Dear Easy Peasies

This book is for you. Why? Because you deserve it. Anyone who wants to cook deserves a cookery book of their own. Children’s cookery books are often too babyish. Adult ones are too hard and too fancy. So make sure you keep this one away from all the other cookery books in your house. You know the ones, either crammed with complicated recipes for things like cows stuffed with pigs, stuffed with green vegetables and then sprinkled with vitamins. Or how to make a Swiss roll look like a witch with green snot. Ghastly.

If you catch an adult reading this book, be kind. They may also want to learn to cook absolutely fabulous, incredibly simple and gorgeous food. Let’s face it – eating is brilliant. It’s convenient. You can do it anytime and anywhere. (You can even dream about it.) It’s fun. You can do it with anyone or anything. We don’t care what people say about too much this and too much that and not enough A, B, C and D. Cooking and eating is good for you.

You see, we think we need a bit of everything. Chocolate and chips, chicken and chutney, peaches and peas. If you want cheese and marmalade, so be it. So remember, if you’ve time for school and television and sport and sleeping, then you’ve time for a little bit of Easy Peasy cooking – haven’t you? Yes!

Love

Pru x & Mary x

P.S. We forgot to say all the recipes in Easy Peasy are really easy peasy. That’s why they’re in this book. Once you’ve cooked one or two, you’ll discover you can cook three or four. Then suddenly, you’ll find you can cook them all and still have time to watch television.

Dear Grown-ups

We’re sorry but you can’t have this book. It’s for the children. And remember what we always say to children? ‘You can’t have everything you want.’ If you can still behave like a child, you may be able to borrow it. But we’ve told them – Easy Peasy is theirs. So be warned.

We think eating is one of life’s great pleasures, especially eating something fab you’ve cooked yourself. And the trouble with cooking for children is just that – adults trying to disguise foods so children will eat them. We want children to cook for themselves. For their friends. For you. That’s what Easy Peasy is about – children cooking by themselves with a minimum amount of adult supervision. Lots of our recipes require no help at all, so you can put your feet up.

However, should you be tempted to try one or two or even three, you may find the children want to make them themselves anyway: ‘Aw!’ they’ll say, ‘This is gorgeous. What is it?’ ‘Well dear,’ you can say, ‘It’s really very easy peasy. You can make it for me next week. It’s in your book.’

Cooking is also a life skill. Once you know the basics you can survive anywhere. And with school meals under the microscope it’s even more important for children to know about the pleasures of eating well and the problems of eating badly. It’s just another way of helping them towards a strong and healthy adulthood. School may take care of reading, writing and arithmetic, but strong bones and strong bodies come from us.

Apart from anything else, you may hate cooking. Maybe you love it but haven’t got the time. There are loads of reasons why so many of us don’t cook. But children love cooking. It makes them feel proud and gives them a sense of sharing and achievement. So encourage them.

With best wishes,

Pru x & Mary x

Inside Easy Peasy

Excuse me, could we just say something before you start reading? You know how sometimes a recipe asks you to do something that you’ve not done before? Or even something that you think you should know how to do but don’t? Well it’s all in the Easy Peasy How To Do Everything Brilliantly section starting here. So suppose you need to know something about carrots – chopping, slicing, peeling or grating – just turn to that section and find carrots.

And if we mention a piece of equipment that you’re not sure you have, just look in the Easy Peasy Pots and Pans section here. It’s really easy peasy.

Easy Peasy cooking means being prepared. Get everything ready before you start cooking. Always check with an adult if you need to use sharp knives or the cooker.

By the way, all the recipes will feed four of you unless we tell you otherwise.

Spoons: tablespoon = a soup spoon

dessertspoon = a pudding spoon

teaspoon = a teaspoon

Can sizes: small = about 220g

medium = about 420g

An ovenproof dish means a dish that can be put into a hot oven and will not crack.

Easy Peasy How To Do Everything Brilliantly

‘Waiter! Waiter! Has this lettuce been washed?’
‘Yes Sir, you can still see the soap on it!’

This section tells you how to prepare, wash, peel and chop vegetables and fruit.

Apples

If you need to peel and core an apple, use a sharp knife and a chopping board. Cut the apple in half and then into quarters. Using the knife, trim away the hard core and the pips in the middle of each quarter and carefully peel them. It’s best to peel apples just before you need them because they go brown if they’re left to hang around without any skin on.

Avocados

These are easy to prepare if they’re ripe. Take a sharp knife and cut through the skin from top to bottom all the way around. Gently twist the two halves in opposite directions until they come apart. Pull the stone out. It’s very slippery and you sometimes have to push your fingers into the flesh to loosen it. Then peel off the skin and chop or slice as needed.

Broccoli

Using a sharp knife, cut off as much broccoli as you need using both the dark green fuzzy bits at the top and the bits of stalk that go with them. Rinse well under cold running water.

Carrots

Using a sharp knife, slice off both ends. Hold the thick end of the carrot with one hand and with the other use a vegetable peeler to peel down towards the bottom of the carrot. Keep turning round in your hand until all the skin is gone. Then rinse the carrot in cold water. Be careful chopping carrots as they have a way of sliding around. You can slice the carrot into rounds or cut lengthways into two and then four, depending on the size of the carrot.

Celery

Celery always needs a good, thorough wash under cold running water. When you need to chop it, use a sharp knife and cut off the leaves first. Take a small slice off each end and run the vegetable peeler down the length of the celery. This gets rid of all those horrid, stringy bits.

Cucumber