Roasted pepper soup - Recommended Recipe!

Roasted Pepper Soup - serves 4, takes 15 mins to make, 40 mins to cook.

Ingredients
2 red peppers
2 red onions
8 vine tomatoes, halved
3 cloves garlic, unpeeled
2 tbsp olive oil
500-700ml vegetable stock, depending on how thick you like your soup to be!
Handful fresh basil leaves, torn

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/fan 180C/Gas 6.  Cut the peppers in half, scoop out the seeds and cut the flesh into small chunks.  Peel the onions, halve and cut into similarly sized pieces to the peppers.  Put the onions, peppers, tomatoes and garlic into a roasting dish.  Drizzle with oil and roast for 35 minutes or until all the vegetables are cooked.
2. Squeeze the garlic out of it's skin.  Put the vegetables and garlic into a food processor and add the stock.  Puree until smooth.  Pour into a saucepan and heat for 5 minutes or until warmed through.  Divide between 4 bowls and scatter fresh basil leaves over.

Per serving: 135 calories, 7.5g fat, 1.1g saturated fat, 12.1g sugars, 1.0g salt.

Source - The Co-Operative Membership Magazine.   

Be Food Smart - Change4Life

Change4Life is a government initiative that helps families and individuals to eat healthier and keep fit.  Their latest leaflet publication helps us to “Be Food Smart”.

We all like food to be cheap, easy and tasty and so often reach for the ready-made foods, snacks and take-aways, but it’s often cheaper (not to mention tastier!) to make your own!

The five principles of the Change4Life Be Food Smart campaign are:

1. 5 a day – aim for a variety of 5 portions of fruit and vegetables per day.  Remember, they don’t all have to be fresh.  Frozen, juiced, dried or canned – they all count.
2. Sugar swaps – swap sugary drinks for no added sugar drinks like water or skimmed/1% fat milk.  Switch sweet snacks for fruit or unsalted popcorn.  And why not replace your sugary puddings with plain low-fat yoghurts and fruit?
3. Watch the salt – most us don’t realise that there’s hidden salt in every day products that don’t even taste salty – bread, cereals, pizza and some sauces.  So, go easy with ketchup, mayo and soy sauce and skip adding salt next time you tuck into a meal. 
4. Cut back on fat – we all know that too much fat is bad for us but often we don’t realise that fat is hidden in many of the foods we eat.  It’s easy to be food smart about fat; choose lower fat spreads, lower fat dairy products and leaner cuts of meat to make a good start! 
5.  Be calorie smart – calories are a clue to what you should be eating each day and area really handy for planning how much to eat and when.  Try to aim for 400 calories for breakfast, 600 for lunch and 600 for your evening meal.  That leaves a few calories for any healthy snacks.  And remember, we don’t all need to eat the same amounts.  Women don’t need as many calories as men and kids need even less – so get into the habit of “me-sized” meals!

Here’s the link to the Meal Mixer app from the Change4Life website.  So when you are stuck for inspiration, because it happens to everyone(!) - have a browse through their recipes and your creatuve cokoing juices will be flowing once again!

And lastly, there are many ways to be food smart all day.

Being food smart at breakfast means you’ll be less tempted to reach for a mid-morning snack:

• Pick cereals with no added sugar – you  can always sweeten it up with a bit of chopped fruit. 
•  Swap white toast for wholegrain toast to release energy throughout the morning to keep you on the go.

Perk up a packed lunch with these tips:

• It’s fun to dunk – cucumber, pepper and carrot sticks are delicious with a low fat dip. 
•  Low fat yoghurts always go down well – they’re a good source of calcium too.

For a quick and simple snack after school:

• Swap crisps for plain rice cakes dunked in low fat cream cheese. 
•  For a sweet tooth, forget the cakes and biscuits – fresh fruit is great for munching on the go.

For more meal ideas and food smart tips, search online for Change4Life.

Mushroom Burgers - Recommended Recipe!

Mushroom Burgers - serves 4, preparation 5 minutes, cooking 5 minutes

Ingredients
4 portobello mushrooms or flat mushrooms
10g butter
2 tsp olive oil
30g Gruyere cheese or Cheddar, grated
A little fresh watercress
4 wholemeal rolls, lightly toasted
Relish of your choice (chilli relish or sweet chilli dipping sauce are the best)

Method

1. Preheat the grill to high.  Put the mushrooms on a baking tray.  Dot each one with a little butter and a tiny drizzle of olive oil, sprinkle over the grated cheese and grill for 5 minutes until cooked.
2. Scatter the watercress over the bottom halves of the bread rolls and top with the grilled mushrooms.  Dollop a little chilli or other relish of your choice on top.  Cover with the top halves of the rolls.

Per serving - 250 kcal, 9.3g fat, 3.9g saturated fat, 4.9g sugar, 1.0 salt.

Source - The Co-operative instore magazine.

Easiest Tea Bread Recipe - Ever!

Here's the recipe for yesterday's Silent Sunday photograph...

Tea Bread - serves 6-8, depending on how thick you like your slices!

1 mug of cold tea (no milk)
225g mixed dried fruit - sultanas, raisins, currants, mixed peel - any combination of!
225g self raising flour
125g caster sugar
1 large egg, beaten
2 tbsp orange maramalade

1. Place the fruit in a small bowl and pour the tea over the top.  Soak overnight or until the fruit swells (I soaked the fruit for about 4 hours and that was OK).
2. Grease a 675g loaf tin and preheat the oven to Gas 4.
3. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a bowl; then pour in the fruit and any left over tea.  Stir thoroughly.
4. Pour into the loaf tin and bake for about 1 hour and 10 mins... check after 1 hour and then every 5 minutes until the top is nicely browned and a skewer when inserted comes out clean.
5. Allow to cool slightly before removing from the tin.
6. Job done!

This is really easy to make and the preparation is quick too - so long as you have planned ahead with the "fruit-soaking"!  It also keeps really well and is actually better after about 2 days of storage so don't eat it all really quickly (or double up and bake 2 loaves).  You can see from the photo that it's quite a moist cake as it's full of fruit.

You can serve it sliced on it's own or with butter... after about 1 week (if it lasts that long!) it also makes great bread and butter pudding.

As a variation to the recipe, I also use different teas.  The recipe calls for normal English tea, but I have used fruit teas, Earl Grey, Assam teas, etc... just to give a slight twist to the flavour!

It's enjoyed by all in my family and a good cake to have in "stock" for unexpected visitors.  It's low in fat and a great way to get some fruit into your little one's tums!

The recipe is adapted from a Nigella Lawson recipe - have a look at the other great recipes on her site here.