Welcome to Cook With Granny!

About this site

I'll be adding lots of family favourites with photos over the coming weeks, with Gran's TIPS to help you. It is fun to cook with children and making things to delight them brings out a childlike enjoyment in us all. So let your imagination run riot!

The aim is not to produce professional looking cakes or highly challenging dishes, but home-made imaginative delicious and simple everyday cooking. Above all these are chosen because children enjoy helping to make them or love eating them.

In my family, people often ask me for the recipes and I thought they would liketo have them all in one place so this is it! They may go off to university or start their young adult lives and suddenly want to get hold of a recipe we made so often together.

I hope you enjoy some of these too.

Guitar birthday cake for teenagers

One chicken, lots of ideas!

Here is a roast chicken meal with all the trimmings, and some ideas to make it stretch further.

1.  If you are making this as a Sunday lunch treat for two, eat the legs and thighs and all the delicious crispy bits and save the white breast meat for a chicken caesar salad 

2. The left overs are made into that all time remedy- chicken soup - then frozen until you reach for it when someone has a cold or feels ill.

3. It all goes into the oven together in three layers so organise your racks while the oven is cold.

Roast chicken with crispy roast potatoes, roasted vegetables and gravy with green beans in a mint and basil sauce.
Pat the chicken dry. Season inside and out with salt, black pepper, Rosemary, Thyme and garlic. Give a good sprinkling of paprika over it for a good colour and strong flavour. Half a lemon goes into the cavity with some garlic cloves. Drizzle a little olive oil over it. Some red onion quarters and some whole garlic cloves can be scattered in the tin, they give the pan juices for the gravy some real oomph. Roast for one and a half hours at 180C. (This chicken weighs 1.2 kg)

More meals from 1 chick! if there are just two of you try and get more meals out of this bird.
Roast the chicken with lots of veg and eat only the legs thighs and wings.
Save the white meat for Chicken Caessar salad and the carcass for soup.
Leave it to rest while making the gravy.
To make the gravy: Drain off excess fat from the roasting pan. Leave about a tablespoon full. Sprinkle a little flour on the fat and juices in the pan and cook on the hob stirring till the flour is absorbed. Splash in a half a cup to a cup of wine and scrape down the sides of the roasting tin to get all the crusty bits into your gravy. Add a half a chicken stock cube and a some hot water, stirring while it bubbles. Adjust to taste and to get the thickness right. Your gravy should be put through a strainer into a jug. Push the roasted garlic cloves through the strainer into the gravy. TIP: Have no wine open? Give your gravy a splash of balsamic vinegar and carry on as above.
Roasted carrots, red onions and parsnips
Roast some carrots, red onions and parsnips in a separate tray in the same oven as your chicken and the roast potatoes. They need less time than the chicken, so pop them in about 40 mins before you need to serve.
TO PREPARE: Put the veggies into a bowl and sprinkle with herbs and stems of rosemary. Drizzle olive oil over them and turn them over so they are coated. Tip into a tin to roast. Add some coarse sea salt.
Roast potatoes.
Red Rooster potatoes make the most delicious roasties but other types will do. These are especially crispy if you boil them first till just starting to soften, drain and fluff up the potatoes by shaking the pan so that the edges are rough, then roast in the oven with a little light oil like Crisp & Dry. Turn occasionally but not too often or they break out of their crisp outer layer. Sprinkle with fine salt to get the crispiest. Your oil should be shallow and not too much of it. Drizzle it into the tops of the potatoes. Aim for crispy not greasy texture. They should cook in the oven along with the roast. Watch that they do not get too dark. If necessary take them out for a rest and put back in nearer the serving time.

Options:
Rosemary sprigs add a lovely flavour.
Oil from roasted peppers or bought sundried tomatoes can be kept for roasting potatoes.
Scrapings from the roasting tin if not needed for gravy can give the potatoes some depth.
Chicken soup: the ultimate remedy made from the left over carcass.
This age old cure all made from leftovers should be made when you feel OK and frozen cos when you are ill it seems far too much work.
Simmer the soup very slowly with the lid on (you may need a sheet of grease-proof paper beneath the lid). Sliced carrots, parsnips, celery and the chicken carcass or left over pieces from a roast combine to make a broth with a good stock. Start with two pints. Skim off the scum with a slotted spoon. Season with freshly grated nutmeg. When you taste it and the flavour is strong enough, strain it and put a few carrots back into the broth. As it cools fat rises to the top. Press a kitchen towel on the surface to catch the fat (not gallons of your soup). Aim for no globules of fat dancing around on top. it can be thickened by pushing the cooked veg through a sieve or kept clear. Options now: Add noodles, make egg drop Stracciatella, grate Parmesan or sprinkle chopped parsley on top
Fun with a piano idea for a cake - easy and quick
This is made with bought fondant icing for the piano keys and homemade butter icing for the piano itself. Bake a rectangle of cake (try a roasting tin if you don't have a suitable cake tin. Line the tin with baking paper. When baked and cooled cut your edges straight. Soften and roll out your white and black fondant icing to the thickness of a £ coin and cut out the 'keys' using a ruler. A couple of secs in the microwave will make it easier to roll out. Make a choc butter icing and ice the cake all over, then add the keys and they will stick. Keep fondant covered with clingfilm or it dries and cracks! I created the music with an icing writing pen.

Ingredients for Butter Icing
140g/5oz butter, softened
240g icing sugar
40g cocoa powder
A little hot water to stir into the cocoa and make a paste.
Beat the butter till light and creamy, add in the icing sugar and cocoa paste gradually. When it is all mixed in adjust your colour and taste by adding more cocoa or a few drops of lemon juice if too sweet.
BASIC chocolate cake.

Alternative: make a melted chocolate icing.
Biscuits for a two year old's birthday