Kirby - The family kitchen : a cookbook for all occasions

First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Absolute Press, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Absolute Press

Scarborough House

29 James Street West

Bath BA1 2BT

Phone 44 (0) 1225 316013

Fax 44 (0) 1225 445836

E-mail

Website www.absolutepress.co.uk

Text copyright

Rob Kirby, 2013

Photography copyright

Lara Holmes, 2013

Publisher

Jon Croft

Commissioning Editor

Meg Avent

Art Direction and Design

Matt Inwood

Project Editor

Alice Gibbs

Editor

Gillian Haslam

Photographer

Lara Holmes

Props Stylist

Katie Cecil

Food Stylists

Rob Kirby and Katie Cecil

Indexer

Ruth Ellis

Cover illustration: Matt Inwood

Interior illustrations: Matt Inwood and Rhys Kitson

The rights of Rob Kirby to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without the prior permission of Absolute Press.

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-9066-5097-1

ePub: 978-1-4729-3552-6

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square,

London WC1B 3DP

www.bloomsbury.com

Foreword by Gregg Wallace

I have been involved in the food industry for a very long time, and have been a friend and a fan of Rob Kirby for many more years than I care to mention.

Together we have experienced some joyous (and often noisy) evenings. However, these evenings have always been centred around good food. Not always fine dining, but always good food.

I know Rob to be an excellent and most professional chef and, like me, to be a strong family man.

Both Rob and I agree on the importance and the enormous pleasure of sharing a meal made with love with our families. Smiles, conversation and happy bellies around the kitchen table are some of the finer things in life things that have absolutely nothing to do with money and everything to do with time well spent.

I love this book. It goes straight to the heart of family togetherness. It is written by a man who, of course, understands food, but also understands the pressures of both time and money that come with looking after a family.

This book is packed not just with great recipes but with brilliant ideas, sound concepts and clever ways of making your money go a little further. We cant all be amazing cooks like Rob, but this book lets us have a go.

A great book, with recipes that really work, written by someone with a passion for food and family. I am very proud to call Rob a friend.

Meet the Family!

Introduction

What a lovely book to write and to follow on from my first book, Cook with Kids, where I wanted to encourage families to get in the kitchen and spend quality time together.

I feel so strongly about the importance of food and how it helps to build a strong foundation for families in todays modern, fast-paced world. It is about getting the kids off their computers, i-Pads, phones and PlayStations and spending time as a family unit, whether it is cooking together or eating together. In 2012 Cook with Kids won a coveted World Gourmand award for Best Fund Raising, Charity and Community Cookbook in Europe and it sits in the Independent newspapers list of top ten childrens cookbooks. All of this inspired me to write The Family Kitchen I looked into our second-time-around jigsaw family and observed how our modern family works together.

Having worked as a chef for over 30 years, the kitchen has taught me the benefits of structure and discipline, as well as providing some truly colourful, interesting and often challenging times. I can honestly say I wake up in the mornings and still want to get amongst it! With that as a foundation, when things at home were shaken (as happens in most families from time to time), I instilled the same ethos to inspire a strong family bond. When we needed it most, there was only one room in the house that could deliver. Yes, you guessed it the kitchen! The true engine room of any family.

Our own jigsaw family consists of my gorgeous wife Amber, our children Tabitha, Jasper and Imani, plus Tabitha and Jaspers brother Kerim who often stays at Kirby Towers. Add in Marley the labradoodle and Tina the fish, and you have quite a modern rum mix of ages and characters. Weekends are truly challenging with a lovely-mad-frustrating-rewarding rollercoaster ride of emotions but we wouldnt have it any other way. Truly enriching!

This book started as a long sheet of brown paper that I called my mind map. This was stuck along the length of the wall and over the course of a year, I jotted down all my recipes and ideas, observing our modern family and how it worked, grazed and, most importantly, entertained and partied.

I hope I have encompassed the whole seven-day experience, from everyday quick breakfasts, lunches and budget teas to chilled weekend brunches, barbecues, big Saturday-night entertaining or homemade takeaways.

Theres also the Kirby Gift Shop as a family who likes to visit with something thats close to our hearts, these recipes are some of our favourite handmade and homemade edible presents.

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did when writing, trialling and testing it. I have given you 30 years of my cooking experience in the pages of this book with some real cheffy twists and turns on comfort food. The Family Kitchen is a cookbook for a real twenty-first-century family, where both parents are working hard to keep the family pieced together in a mad, modern, fast-paced world with far too many distractions. So get the whole family around the kitchen table when they are young and years later, even when they have spread their wings, they will keep returning. I cant wait

Rob x