Product Description

If you've ever prayed for inspiration for interesting food to prepare and serve at home, Rachel Allen's "Food at Home" serves up the answers. In this beautifully illustrated cookbook to accompany her latest TV series, Rachel Allen once again offers the delicious, inspiring and easy to follow recipes for which she has become famous. "Rachel's Favourite Food at Home" draws on international influences, classic regional fare and good old family favourites to provide creative options for every occasion, whether planning a simple family meal, hosting a festive dinner for the entire clan, squeezing in a sneaky romantic meal for two, heading out for a glorious picnic, chilling out on the sofa with your favourite comfort food, or spending time baking muffins with the kids. The chapters include: Easy Family Food; Sweet Celebrations; Picnics and Days Out; Food for Children; Extended Family Meals; Dining Al Fresco; Home Cinema; Big Celebrations; Edible Gifts; and, Just Like Mum Used to Make.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #98290 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-04
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review
"A natural TV chef: relaxed, articulate and knowledgeable" - Sunday Times "Food for real people" - Irish Examiner

Church Review, October
probably the top TV cook in Ireland... a fine book...

RTE Guide, September 2006
...one of Ireland's best loved TV chefs... the holy grail of her
guide to simple cooking and great food....

Customer Reviews

Family values highly in this super book
from Rachel Allen.

'In this cookbook to accompany her latest TV series, Rachel Allen once again offers the delicious, inspiring and easy-to-follow recipes for which she has become famous.
'Rachel's Favourite Food at Home' draws on international influences, classic regional fare and good old family favourites to provide creative options for every occasion, whether you're planning a simple family meal, hosting a festive dinner for the entire clan, squeezing in a sneaky, romantic meal for two, heading out for a glorious picnic, chilling out on the sofa with your favourite comfort food, or just spending time baking muffins with the kids.

224 pages, split over 10 chapters:-

Easy Family Food
Sweet Celebrations
Picnics and Days Out
Food for Children
Extended Family
Dining Alfresco
Home Cinema
Big Celebrations
Edible Gifts
Just Like Mum Used to Make

sandwiched between an introduction, a section entitled 'Useful Extras', 10 pages of 'staples' or 'accompaniments' recipes , e.g. stock, roux, mayonnaise, rice and pastry.

Completed with a concise index.

Each chapter opens with family photographs and some text, e.g.:-
Easy Family Food

'I love family meals since this is when everyone gets to sit together and talk about what went on during the day. This type of food should be easy to prepare and quick to rustle up, or else made in advance earlier in the day. This is simple food that the whole family will enjoy and the recipes can be easily amended to suit everyone's taste.'

Each recipe is well laid out with a title, how many servings plus guidance on whether a starter, main, vegetarian etc, short heading, clear ingredient's list and method.

Most, but not all the recipes, include a full colour photograph, sometimes of a 'stage of the recipe', or an 'on-location' shot, rather than of a completed item.

Most used cookbook I own...
I love this book - I've cooked so many recipes from it and they all turn out great. I love Rachel's approach - there's too many tv chefs who use tv to show off their restaurant food, yet fewer and fewer people cook at home. This book is full of easy, great food you can cook at home for everyday meals. If you are having friends round, try the lamb tagine recipe - it's to die for!

Good simple food
I love watching Rachel Allen's recipe shows. Her delivery is friendly and helpful, she makes recipes seem easy and clear, and the end results look tempting and delicious.

I do like this reciped book and I enjoyed particularly, the snippets of additional commentary that are often missing in many other recipe books. They set the scene, explain the origin of recipes and generally, give a recipe book more character.

However, I would add, while the book is easy to follow and beautifully designed, remember it's about "home" recipes for friends and all the family. So many of the recipes are very straightforward - such as, baked potato, or runny egg and asparagus soliders. This is great for parents looking for healthy, quick and easy meals for all the family. Ideally, I'd have liked a few more of her more detailed recipes.

One other point that you might like to consider when deciding whether or not to buy the book: if, like me, you use recipe books as a spur-of-the-moment source of visual ideas for today's lunch, tea or dinner by flicking through the photos and recipe titles, keep in mind that quite a few recipes in this book don't have photos - instead there are whole-page photos of Rachel, of her husband, her kids and even her dog!

Admittedly, this adds to the charm and character of the book but in one or two of the few slightly more complex recipes included in the book, I would have preferred a photo of the prepared dish.