To make the Toum, blitz

6 garlic cloves

2 egg whites

2 tablespoons lemon juice in a food processor.

While it’s running, slowly drizzle in 1½ cups of vegetable oil until it thickens into a fluffy white cloud. Season with salt. It’s bold, punchy, and keeps for a few days in the

fridge.

Chicken Pita

Mix 3 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 tablespoons tomato paste, 1 tablespoon ground coriander and 3 tablespoons oil with a spoonful of toum (or not – if you're allergic to garlic/alliums).

Slice 500g of boneless chicken thighs in half lengthwise, salt them, and marinate for a few hours or overnight!

When you’re ready, skewer the chicken – folding the pieces onto themselves – and grill over

medium heat for 10–12 minutes until beautifully charred.

Serve on warm pita with pickles and, if you dare, a very generous smear of toum.

And if you’ve got leftover toum? It’s brilliant slathered on roast veggies, stirred into yoghurt for a quick dip, dolloped onto fried eggs, or used in place of mayo in pretty much anything.

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Yumi's son is the main budding chef in the brood, and he's obsessed with this book by Reece Hignell. It means Yumi and Manbaby have tried MANY recipes from the book, including this one for a giant Devil's Food Chocolate Cake.

CAKE BOI'S DEVIL'S FOOD CAKE - aka Chocolate Lover's Heaven!

Pre-heat the oven to 160C fan-forced.

Grease and line 2 20cm cake tins.

Sift 480g flour, 700g caster sugar, 170g cocoa powder, 4tsp baking soda, 1tsp baking powder and 1tbs salt. (Yep, I said 1 teaspoon but it's actually a whole TABLESPOON.) Reece's recipe also has 1tsp ground nutmeg to add in at this point although we left this out cos = fussy kids.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add 480g milk, 1 cup vegetable oil, 2tsp vanilla and 4 eggs. Mix on medium speed for 1 minute.

Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Fully combine before repeating with the remaining 2/3.

Add in 480ml boiling water then mix for 1 minute.

Divide the mixture evenly (I use scales) between the 2 cake tins then bake for 50 - 55 mins.

Check with a skewer that the cake is cooked - a few moist crumbs is good, wet batter is not.

Allow the cooked cake to cool on a wire rack.

My kids don't like icing so we stop here!

ICING:

Finely chop 400g of 54% cocoa chocolate. Place in a stand mixing bowl.

Heat 600ml thickened cream in a small saucepan until it reaches a simmer. Add in 50g butter, then pour the lot over the chopped chocolate.

Allow it to sit for 1 minute, then mix it until smooth and glossy. Add 1tsp vanilla and a pinch of salt. Stir well, then refrigerate for 1 hour to set.

Run the icing in the electric mixer to get fluffy and awesome. Spread over the two cakes. Reece suggests horizontally halving the cakes to make 4 layers.

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Sometimes a dinner is SO BAD that it just has to go straight to compost.

Sorry, inner-tightass, but it's true.

Simon shares a recent take-away food experience that would get a less-busy man writing angry Yelp reviews!! LOL.

Yumi shocks Simon by revealing just how much of a tough-nut she can be when it comes to fish and chips (his reaction is worth the price of admission)...

And Simon has a good handful of tips for how to turn some "meh" homemade dinners into something - maybe not brilliant? - but something DECENT and EDIBLE.

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