Rachel Allen The kitchen is the heart of our home

It’s hardly a surprise to hear telly cooking favourite Rachel Allen’s description of her domestic arrangements.

“The kitchen is definitely the heart of the home,” she said.

“It’s a four-bedroom house overlooking the sea at Ballycotton Bay in County Cork,” Rachel told The Sunday Post.

“We built it ourselves and moved in eight years ago.

“My husband Isaac designed it and the kitchen is the biggest room, very bright and airy.

“The sitting room has a big wall of glass looking out onto the sea.

“But I love the kitchen it’s the room everyone gravitates towards.”

The house is on part of a 100-acre organic farm and it’s a real family home for the celebrity Irish couple and kids Josh, 13, Lucca, 11, and four-year-old Scarlett.

“Scarlett’s room is actually quite pink,” says Rachel. “We painted it that way to encourage her to sleep in it more often!

“Our boys share a room because we have an au pair, so we might build another bedroom.

“I love sitting in the kitchen writing my books and practising my recipes.”

Rachel did the planning for her new TV series in her favourite place.

“It’s called Rachel Allen’s Everyday Kitchen and is probably even more practical than any other of my series.

“The amount of food we waste is crazy. We need to get back to how our parents used to cook and use up leftovers.

“So, I’ll cook a roast chicken as a meal and then show how to use it in a delicious salad for instance. Or how to use leftover roast butternut squash in a soup.

“It’s a case of coming up with two or three recipes out of one. And the programmes are full of basic little tips, like making breadcrumbs rather than chucking away a loaf.”

When Rachel isn’t at home, it’s the shortest of commutes to “work” at her Ballymaloe Cookery School.

“The school is in a restored apple shed and is about half a mile as the crow flies from the house.

“It’s on the farm and that’s where most of the produce we use comes from.

“There are hundreds of hens and a lot of the fruit, vegetables and herbs are grown in an acre we have under glass.

“We have courses from one day to three months.”

Rachel Allen’s Everyday Kitchen is new and exclusive to Good Food, weeknights at 7pm from Thursday, October 3 (Sky HD 247, Virgin 260).