TV presenter Fern Britton and celebrity chef Phil Vickery met on the set of TV series Ready Steady Cook - but even creating a meal in minutes from limited ingredients is nothing compared to cooking for four fussy children.

The husband-and-wife team, who married three years ago, have a 19-month-old daughter Winifred, while Britton has three children from her previous marriage - six-year-old Grace and nine-year-old twins Jack and Henry.

Now they've pooled their experience, both culinary and real-life, to produce their new book, Phil And Fern's Family Food, which is packed with recipes to suit everyone from toddlers to grandparents.

As might be expected, former Michelin-starred Vickery - the chef on ITV1's This Morning, which his wife presents - came up with most of the recipe ideas.

But Britton had a hand too, she reveals. "Phil grew up in a fantastic family home, where his mum and father are very good cooks, and always had good family nosh," she says.

"Then he went on and became a chef and used to forget what to buy for himself. Then we got married, so I reintroduced him to the joys of quick, simple family food," she continues.

Vickery agrees: "As a chef, you never get time to eat at home. All you seem to see is all the fantastic food you produce all the time, and after a while that becomes really tedious and boring.

"So when Fern does her chicken curry and tomatoes, or cottage pie, it's lovely."

The chicken curry recipe - which only needed a touch of mango chutney to make it perfect, says Vickery - is one of Fern's to make it into the book.

Most of the others, from asparagus and chicken lasagne to light salmon curry with lemongrass, and a host of more traditional dishes, have been created by Vickery.

His mum's Baked Alaska recipe and Mrs King's Haymaker's Lemonade - from his time working on a farm as a teenager - are two childhood favourites, while Jubby Pie, a mix of mince, mashed potatoes and pureed vegetables, is a firm favourite with his family - and a great way of hiding the greens from the kids, he says.

"A certain amount of stealth is required,"' he says of the tricks he's developed at home. "I put carrot juice in their orange juice."

Vickery's advice is to work up an appetite. "If kids are hungry enough they'll eat anything you put in front of them, so I take them out and play football, take them cycling. They're absolutely worn out and just wolf their way through everything."

Phil And Fern's Family Food by Phil Vickery and Fern Britton is published by Granada on Thursday April 3, priced £7.99