Healthy pizza

Making your own pizza allows you to not only choose your favourite toppings or experiment with new flavours, but it also puts a healthy spin on fast food...plus it's fun to do! Pizza parties are perfect for when you have people over as well, because the cooking process becomes social and fussy eaters can pick and mix.
(You should know that, for the dough to rise, we find it best to leave it in a warm environment for around 1 hour before baking. However, the actual cooking time is only 15 minutes.)

-Makes 1 pizza
Ingredients:
Dough:
200g wholewheat flour
tsp dried yeast
130ml warm water
1tbs olive oil
pinch of salt

Tomato sauce:
200g passata (or chopped tomatos)
1 red onion
1 tbs oregano
1ts rosemerry 
salt
pepper

Toppings: mix and match, leave some out, add your own...
4 mushrooms
1 red pepper
cherry tomatos
sweetcorn
spinach leaves
handful black olives
1 clove garlic
pesto sauce
1 can tuna
1 chicken breast
pepperoni mozarella cheese
cheddar cheese
feta cheese

 - We make our pizzas with a wholewheat base, but feel free to make a white version should you wish. BBC Good Food has some great recipes for both, and inspiration for different toppings: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/search.do?keywords=pizza

Instructions: 
1) Mix together the flour, yeast, salt in a large bowl. Add the water and continue to mix, until a soft dough forms.
2) Lightly flour a surface (you can use plain flour here) and knead for 10 minutes.
3) Place back into the mixing bowl, cover with a damp teatowel, and leave to rise for 1 hour.
4) In good time, preheat the oven to 220°c.
5) To make the tomato sauce, fry the onion in a pan, then add to a bowl. Pour in the passata or chopped tomatos, herbs, salt and pepper to taste. Mix well and place to the side. 
6) Once risen, place back onto the floured surface and roll out into either a circle or a rectangle, and place on a lightly greased baking tray.
7) Pour over the tomato sauce (or pesto sauce, if you like.)
8) Sprinkle your toppings on evenly, adding the cheese last. Around 5 different toppings is perfect.
9) Bake in the centre of the oven for 15 minutes (or less, depending on how crispy you like it).

Pop tarts!

 

These are delicious, fun and, although they can't be toasted, can be warmed up in the oven or microwave :)

Here are the ingredients to make around 12 pop tarts, 6 being strawberry flavour and the other 6 being sugar and cinnamon. If you would prefer to make a batch of all strawberry or all cinnamon, simply ignor the ingredients for one filling and double your chosen one. 

Ingredients
Pastry:
250g plain flour
2tbs caster sugar
1 ts salt
220g butter
2 eggs (1 for brushing over the pastry)
2tbs milk

Jam Filling:
100g strawberry jam
1ts cornstarch
1ts water

Cinnamon filling: 
80g brown granulated sugar
1ts cinnamon
1 egg (for brushing over the pastry)
4ts plain flour

Topping:
Icing sugar
Water
Sprinkles


Instructions:

1) Preheat the oven to 170°c. Mix the flour, sugar and salt together in a bowl.
2) Work in the butter with your fingers, until the mixture stays together when you squeeze it.
3) Add 1 egg and the milk and mix together well.
4) Divide the dough into 4 roughly equal parts (to make the tops and bottoms of both flavours).
5) Flour a work surface and roll out each section, and cut into rectangles about 3 x 5" in size and just under 0.5cm thick.
6) Beat the remaining egg in a bowl and brush over one side of half of the dough rectangles (12) - this helps the pop tart sides to stick together. 
7) Place 1 tbs (or more if needed) of filling (either jam, cinnamon, or both) onto the centre of the non egg-brushed rectangles. (Keep around 1/2 an inch uncovered around the edges, so that the fillings don't leak out the sides too much.)
8) Place an egg-brushed rectangle on top of each rectangle with filling on, and squeaze the edges together. Use a fork to press in around the perimetre.
9) Prick each pop tart with a fork several times. Place on a baking sheet and bake for around 30 minutes at 170°c.

10) Once done, rmove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.

11) Once relatively cool, mix up some icing and spoon onto the strawberry pop tarts (around 2ts per tart), add some sprinkles, and hey presto!
12) They can be eaten straight away (be aware of hot jam) or else eaten either cool or re-heated later on.

