Piece of cake: now Rachel's daughter shows cookery skills

Rachel Allen and her daughter Scarlett, who makes a few cameos in her mum's latest cookbook called 'Rachel's Everyday Kitchen'

John Spain Books Editor

September 12 2013 04:02 AM

THERE'S a new star in the latest Rachel Allen cookbook – and it's not the TV chef or her new recipes.

Scarlett Allen (4) is pictured on several pages giving her famous mum a hand in the kitchen.

"She loves cooking," Rachel said. "But if she had her way we'd be making buns all the time."

And she may even follow in the footsteps of several generations of great Allen cooks from Ballymaloe, Co Cork.

"Perhaps, but we'll have to wait and see and I'm not going to push her into anything," said Allen as she prepared to launch her latest book today.

"All I can say is that, like most children, she loves cooking."

The new book, 'Rachel's Everyday Kitchen', is all about cooking for families.

The book is particularly strong on planning the week's meals, making use of leftovers in next-day dishes, and buying the right ingredients to maximise nutrition.

In the introduction to the book, the mother of three admits that cooking for the family takes a little longer than "heating up a ready-meal or ordering a take-away".

NUTRITIOUS

"But it's the only way of creating family meals that you know are nutritious because you know what's in them.

"Times have changed and many mothers now work outside the home, so it's different," she said when asked if this generation's mothers rely more on ready-made meals.

However, she said her own mother ran a shop and still managed to cook a proper meal for the family every day.

"It can be done. All it takes is a bit of organisation. We all think we're time poor, but it may be a matter of making the right choices.

"I think good nutrition from home-cooked meals is so important for the family. It should be our top priority, not further down the list behind other things that take up time.

"I'm too much of a wuss to criticise people the way Jamie (Oliver) did recently, but he's right about how important nutrition is for families. We do need to give that a much higher priority in our lives and the only way to be sure is to cook meals yourself.

"That's why I did this book and called it 'Everyday Meals'. It shows people how to plan and shop for a week's meals and how you can cook for your family during the week and still have time to do other things."

'Rachel's Everyday Kitchen' is published today by HarperCollins at €33.35.