What Dad Cooked is a collection of our dad’s recipes, thoughts, tips and cooking hacks that simply need to be shared with all you foodies!

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Seasonal Favourites

Some delicious seasonal summer family recipes to choose from the What Dad Cooked repertoire.

Vingnole Pasta

‘Seriously tasty this (originally) ‘Italian peasant dish’ is a proper winter warmer, or a spring/summer dish made with fresh seasonal vegetables…’

Chilli Rellenos (Small Pepper)

Smaller version of chilli rellenos – fried small peppers stuffed with cheese.

Asparagus Vignarola Pappardelle

This recipe uses a vignarola recipe but combines with pasta. A very good combination…

Really Easy Mexican Meatballs

This is part of a series of really easy dishes – this one takes as long as the rice does to cook. It’s perfect for a quick supper after work or lunch or tea with the kids.

Latest recipes

Check out Dad's latest homecooked dishes and recipes below. Or click recipes in the menu to browse through 6+ years of Dad's homecooking recipes for families.

Cassoulet de Toulouse à la Pappa

A perfect winter warmer – Cassoulet!

The Laughing Cow Lightest Loaded Quesadilla

Try Dad’s loaded low-fat salsa quesadillas with The Laughing Cow Lightest x8 cheese.

Melanzane Parmigiana with Dolmio 7 Vegetables Sun Ripened Tomato & Basil Pasta Sauce

An excellent way to turn a popular Italian slow food standard into an easy and quicker family classic.

Pumpkin Pie

My best pumpkin pie yet!

Asaparagus

A seasonal favourite ingredient of Dad's, so much so he made a 30 recipe series about the green spears! Try these recipes whilst asparagus can still be found locally.

Asparagus and Morecambe Bay Potted Shrimp

Asparagus and shellfish have an affinity with one another – prawns and crab are known as being particularly good partners…

Dad’s Japanese style Asparagus Tempura Soba

This is a classic Japanese way with soba and tempura. Strickly speaking the asparagus tempura is kaki-age, made like a tempura fritter rather than individual spears coated in tempura. But such academic details seem trivial when it comes to tempura – any tempura is amazing – especially asparagus!

Asparagus Vignarola

This is an Italian stew made from spring vegetables including artichokes, broad beans, peas.

Asparagus, Plaice and Maltaise Mousse Canapes

This is a spin on Escoffier’s white asparagus with sauce maltaise. The two are often served as an accompaniment for a white fish such as turbot. Here the fish is plaice rolled around asparagus and a maltaise mousse and served as a canapé.

Dad's Food Journal

Dad loves to write about food. Whether it's discovering a new road local to London or Surrey, where the treasures of foodie stores and independent shops delight—or Dad's macro observations in the world of food. Dad's articles (and foodie stories to his recipes) are a funny and knowledgable journey through the lense of how pops views the world.

How to Cook Like Claude Bosi

Saturday Morning Kitchen is a great start to the weekend for any aspiring home cook. I’m often inspired by the show and adapt many of it’s recipes.

How Many People will a Salmon Feed?

It’s a Friday and Darren Poulter, the fishmonger is plying his wares: ‘Lovely wild sea bass today, beautiful Cornish mackerel, line caught cod….’

To Confit or Not to Confit

How can we say we’re ‘worth our salt’ unless we’ve submitted to the mysteries and heartaches of the confit and lived to tell the tale?

Who Remembers a Time Before Houmous?

When I was at school, the only way to eat houmous was either by going to Greece on holiday, or visiting a Greek restaurant…



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