Cook with others to keep in touch and seduce your senses

Cooking is as much about feeding the senses as it is about refuelling before we go about our busy lives again. The feel, the colour, the aromas and the taste of the ingredients are all brought to life when we cook. But preparing food on your own can be a bit of a chore sometimes.

If you feel the passion has gone out of your cooking, why not enlist the help of your partner, start up a supper club with your girlfriends, or persuade your kids to join in, to reignite your enthusiasm and create some delicious, informal meals that you can all enjoy together.

Cooking as a couple

Food and romance do go together. And you don’t need a candlelit table in a favourite restaurant to enjoy the experience.

Cooking as a couple can be great fun and good for your love life too! It’s an opportunity to spend quality time with each other and you can chat away and open up without the added pressure of feeling you need to have a good time because you’re paying for an expensive meal. There’s something very intimate and special about cooking together and you can turn the evening into an event, rather than just another TV dinner.

Take it in turn to cook each other’s favourite meals, divide the preparation evenly and when everything is ready, turn the lights down low and enjoy!

Food for friends

Starting a supper club is a sociable way to learn more about food and keep up with your friends at the same time. You may have one friend who specialises in Asian dishes, another who has mastered the art of Pavlova. Or why not come up with half a dozen themes, write them down on pieces of paper, and draw lots to see who’s cooking what each month.

Sharing tips and handing out recipe cards printed off your computer at the end of the evening will help widen your repertoire and may inspire you to surprise your family at home!

Family Fun

Cooking with mum and dad is great fun for your kids and can help encourage them to try out new food. Introducing them to tasty dishes with an international flavour and interesting new smells, like hummus, salami and olives will hopefully make them more adventurous and help them to eat more healthily at the same time too.

Home made pizzas are an easy way to start and you can develop more adventurous toppings each time to include red onions, anchovies and artichokes. Mexican food is another great way of introducing new flavours and smells. Fajitas filled with chicken, steak or even shrimps mixed with peppers and a hint of lime are good fun for little hands and may encourage them to try out unusual flavours that they’ve helped to create.