Weekend Food: Darina Allen responds to a reader's request for some simple recipes

A FEW weeks ago I got a letter from a regular reader from County Kerry — a busy ‘working’ mum, who tells me that she loves many of my simple recipes but complained that of late, the recipes were a bit ‘cheffy’ and not for the average working family with ravenously hungry teenagers returning home from college: “They want plenty of delicious, home-cooked meals, not tiny exotic dishes.”

By coincidence, the week before the recipes were from the Guild of Irish Food Writers Awards so were indeed ‘cheffy’ and time-consuming. Vera gave me a nice ‘long wish list’ of suggestions — a healthy brown loaf, a nice sauce casserole, a few one-pot dishes, a large, easy chocolate cake, a few tray bakes and tasty ways to cook Irish grown vegetables.