Weekend breakfast

‘Would you like Green Eggs and Ham?’ I asked my son (semi-sweet sixteen).

‘That Dr Seuss book?

I got a jolt of joy from his response – he hadn’t forgotten. But what I actually was offering (yes, with the subtext of whether he’d get the reference) was a breakfast I’d never made before. I found it in one of Nigella’s more recent offerings: Nigella Express. Her version requires 75g pesto, an egg, 75g flour and 150ml milk whisked together, then cooked as you would a pancake. This yields about five – and the finishing touch is to wrap each round a piece of ham. Easy-peasy, quick – and to the taste of my carb-and-carne loving son.

So that recipe is set to be revisited. That’s a condensed version – Nigella has plenty more than to say. At first each intro to each and every recipe is quite endearing – you can almost hear her plummy voice – but after I’d pored over any number of recipes, I felt she banged on a bit too much. She really seemed keen to cultivate a sense that she’s really just like the rest of us – time-poor, and tired at the end of a day. Maybe. But I’m not convinced. So that could have been toned down a bit.

The images of the food are beautiful – I’d recommend this book on that count alone. Because she’s such a cult figure, I suppose the book would have been incomplete without a couple of images of her, so now and again, there she is, smiling coquettishly, head tilted at a suitably flattering angle. Don’t get me wrong: I do like her – I like a cook who clearly likes her food.

Of the recipes I’ve tried, some are great, but some don’t match the promise of the pics. All told, I’d recommend you join the other million-plus who’ve bought a copy: food done fast is a good concept.