Book review: Annabel's Kitchen

I was sent an Annabel Karmel cookbook to review a couple of weeks ago by the lovely people at Random House. It's the newest in her extensive series (you might remember I went to the launch of the Top 100 Pasta Dishes last year, which turned out to be a really useful compendium of family recipes).

Annabel's Kitchen: My first cookbook ties in with a TV series of the same name, currently running on ITV. We aren't big TV watchers, so I must confess we've not seen the programme - and to be honest, I'm not sure the book works very well without it. Out of context, it's all a bit over-the-top 1980s zany, with some very stagy photographs, whereas it might make a bit more sense if you'd seen what went on in the studio.

The idea's great - "discover the importance of food and its ingredients" - and as a cookbook for kids, the recipes are nice enough, but the emphasis on turning your food into animals, faces or whatever does pall after a while. I might be turning into a grumpy middle-aged lady, but food's far too important to mess about with. The pig melon (p72) has to be seen to be believed (although anything that gets fruit/vegetables into small children should be applauded, I suppose, and if you were making it as a one-off for a party, it might be worth it).

But for me, it doesn't hit the spot. The book's not simple enough for the age group targeted by the programme to read/engage with/use - there's a lot of recipes, a lot of small text if you've got a just-starting-to-read small person, and not quite enough step-by-step pictures. If you're a bit older, you'll probably be turned off by all the penguin shenanigans (and anyway, should really be using the bible of children's cookbooks, the River Cottage Family Cookbook).

Sorry Annabel. Better luck next time, in this household at least.

In which I meet Annabel Karmel...

As you may have guessed from yesterday's post, I had an exciting day in London on Wednesday, when I headed down to the launch of Annabel Karmel's latest book (Annabel Karmel's Top 100 Pasta Dishes).

I'd never been to a book launch before, so had no idea what to expect. Thankfully for a book launch all about food, it involved lots of cooking (and most importantly - eating!).

When M was small, a friend gave me Annabel's Complete Baby and Toddler Meal Planner - and it was excellent. It's really good for giving you ideas of things you can mix together in purees, and for giving you an idea about quantities - I'd no clue how much a 6-month-old baby could eat, or indeed how many carrots/bananas/apricots that would take.

But since M was a year or so old, we've all eaten together - so I've never really gone back to any of Annabel's baby/toddler recipes, or thought to hunt any more of hers out. So it was interesting to see some of her more family-oriented food at this launch.

She started off the session by cooking pork and beef meatballs with tagine sauce - which looked dead easy. I loved the fact that the sauce is made with chopped tomatoes and butternut squash (one of my favourite vegetables, but one that M hates - cannily hidden here by blending). However, the final dish was too bland for me - the spice content would definitely have to be upped in our house.

Next, we had a go at cooking along with Annabel, making pasta salad with marinated chicken and roasted peppers. Here's the three stooges (hello Nova and Young Mummy!) chopping peppers and trying not to laugh at the absurdity of having your every move followed by a camera crew and photographer:


I have to say, the pasta salad was delicious (and I scoffed the lot on the train home later). It'd be great for lunchboxes (my next delight once M starts school in the autumn), and had one of my favourite veg (pea shoots), and a lovely marinade.


Next, we watched Annabel produce some pasta , and make spinach and ricotta ravioli. I've got a pasta machine that's currently gathering dust in the cupboard, and had forgotten how much fun making the dough is. Mind, I realised on the train home that you could just make ravioli by finding some very thin fresh lasagne sheets - which would make the recipe even easier. Here's Annabel and a very long piece of pasta:


We had a go at making the ravioli too, with some pre-prepared sheets of pasta. Here's my attempt (which sadly died on the train journey home, so I have yet to report on how it tastes):


All in all, it was a great session, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Here's me, and a teeny-tiny Annabel (if I'd known there were going to be so many photographers/film crew there, I'd have slung a bit of lippy on, but there you go):



I reckon it's a good book - lots of interesting recipes that you could cook for everyone. I would never have thought of buying it for us (I have several hundred cookbooks, most of which don't go down the 'family' angle), but we'll definitely give some of the recipes a go - especially the more 'lunchbox' variety. It'd also be really good for folk who have fussy kids (start 'em on pasta - who knows where they'll end up?), or who are looking for recipes that can feed a toddler tea before a grown-up one.

Drawbacks? The portion sizing isn't particularly clear (it's easy enough in the baby section to see that it's 4 baby portions or whatever, but in the general recipes there's no clue given as to whether you're feeding 4 adults, 4 toddlers or a mixture of the two). And the other half wasn't particularly enamoured of the look and feel of the book (it's apparently something that dads would definitely not pick up off the shelf) - although the photography is great.

It'll be interesting to see what angle Annabel does next - she's written 19 books, and shows no signs of stopping...

Annabel Karmel book launch

Here's Annabel Karmel demonstrating some pasta recipes at the launch of her new book yesterday (she's making meatballs here, by the way). I've got a whole blog post to come about the launch (including a terrible picture where I look like a giant - Annabel is teeny tiny, it's not just me), but here's a sneak peek for you: