Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44444 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 261 pages

Grazia
'Take a seat, Jools [Oliver]. Because you've got nothing on the
Ramsays.'

Synopsis
Tana Ramsay, glamorous, down-to-earth wife of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay and hands-on mother of four, has written a cookbook every family will swear by - but not in the traditional Gordon way. Widely renowned for being the bedrock of the Ramsay household, Tana shows time-pressed parents how easy it is to cook for the most demanding of families. Tana Ramsay is much admired for her strong family values and for her hands-on approach with her and celebrity chef Gordon's young family. Tana shows time-pressed parents how easy it is to cook healthy meals that all the family will enjoy - no matter what age or how demanding they may be. As well as over 100 recipes, this beautiful and practical cookbook includes hints and tips on: how to simply adapt dishes to suit different ages and tastes; how to encourage children to experiment with food; how to cut corners with a vast array of handy cooking and shopping hints.

From the Author
Extracted from the 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 stuyding for my teaching course in the evening - I quickly became a Montessori nursery teacher. I more or less lived on quick and easy food and really started cooking 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 purees. 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 over complicating, just simple, family food. I belive home cooking never needs to be any more sophisticated than this. I've tried to keep the recipes in this book as real and as 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-orientated - like fish fingers, for example - but most of them are for the whole family to enjoy.

Tana Ramsay

Customer Reviews

The proof of the pudding...
My criteria for a good 'family' cook book is whether the recipes satisfy the fussiest of eaters at your dinner table. I've tried and cooked a number of recipes from this book and they not only work but also both my children enjoy and more to the point finish the final result. You need good, simple nourishing recipes that are not over rich and this book ticks all those boxes.

There is a huge and confusing array of recipe books out there catering for this market and whilst Tana Ramsey benefits from having a famous husband as well as a TV series, her recipes are simple, attractive and more to the point taste good. I recommend this book.

all your favourite recipes ruined.
This book has proved useless in my kitchen. May well be of some use if you don't know how to cook or need a shove to start feeding your children proper food. But if like me you already cook full meals and lunch from scratch this book does little more than add a few more recipes to the shelf. Those that I have so far tried have failed to thrill me. And others are just things that we don't really like.

Good points?
That I already mentioned-good for people without prior family cooking knowledge.
Good layout-clear instructions
good photography.

To be honest if you need a basic from scratch comprehensive guide to family cooking I would highly reccomend the river cottage family cookbook which will serve you well even when you know exactly what you are at in the kitchen.

An Inspirational book rather than a recipe book
I was seriously disappointed with this book based upon a number of customer reviews I saw on the Amazon site. I thought it was going to be a really good family cookbook for a working mother. However, although I found this book inspirational, I no longer use the recipes in this book. I have wasted a lot of time and ingredients on a large number of the recipes in this book due to inaccuracies and a lack of information. I'm afraid I'm not a natural cook, I follow the recipe to the letter and more often than not her recipes need a degree of guess work or reliance on cooking knowledge. If you are going to follow these recipes I advise you not to have a hungry family waiting in the background until you've had a practice run!!! It's a book that now gathers dust on my shelf.