FAMILY MATTERS by Jude Dobson | Auckland Home | Renting and Buying in Auckland

I see The Food Show's coming to town next weekend. Considering I seem to recycle the same few dinner menus every week, perhaps I should go along to get some inspiration.

One of our kitchen drawers is stuffed with recipe books, plus we've a shelf filled with the prettier ones on display, but they just collect dust, really.

Every so often, though, the bloke pulls one out and says he'll try something. He spends a veritable age musing over pages and eventually finds something he likes the look of... last time it was a particular soup in The Encyclopaedia of Cooking.

I'm not complaining. It's a rare occasion when he cooks these days so I'm happy with a kitchen-free evening any time.

The recipe books I do use are the small, dog-eared ones, like the muffin one. You can tell the favourite page due to the splashes of melted butter on it... (banana and choc chip for the record). Then, of course, there's the good old Edmonds. I think I have about three incarnations of that one. The oldest one is all in ounces, which makes it a little difficult, and another dropped the lemon pudding recipe, so black mark for that version.

Then I've got the "file" of clippings. It started as a book with recipes I liked the look of that I glued in. When that was full I started an A4 clear sheet and put the odd recipe in there. Now it's chocka and I need to have a filing session, which, of course, I will never get around to. Instead, I keep the well-used ones like the Sunday morning waffle recipe and the chicken and spinach pie at the top and the others all languish behind them.

Most things I make don't need a recipe as they're in my head. Someone asked me the other day how to make a white sauce and I couldn't give exact amounts, much to the recipient's frustration. My instructions were: make a roux (see recipe) with a bit of butter and some flour, add salt and pepper then milk until it thickens. I rarely use measuring spoons or measuring cups. Although, having said that, I have learned to do so for the waffle iron as anything over half a cup and it's a bugger of a clean-up job.

I wish some new recipes for family dinners would just jump into my head to save me ratting through the cook-books I can't be bothered opening.

The "new" dinners I make are usually something I've had at a friend's house then got the recipe from the cook. It means I usually have the ingredients in the pantry and most of the family will eat it. The thing about the lovely, flashy, gorgy cookbooks that decorate the shelf is that when I open them I don't have half the stuff needed to put it together. That is unless it's the New Year when I've been given one of those fantastic Christmas hampers busting with exotic products, some of which I confess stay in the pantry until the following Christmas when I guiltily move them on to the bin.

I should just cull the recipe books and keep the half dozen or so I really do use, although, what will happen is that I'll look through them and keep them because I'll see things I should make!

In the meantime, those winter casseroles, pastas with various sauces, roast chickens, lamb shanks, lasagnes and risottos will keep landing on the dining table until a bolt of culinary lightning strikes me. Although the recipe idea from the production editor for salmon chunks in cream over pasta, with freshly ground black pepper, is getting a try-out tomorrow night... thanks for that one.

White sauce

2 Tbsps butter
2 Tbsps flour
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup milk

Make a roux by melting butter in a saucepan, then adding flour, salt and pepper. When the mixture froths, add milk gradually, stirring constantly. Keep stirring on a medium heat until it thickens, then cook for 3 minutes longer - stirring.

This is the basis for many other sauces, notably cheese sauce. For this, use a little more milk and your favourite cheese, grated. The amount is entirely your choice.