Have you ever sat watching those Marks & Spencer adverts - with their near perfect clips of delectable food described in breathless honeyed tones by a sultry presenter - and wondered if a) you wish you could make food like that, or b) can the media and chefs stop describing everything with superfluous adjectives and annoying alternative names? The first is simply a matter of envy, which can be broken down further into its component parts; imaginative vacancy and laziness. Cooking isn't hard - it's like gardening really. You stand there staring out of your window at the overgrown mass of greenery and wonder what the point is - but once you get stuck in the ...  Read the complete review

Bacon and new potato omelette 6 eggs 4 slices smoked back bacon 1 white onion 4-6 new potatoes Oil Salt Pepper I usually use leftover new potatoes for this, if you do have leftover potatoes it makes this dish even quicker but if not just peel and quarter the potatoes and cook till tender in a lightly salted water and drain and put to one side. Next peel and finely chop the white onion before frying it in a little oil till it becomes tender. Cut the bacon into small bite size pieces before adding to the now tender onions and frying till crisp. Now add the new potatoes to the onion and ...  Read the complete review

Being Italian does have its advantages, one of the main ones in my opinion (no not that!) is understanding just how easy cooking really is. An knowing that you don't need expensive ingredients, advanced skills, or masses of time to prepare it. A great example is the Southern Italian dish of Spaghetti "Aglio e Olio", (pronounced "ally-E-o" -"eh" -"olly-O") chances are, you may have heard of Spaghetti "Aglio e Olio", but more than likely you will have never tried it. This is mainly because, it is so embarassingly easy to prepare very few restaraunts would allow it to grace their menus, or justify placing ...  Read the complete review

Corned beef hash has always been one of my favourite ever dinners and now my kids love it as well. I used to make it differently and the long way for many years, which meant putting everything in an oven dish with mashed potato and cheese on top and putting it in the over for half an hour plus. Which totalled to about an hour after preparing, etc. In recent years I have found a much quicker, easier and nicer way to make corned beef hash, which makes this an ideal meal to make if you are late home or in a rush. By making it this way you can have it on the table in about 20 minutes (Or less) from start to finish. Firstly, you will ...  Read the complete review

Although this sounds like a side dish at a Chinese, I always serve it as a main meal, but it could be done as a side too. This was actually passed on to me by my mother in law when I got married because it was such a quick easy meal to make during the week and required only basic store cupboard ingredients. It has to be said as well, that this is a very filling meal by itself, and is able to be doubled or halved, depending how the number of mouths to feed. The quantities of ingredients given for this fried rice recipe are for 4/5 people as a main meal (obviously if being served as a side these quantities need to be great reduced) 2 onions (red or ...  Read the complete review