The Secret Ingredient: Family Cookbook
Bestselling author, home cook, heart-attack survivor and busy mum of three Sally Bee turns her attention to family cooking.Sally Bee’s fourth book.At the time of writing this book, Sally is hurtling towards an anniversary that she has mixed feelings about. At the age of 36 Sally had three heart attacks in a week. This summer it will be nine years since Sally died. And nine years since she came back to life.Sally is a living miracle and it is her diet that keeps her fighting and strong. She knows better than anyone how to incorporate healthy eating into your daily life. In her bestselling debut The Secret Ingredient she shared clean and healthy versions of the classic dishes we all love. Now she shows you how to create affordable and simple healthy recipes all the family will adore.Sally believes the best way to keep your family healthy is to serve everyone the same food – food that tastes good, looks good and does you good. Whether it’s a super quick midweek Bolognese packed full of goodness or tasty Thai prawn skewers, an easy guilt-free chicken pie, delicious oatmeal cookies or a healthy take on your favourite takeaway classics.Sally knows better than anyone, when you’re feeding the family day in, day out, you want simplicity, speed and lots of great taste and health benefits. In this beautiful new family cookbook, she offers over 100 new recipes that deliver a healthy lifestyle and a happy home life.Alongside the recipes, there are tips on how to get your children involved, and lots of straightforward advice of how to change your eating habits. Sally’s plans are realistic and easy-to-follow, offering everything you need for a balanced approach to your family’s health.
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I want to dedicate this book to my darling husband Dogan, who I love more than ever and I’ve always loved him a lot. And to my children and my Dad, we are a little family but everyone’s got a big heart. I also owe a lot to some of my most precious friends. Heather, who always keeps me grounded and comes with me to cooking shows and TV studios and is constantly telling people that SHE was the one who passed Home Economics at school – not me! Thanks for that Heather – I can always rely on you to big me up – not! To Anna, who is forever placed firmly in my heart and who helps me to look at the world with a different perspective even if I don’t want to. To gorgeous Mermaid Mel, the strongest, toughest most feminine heroine on the planet. I also dedicate this book to my great new friend Chrisp and his wonderful family. It doesn’t matter how long or short a time you have known a person, there are angels that walk this planet and Chrisp you are one of them.
Contents
Sally’s Saturday night fakeaway
List of Recipes
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Publisher
I love mealtimes in my house. We live in a very modest little home and the kitchen is most definitely the heart of it. We have just built a new island in the middle of the kitchen and we are all like bees to a honey pot around it. There is always some music on somewhere, someone usually playing guitar, my daughter and her friends singing, dancing and talking non-stop! Lots of laughter, too much giggling and silliness, homework, spilt milk on the homework, heated debates, wrestling between boys, dogs eating the cat food and cats eating the dog food. Shouting, laughing, loving, crying – it all happens in my lovely little family kitchen. The thing that always surprises me is how quiet, all of a sudden, everything becomes when a meal lands on the table. Silence. Just while everyone takes the first bite, and then the hubble bubble starts again and we talk over each other, at each other, for each other. It’s chaos, but it’s our chaos and we all appreciate just how lucky we are.
For those of you who may not be aware, let me take you on a quick guided tour of my story so far.
At the time of writing this book, I’m hurtling towards an anniversary that I have mixed feelings about. I’m not sure if I should be celebrating with champagne and a cake or be in hiding in a darkened room. This summer it will be nine years since I died – and nine years since I came back to life. I was 36 years old when my life took this dramatic turn. One moment everything was just as it should be, taking care of my three babies, being supermum, whizzing from toddler groups to mums’ groups. The next minute my whole life got turned upside down, never to be the same again.
This nine-year anniversary is particularly pertinent to me because I remember so well lying in my hospital bed, in shock, in pain, no breath, hooked up to wires and bleeping monitors. I whispered to one of the cardiologists at the time to ask if I was going to survive. He looked down at his shoes and shook his head. They had performed an emergency procedure the night before and had seen the damage my heart had sustained during my three long and painful heart attacks. They had called my husband into the operating theatre to say his goodbyes to me. After a couple of weeks recovering in hospital I remember having a heart-to-heart with one of the doctors. I needed to know how long I would live. I needed to make arrangements and plans and make sure my babies were going to be OK.
It was clear that they were surprised that I’d survived the attacks. They were amazed I had survived the night. It was a miracle that I had survived two weeks. I asked about the next ten years… pushing my luck, I knew, but determined to face everything head on. The doctor smiled to me and said, ‘Sally, if you can survive 10 years after all this, you can survive forever!’
At 36, I wasn’t your typical heart patient, and while recovering I remember looking around the coronary care ward and feeling out of place. A nurse came to talk to me about life after a heart attack and gave me leaflets about what I could and couldn’t do. These leaflets bore no resemblance to my life at home whatsoever. Washing up my cup and saucer was fine, they said, I could also smooth down my bedspread to make my bed and should try to resume sexual relations – no more stressful than watching a TV comedy, apparently! But this was advice for heart patients in their 70s, 80s and 90s. Smoothing down the bedspread? How would I manage just this when I had three children at home wanting to have ride on the super-king-sized flying-carpet-quilt whenever I made the bed?
It was a valuable lesson for me, medicine often sees patient as a cut out, with everyone put on the same plan as the person before them. I realised that if I had any chance of regaining my normal life then I would have to rewrite the leaflets to make them apply to me.
