That’s how the rhythm of family life and cooking is — often you need to be quick, other days you have a bit more time to enjoy the process of cooking (at the weekends usually! Season with pepper: you shouldn’t need salt as the halloumi will be quite salty enough, but check at this point by frying a little of the mixture. There are over 100 recipes for British seasonal dishes, ranging from classics like Steak and Ale Pie to to newer favourites like Pumpkin Pearl Barley Risotto and Vegetable Tagine.

Then when you get back from work, you've just got to bang that in a hot oven - the longest thing to do is preheat the oven. Transfer to a plate lined with kitchen towel to soak up excess fat while you fry the remaining fish cakes. We've got a tiny kitchen but a great big kitchen table, because I think it's important that Grace should be sitting there doing her spellings, or Dot will be colouring in while I'm cooking - it's just day-to-day a real normalcy around food. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. The book is divided into timescale sections: quick lunches and suppers that take around 10 minutes, 20 minute reliable recipes, savvy family stalwarts that take 40 minutes at most and unhurried and imaginative recipes that take between 45 minutes and an hour.Now based in Bristol, Thomson was born in Zimbabwe and travelled "extensively" with her New Zealander husband, before they settled in the UK to raise their daughters Grace, 10, Ivy, seven and four-year-old Dot.

Remove the biscuits from the oven, brush with the beaten egg white and sprinkle with the remaining sugar, then bake for a further two to three minutes. The chapters are divided into different time frames with recipes that take just a few minutes to more slow and relaxed cooking sessions. And then you chop a quick salad and make tzatziki, which the children can help with, it's just mint and yogurt. It’s fab share with you an easy peasy recipe from the National Trust Family Cookbook by Claire Thomson. Arrange the shapes on the baking sheet, leaving a space between each biscuit, and place in the fridge for a further 10 minutes.

I don't serve plain pasta and my kids would think it was weird," says Claire Thomson, family food ambassador for the National Trust, chef and mum-of-three.