Makes and Bakes

Split Pea & Ham Soup Recipe with only 3 Weightwatchers ProPoints

Split pea and ham soup

  Filling and hearty split pea and ham soup In the winter time I’m always looking for a new soup recipe. There’s just something about a hot bowl of soup when you come in from the cold that makes me feel whole again – does that make sense? We have based this healthy and filling soup recipe on Delia Smith’s London Particular, giving it the ProPoints treatment to ensure it complies with WeightWatchers standards whilst retaining all the flavour and goodness. It doesn’t look much, but even my children love it. It has quite a high points value for a …

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10 WeightWatchers points: Mushroom & smoked haddock gratin

This recipe is calculated using WeightWatchers ProPoints. 10 This hearty and satisfying main course is full of flavour and doesn’t feel like diet food! Even me and the Bug will eat it! Serve with some green veg such as broccoli spears. Serves 4 You will need: 800g waxy potatoes, sliced 250g smoked haddock 20g dried mushrooms low calorie cooking spray 2 large flat mushrooms, chopped 2 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced 1 leek, sliced 120g gruyere cheese, grated 150ml skimmed milk 150g low fat creme fraiche dried thyme Preheat the oven to gas mark 5/190°C/170°C fan oven. Steam the potatoes, …

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2 WeightWatchers points: Leek & Broccoli Soup with blue cheese

This recipe is calculated using WeightWatchers ProPoints. 2 Mummy eats this stuff, and declares it rich enough in flavour to hold it’s own at a dinner party. Personally I have refused to let it pass my lips, but I am informed I will love blue cheese eventually. I can wait… 😉 Serves 4 You will need: 2 leeks 2 medium heads of broccoli low-calorie cooking spray 500ml vegetable stock 80g gorgonzola cheese Chop the leeks and add to a large saucepan with the cooking spray. Fry on a low heat until softened. Add the stock and broccoli florets, then cover …

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7 WeightWatchers Points: Easy Chickpea Balti

This recipe is calculated using WeightWatchers ProPoints. 7 We get an organic vegetable box every week. Over the winter the selection is fairly unvaried, meaning that we get a lot of chard. It goes very well in an omelette with cheese, but let’s face it, you can’t eat an omelette every day, and we WeightWatchers miss our curries. So here is a really simple vegetarian Balti, complete with protein, serving 3 people adequately, or 2 hearty appetites for 11 points: You will need: Low cal cooking spray 1 onion, diced 2 cloves of garlic, minced One head of chard (or …

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12 Weightwatchers points: Sweet and spicy vegetable noodle stir-fry

This is yummy, cheap, and can be made with any vegetables you have hanging around. It serves 2 adults and contains 12 Weightwatchers points per person: You will need: 2 tbsps sesame oil 1 tbsp lime juice 1 tbsp soy sauce 1 tbsp honey 2 cloves garlic, crushed 2-inch piece of ginger, grated Few dried chilli flakes Green leafy vegetable, such as spring greens, cabbage or pak choi, shredded 1 carrot, cut into strips about 2 inches long 1 small courgette, cut like the carrot 100g dried noodles, cooked and drained Whisk together 1 tbsp sesame oil with the lime …

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Cakes for book-lovers

Alien's love underpants cake

Have you ever heard of an Edible Book Festival? No, neither had we, but when Zoe, at Playing by the book announced she was hosting one on her blog, we headed straight over. Up for grabs was an original drawing by Emma Chichester Clark, of Blue Kangaroo fame, and all we had to do was make an edible representation of a favourite book. Well, we didn’t have to be asked twice, and immediately set about baking a cake representation of the Sword in the Stone, having recently enjoyed King Arthur and the Mighty Contest from the Crazy Camelot series by …

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How to tie dye with natural colours

Tie dye done with natural colours

Our school is twinned with a school in the African town of Kano. Often during learning we talk about Kano, and the things that children learn there. Sometimes we look at photos of life there and the things which are typical of people in the town. Our teacher is quite spontaneous and loves to craft (once she filled an entire table with school glue and got us all to throw glitter at it to see if we could make a clear collage!) so when we got talking about photos we had of the people in Kano sitting around pits in …

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Listography: Mummy’s Top 5 Cookbooks

Listography this week at Kate Takes 5 is Top 5 Cookbooks, and Mummy couldn’t resist. Here are the cookbooks in our house: We have lots. But funnily enough there are actually only 5 that she really uses. Good Housekeeping: it holds all the classic recipes from Sherry Trifle to Boeuf Bourgignon, from a Victoria Sponge to jointing and roasting a turkey. And the best ever orange and almond cake, containing a whole, boiled, puréed orange. It sounds odd, but it is lush! Full of rich casseroles, stodgy puds, and cosy soups – the best of which is Roasted Pumpkin with …

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Apple Gingerbread Muffins Recipe

Daddy is a fan of baking on a Sunday morning, and he has been perfecting  his muffins for a few weeks now. For Mother’s Day he proposed a mesh of all his previous efforts, with the addition of some ginger, and came up with this, his best attempt yet at apple and gingerbread muffins. If you are more of a cupcake fan all you need do is whizz up some butter icing, flavour with lemon, and pop some diced crystallised ginger in there – YUM! You will need: 75g butter, melted 100g dark muscovado sugar 25g caster sugar 2 eggs …

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Inspired! By Edible Books!

Once again I am taking part in the gorgeous Dear Beautiful Boy’s Inspired linky, but this time I am on a mission to create me a cake that could win me an original drawing by Emma Chichester Clark, the illustrator behind one of our favourite books, Blue Kangaroo. All I need is to get inspired to create an edible book! