What's for Dinner? Second Helpings - Review

What's for Dinner? Second Helpings has been written by mum of four, Romilla Arber.  It is the only cookery book in the UK where all sale proceeds go directly to charity.  The Food Education Trust is a charity, established by Romilla in 2008 to promote the benefits of a balanced home cooked diet, through the teaching of cooking skills to children and adults. One of the projects the Trust has been involved with enabled a school to build and equip a kitchen.  They now have cookery classes where members of the community go into school and help, a cookery club and also a breakfast club for the children.  The Food Education Trust is currently funded by the profits from her previous book What's for Dinner? 

Romilla Arber isn't a chef, she is a busy mum of four children and she recognises the need to cook healthy food for her family.  There are 767 pages in the book and features a recipe for every day, every week and every month of the year.  All of the photographs in the book are outstanding and there is a photograph to accompany the majority of the recipes.  This is a book for the home cook and will help with all the weekly meal plans.  The recipes are put together with a balanced diet in mind - plenty of fresh vegetables, four meat meals a week, regular amounts of fish, pulses and cereals.  Romilla has included lots of fabulous recipes for puddings, cakes and biscuits - home cooked are always best.

The book cover and the image of this raspberry and chocolate cake shows the quality of food styling and photography.  

The hope is that What's for Dinner?Second Helpings will inspire us to cook at home and to also plant the seed in our children's minds that cooking at home every day is a normal part of life and one of it's great pleasures.  As a Mum, albeit of grown up children, I know from experience children will never like all foods we give to them, but the opportunity to eat and experience home cooked food is always best. Romilla is very wise, and planting the seed to cook from scratch, so we know exactly what goes into the food we eat, is something children will take with them into adulthood and then pass on to their own children.

The recipes in the book are to serve six but can easily be adapted.  An example of recipes: Pork with Noodles, Thai Style - Baked Meatballs and Potatoes - Salmon Burgers - Fillet Steaks in Pastry with a Vegetable Medley.  Sunday is pudding and cake day - Baked Peaches and Raspberries with Lemon Mascarpone - Chocolate Gingerbread with Chocolate Icing - Sticky Toffee Pecan Pudding with Toffee Sauce - Chocolate Chip Cookies.

A small selection of easy to follow, everyday recipes, I cooked from the book:

Plum and Raspberry Cobbler

My fruit cobbler tasted delicious and the cobbler was light in texture, although the plums didn't seem to want to cook (ripen at home plums never ripen!),  I covered the cobbler with foil and the plums eventually cooked, my raspberries by now didn't resemble raspberries, but this is home cooked food, it still tasted delicious and was definitely worth the wait. To see the fruit cobbler looking stunningly beautiful I recommend you take a peak at the photograph in the book!

Cod and Leek Gratin

A very easy to make gratin - the sauce is simply creme fraiche and cheddar cheese mixed together. We really enjoyed this quick and delicious meal.

One-Pot Chicken Curry

This was a lovely and tasty mid-week meal. The curry wasn't too hot and adding potatoes made the curry more substantial, the addition of peas and tomatoes is an easy way to get more veg on the plate.

Leek and Blue Cheese Risotto

I love risotto, it's a great standby and can be made from just a few ingredients.  Providing you have arborio rice in the store cupboard, then recipes like this can easily be adapted. The risotto was really tasty and a winner.


Price:  £25.00
ISBN No. 978-0-95709-350-8
Park Family Publishing

Thank you Li.

Smoked Haddock and Leek Risotto

I'm not one for take out meals but on occasions I feel lazy, can't be bothered, can't get into the zone and can't even think what to make. On these occasions I always feel guilty, but then I do have a husband to feed! Left to me it would be a plate of leaves and a spray of balsamic vinegar, but then as I said before, I do have a husband to feed, and I don't think he would be very impressed with a plate of leaves.

For all the above occasions risotto saves the day. Risotto fills you up and as long as you have some arborio rice, a glass of white wine and some chicken stock you can make a substantial meal. Hopefully, you will have some Parmesan cheese to grate over the risotto too.

Risotto isn't the prettiest of meals but taste wise it takes some beating. Risotto costs less than a take out, takes less time than if you have to fetch it and won't hurt your wallet either.

I have a clever kitchen gadget which makes mine in 25 minutes from start to finish, a present from my husband, and so on lazy days and can't be bothered days it's risotto for us.

This delicious recipe is from Olive Magazine and can be found on the BBC GoodFood website.

A few more lazy day risotto's:

Lemon Thyme, Prosciutto, Pecorino and Goat's Cheese Risotto
Porcini and Spinach Risotto
Nigel Slater's Leek Risotto with Parmesan Crisps

SPATCHCOCK CHICKEN WITH GREMOLATA

On Sunday we braved the cold, but sunny weather and had a barbeque, a silly thing to do I know. It was too cold outside for moi but my husband, who seems to be an all weather person, set about cooking the barbeque with a smile but I did notice later on this had turned into a grimace (I think he was feeling the cold and had barbeque regret!). The rewards were high though, a beautifully cooked barbeque chicken, which is impossible to replicate in the oven.

It is very easy to spatchcock a chicken and here are the instructions. Sometimes this surgical procedure on the poor chicken is also called butterflied chicken. You may also see this recipe come under the recipe title of chicken under a brick. You don't have to use the bricks (which in fact we didn't because we forgot), but it does keep the chicken flat and you then have better contact with the cooking surface. The recipe can also be made with spatchcocked poussins (but I/we just couldn't!).

This wonderful, tasty and aromatic chicken was marinated overnight. A wild rice and pepper salad, together with lots of vegetables cooked on the barbeque made a perfect meal.

The chicken is very easy, with only a few ingredients for the marinade.

You will need:

A medium spatchcock chicken, 1 chopped garlic clove, juice of 2 lemons, pepper, 3 tablespoons olive oil, 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, 1 tablespoon chopped rosemary.

1. Mix together the rosemary, fennel seeds, olive oil, garlic clove, juice of 2 lemons and seasoning.
2. Put the spatchcocked chicken into a ziplock bag together with the lemon shells, pour over the marinade. Place the bag into a large bowl.
3. Chill in the fridge overnight, if possible.
4. Pat the chicken dry, drizzle with olive oil and season. Put skin side down on the barbecue.
5. If you wish, wrap a brick in foil to weigh down the chicken and cook for 30 minutes on medium heat.
6. Turn the chicken over and cook for another 30 minutes weighed down with the foil covered brick. Check the chicken is cooked through and leave to rest.

Gremolata

You will need:

Zest of 1 lemon, 1 chopped clove garlic, large bunch of chopped parsley.

1. Sprinkle over the cooked chicken.

WILD RICE AND PEPPER SALAD


You will need:

½ a finely sliced red onion, 150 g wild rice, 2 roasted and sliced peppers (or from a jar), 100g crumbled goat's cheese, handful of toasted pine nuts, small bunch chopped mint, 1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons olive oil.

1. Put the onion in a bowl, season and toss with the red wine vinegar and olive oil, leave to marinate and soften.
2. Cook the wild rice in boiling water for about 25 minutes, drain and rinse under cold water, drain again. Toss with the onion and dressing.
3. Mix the red peppers, goats' cheese, pine nuts and chopped mint through the rice mixture.

VANILLA RICE PUDDING WITH BLACKBERRIES AND PLUMS

Can I tempt you? Forget school rice pudding - this is a classic with a twist.

Half fat creme fraiche is stirred into the cooked rice pudding for extra richness. The original recipe uses full fat milk to cook the rice, it's January and we are supposed to be trying to count calories this month, perhaps it's a good idea to use semi-skimmed milk.

The stewed fruit cuts through the richness of the rice pudding and if you decide the rice pudding is not for you, the plums and blackberries are a wonderful combination of flavours and you can enjoy these instead. Frozen blackberries work perfectly.

