like this is worth cooking extra for.

Cauliflower Cheese
A family home cooked classic, or it should be anyhow!

Here a link to Rachel Allen’s website for the White Chocolate and Strawberry Tiramisu recipe – scroll down and it’s there.