Add the rice, stirring for two to three minutes to coat the grains in the melted butter mixture and warm them through before you add any liquid. As a mother and a chef, Claire gives real insight into what makes food appealing to all the family and how to shop, cook and eat as a family so that meal times are something for all the family to look forward to. To serve, add the fish cakes to the rolls with a leaf or two of lettuce, some mayonnaise, salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon. Squashed-fly cherry spelt biscuits

It's really important to get them to help you, otherwise the food lands in front of them and they're expected to eat it," Claire adds. The National Trust Family Cookbook is Claire’s new book and it’s full of beautiful and delicious family dishes with easy to follow recipes. They’re all family friendly and there are over 100 ideas for breakfasts, lunches at home, lunchboxes and evening meals plus desserts and bakes.

Claire Thomson wants to revitalise cooking for the family making it less of a chore, with separate meals for children and adults, and more of an enjoyable way to refresh your culinary imagination and make cooking for the family something to look forward to. A lifesaver if you're in a recipe rut when it comes to family meals' - BBC Good Food magazine, March 2017 I am determined that when my children leave home, we will have spend more hours together eating, talking, and laughing around the kitchen table than on my sofa. I also hope that they will all cook well. In their cooking, I’d like them to be generous with vegetables, able to cook thrifty, wholesome ingredients with a punch and panache, and be confident in using a variety of spices and herbs… and what I would like the most is for them to have a relationship with food that is completely and utterly normal!”

That's fine, but I don't let her do it every day, and I don't let her say she doesn't like vegetables because I'm a chef and I make them taste nice! I think fussy eaters are a problem, but you just carry on and eventually, they turn a corner and start eating." 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. Bake the biscuits in the oven for about eight minutes until they are just beginning to turn golden. 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." In the new book, Claire's recipes are categorised by how long they take to cook, with sections for on-the-go breakfasts and lunch box alternative They should set the table or pour the water. There's a community to being in a family; I don't want to be running a restaurant for my children until they're 18 and leave home!" Claire Thomson in the kitchen with one of her daughters

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They're excited by the food in front of them, the kitchen is the axis of my home life and I want them to feel that food is a really normal thing, that it's not fetishised or not given enough credence. Well-illustrated, practical cookbook, a must for any busy young parent' - Sunday Express, March 2017

Claire Thomson wants to revitalise cooking for the family – making it less of a chore, with separate meals for children and adults, and more of an enjoyable way to refresh your culinary imagination and make cooking for the family something to look forward to. Melt two-thirds of the butter in a large wide pan over a medium heat. Add the bacon if using, the onion and leek and cook for about eight to 10 minutes until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and cook for one more minute. Over 100 delicious recipes perfect for a busy family life. Make family meals fun again with this approachable guide to adventurous cooking. I’m really pleased that the book has so many vegetarian recipes too as I’m vegetarian and my family eats mainly vegetarian food. There are lots of yummy sounding recipes in here for me to try out. The photography is beautiful too and I love that there’s a mix of food photography and photos of the actual family cooking and kids enjoying the finished result. The only thing I would change is to include photos of all the dishes as that is something that I look for in a cookbook. Other than that, it’s pretty perfect!Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the creamed butter mix, add the cherries and stir through. Mix thoroughly to combine. Cover with cling film and place in the fridge for half an hour to firm up. And she's not a total stranger to fussy eaters, admitting that "Dot's not a saint - there are some days she just wants to eat boiled eggs for breakfast, lunch and dinner". Now based in Bristol, Claire 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. We want to get them excited through a Trojan horse of entertainment, so they don't feel they're being preached to." Her travels have shaped her love of food and the dishes she serves up at home, as well as when she cooks in schools.