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Tana's Kitchen Secrets

by Tana Ramsay

Description
Widely renowned for being the bedrock of the Ramsay household, and as a busy mother of four, Tana knows how important it is to use what little time you have wisely. Her philosophy for enjoying a relaxed and rewarding life is refreshing: it's important to be healthy, but also to take time to have fun; it's good to get your children to eat their greens, but also to instill in them a lifelong love of good food. Tana Ramsay will be your best friend in the kitchen, especially when time is limited and serenity is in short supply.

Tana's fabulous recipes range from Veal with mozzarella and red pepper sauce to Blackberry Ice-cream to international favorites such as Thai Red Curry and Moroccan Fish Tagine. The recipes are accompanied by invaluable tips, such as how to make a breadcrumb coating really crispy, how to stop your pastry sticking when rolling it out, how to cook dried pasta to perfection and how to create the lightest of cakes.

Tana Ramsay shares her secrets for creating the very best home food with minimum time and effort.

Review
Tana, of course is the wife of Chef Gordon Ramsay; but her style is more gentle and family oriented. She presents 120 recipes, of which she says the purpose is to make people love cooking and that every family needs time around the table together.
Her book is done in nice colours, with lots of eloquent pictures and she gives outstanding advice, such as; if a recipe says parsley and you don't have it, don't panic, use something else.

These are family meals that are a bit different, but not difficult and ones that most would probably enjoy.
She gives kitchen and pantry secrets: where to keep spices, the types of oils to have on hand. There are recipes for slow and easy meat, quick and easy meat, fish, pasta, rice and grains, pies, pastries and tarts, vegetables, breads, pizza dough, sweets, cakes, cookies, sauces and dressings. Do not miss her Parmesan chicken drumsticks or her Pollack and shrimp pie, even the Smoked paprika mashed potatoes are different but still kid friendly.
Her slow meats do not use a slow cooker, but are cooked slowly in an oven. She shows how to make a lamb sausage, not in casing but rolled in prosciutto. She tells the secrets on how to cook fish and gives advice that even a cook of many years might find useful, but a new adventuresome cook could do. There are pictures to illustrate techniques where needed.
It's just a charming, useful cookbook, for beginners or those more skilled, and an addition for any one that loves cookbooks.
Wogan 'the book reader' (Amazon.com)