Spinach and leek pancakes (with marinated white fish)

Ingredients:
Pancakes:

200g spinach
1 leek
1 white onion
fresh parsley
3 eggs
salt
ground pepper
1/2 cup plain flour

-The fish shown here was marinated over night in a spice mix that we bought from Marrakech, along with some lemon juice and olive oil.

Instructions: 

1) Finely chop the spinach, leek, onion and fresh herbs.
2) Place in a bowl and add the eggs, salt and pepper, to taste. Stir well.
3) Mould the mix into small pancakes, dusting them in a floured plate.
4) Place on a greased baking tray and cook for 20 minutes (checking periodically)
5) Sprinkle salt on top and serve with tomato salsa or mayonnaise, to dip.

Nutty cereal bars

Ingredients:
200g porridge oats
100g dried cranberries and raisons (and other dried fruit if you wish) 
300g mixed nuts (I used hazelnuts, walnuts and cashews) 
3tbs honey
90g butter
100g sugar (I used a mix of granulated and soft brown) 


- Feel free to be creative: you can add sunflower or sesame seeds, or how about dried orange? 


Instructions: 
1) Turn the oven to 150°c. Grease a baking tray and add the porridge oats and mixed nuts. Bake for around 10 minutes.
2) Meanwhile, mix the butter, honey and sugar together in a bowl. Add the dried fruit. Once done, add the porridge oats and mixed nuts. Stir until everything is covered. 
3) Bake for 20 minutes at 150°c until the nuts on top have browned slightly and the edges are beginning to harden.
4) Leave in the baking tray for up to 2 hours, until it has set. Remove and cut into fingers! 

Chicken and basil tikka masala

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 chicken fillets

1 tin chopped tomatoes 

2 handfuls fresh basil

couple of squirts of tomato puree

1 onion, sliced

olive oil

200ml natural yoghurt

1/2 red pepper

2 spring onions

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 tbs ground cumin

1 ts ground chili

1 tbs ground paprika

1 tbs ground coriander 

and the secret ingredient: 3 ts Worcestershire sauce! 

2 Naan breads, to dip in 

Instructions

1) Bake the chicken in the oven with a little olive oil and a sprinkling of ground pepper for around 15 minutes, until it is cooked through. Once done, chop into smaller chunks. 

2) Heat 1 tbs olive oil in a wok. Add the onion and sautee until soft. 

3) Add the cumin, chili, paprika, coriander, crushed garlic, spring onions.

4) Toss in the chicken and stir well, covering the chunks. 

5) Add the natural yoghurt, chopped tomatoes, chopped fresh basil and a few squirts of tomato puree. 

5) Simmer for around 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

6) Finally, add several drops of Worcestershire sauce, to taste. Stir well. 

7) Serve in bowls with warm Naan :)

Salmon and mussels in a white wine sauce, with stuffed risotto peppers

Serves 2 

Ingredients

2 salmon fillets
1 cup de-shelled mussels
1/2 leek
1 white onion
dried parsley
salt
pepper
olive oil
1 lemon
1 cup white wine
1 red pepper
1 cup risotto rice
2 vegetable stock cubes
handful of mushrooms, chopped small
1 red onion
handful of salted crisps
tomato puree
handful of broccoli
1 cup fresh parsley 

Instructions

1) Heat olive oil in pan. Add risotto rice and 2 vegetable stock cubes. Add boiling water. Simmer until risotto is soft.

2) Continue to add flavour to the risotto rice...onion, mushrooms, broccoli, salt, pepper, fresh basil, few squirts of tomato puree, grated mature cheddar.

3) Meanwhile...bake the salmon in olive oil and dried parsley, until it flakes easily.

4) Heat 2tbs butter in a frying pan. Add 1 white onion and half a leek, and sautee until sweating. Add 2 cloves minced garlic, parsley, ground black pepper and 1 cup white wine. 

5) Toss in 1 cup de-shelled mussels and continue to heat until cooked.

6) Once the mussels are hot through, add the salmon and stir well.

7) Bake 1 red pepper under the grill for around 5 minutes. Remove and halve.

8) Take the risotto off the heat and add to each pepper half.

9) Crush a handful of salted crisps, add a dash of lemon juice and some ground black pepper. Sprinkle over the stuffed pepper halves. Return to the grill for a further couple of minutes, until the crisps on top are toasted.

10) Ladle out the seafood and serve altogether, with a sliced lemon :)