Serves: 6

250g caster sugar, 6 ripe halved and stoned plums, 250g blackberries, 1.5 litres full fat milk, 1 vanilla pod (split lengthwise), 200g washed pudding rice, 100ml half fat creme fraiche, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Pour 100g of the sugar into a pan with 300ml water and bring to the boil. When the syrup is boiling, add the plums. Place a piece of greaseproof paper and a small plate on top of the plums to keep them submerged and simmer for about 5 minutes,until they are cooked. Remove the pan from the heat.

2. Remove the plums from the hot syrup and add the blackberries. Remove after 1 minute and allow the syrup to cool, then return all the fruit to the syrup.

3. Boil the milk and vanilla pod in a heavy based pan. Add the rice to the milk in a steady stream. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring frequently. When the rice is tender,remove the vanilla pod and scrape the seeds into the rice. Stir in the remaining sugar, add the creme fraiche and vanilla extract. Serve with the fruit and some of the poaching syrup.

STUFFED BABY SQUASH

I couldn't resist cooking this on my cedar wood baking plank to give just a hint of smokiness to the squash.

A small whole baby squash is a meal in itself and all you need for accompaniments are some sun-dried tomato bread and a spicy tomato sauce.

Serves: 4

You will need: 4 small squash about 350g each, 200g mixed wild and basmati rice, 60ml chilli and garlic oil, 150g grated Gruyere cheese.

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas 5. Pierce the squash in several places with the tip of a knife. Place the squash on a baking tray or oven plank and bake for 30 minutes or until the squash are tender. Leave to one side until cool enough to handle.
2. Cook the rice in salted, boiling water for 12 minutes or until tender, drain. Slice a lid off the top of each squash and scoop out and discard the seeds, also scoop out and chop the flesh.
3. Heat the chilli and garlic oil in a frying pan and cook the chopped squash for 5 minutes. ( Or, if using, transfer to the oven baking plank for extra smokiness and cook in the oven for a few minutes).
4. Reserve 4 tablespoons of the cheese and add the remainder to the pan along with the cooked rice, season. Mix well.
5. Pile the mixture into the squash shells and place in an ovenproof dish (or return to the oven baking plank). Sprinkle with the remaining cheese and bake for 20 minutes.

NIGEL SLATERS' LEEK RISOTTO WITH PARMESAN CRISPS

I could have told you I grew the leeks myself, I could have said I bought them from the Farmers Market, I could even have said, they were in my box scheme delivery. Alas, none of the above would have been true.

I know you are all going to be disappointed with me now, but they were out of a plastic see-through bag bought from the local supermarket. These leeks were left over from the Leek and Gruyere Quiche in my previous posting. I've let you down, I've let myself down and most of all I have let Nigel down - lets hope he will forgive a fellow West Midlander.

I preplanned the quiche and then forgot to buy the leeks and so had to settle for non-squeaky leeks. I could have made something else, but I had promised my husband I would make quiche, ran out of time and had to settle for the see-through bag!!!

If you can get crisp, bright, fresh leeks, then this simple recipe will taste even better, because it totally relies on the quality of the ingredients, that said, my risotto didn't disappoint but would have been even better, if only I had bought wonderful leeks....................'nough said about those leeks now.

The Parmesan crisps were tablespoons of grated Parmesan placed in a non stick pan and cooked until crisp. They were very moreish and one each just isn't enough - I would definitely make more.

The recipe is from Nigel Slaters new BBC programme Simple Suppers. It's great to have someone on TV who is giving the home cook simple, realistic, achievable and furthermore, delicious recipes. Nigel Slater never disappoints the home cook and he makes cooking stress free and enjoyable.

If you take a peek at his new cookery book you will find he grills some pancetta and adds this to the risotto at the end of the cooking time, but the above recipe is part of his DigIn series of programmes, which is obviously based on growing and eating your own veg!


Yesterday I was fortunate enough to be given some homegrown leeks! I know that I have missed the moment with the above recipe but I think I have now redeemed myself to you all.............