Cooking With The Family

One Sunday, I had one of the best home cooked Sunday lunches, which changed my outlook on cooking at home forever.

These monster Yorkshire puddings towered over this delicious looking roast beef dinner, “WOW!’ honestly I’d never seen puds like it. After devouring it and a second large portion I started to think, if home cooking can be that good surely learning to cook from scratch with no experience at all was worth it.

I spoke to my friend and she gave me the recipe, but most importantly she said it’s the heat that gives the rise. I’d knew a hot oven was needed but she said ‘you need to preheat it and get it so the fat is smoking’

Make Sure The Oven Is HOT!

I made my first batch in a pretty cool oven too it was a great big gas burning range I can’t remember the brand maybe ‘Stoves’ or ‘Rangemaster’ either way I had made towering Yorkshire puddings and I was pretty chuffed as the closest I’d ever come to it before was out of the packet ones you reheat.

Over the last 10 years (I’m now 33) I have loved to cook and even more so for other people. Most times I am too full to even eat as I am tasting all the way and for me it’s just seeing peoples response when they take the first bite.

You Can Never Have Too Many Chefs In The Kitchen

I used to get a bit flustered with others around me in the kitchen, it became a bit of a running joke amongst family and friends, until the first time my daughter was old enough to help me in the kitchen.

Yorkshire Puddings – even better when it’s a team effort

Yes! Of course it was going to be yorkies for our first kitchen play together. My little girl was sifting the flour, mixing the batter, whisking (with a little help from daddy.) It was bliss. Then the moment came to get them out of the oven. WOW! These were the biggest Yorkshire’s I’d ever made and it was down to my 2 and a half-year-old.

Now the only problem we have experienced in the kitchen was limited worktop space and poor positioning of appliances.

So our old kitchen was in when we moved in to the new house 2 years ago, and it was on its last legs. The oven wasn’t very big and only part of it worked. But the most frustrating thing was the lack of worktop space and cupboard space even though it is quite a large room.

My wife and I started to shop around for kitchen ideas; we looked at most of the big brands as well as local companies too. After endless weekends of browsing kitchen showrooms in Edinburgh we settled on one company that really stood out EKCO (Edinburgh Kitchen Co) their showroom is impressive and their knowledge was way beyond any other company we have visited plus they seemed to genuinely care about our needs and budget.

High gloss was something my wife and I had both agreed on before hand so that was half the battle.

Our design brief was functional, minimalist (handless cupboard and drawers) and a worktop that could handle my brute force with a knife.

This Is What We Ended Up With

Now my daughter and I can cook and make mess all day, well just as long as the wife is out.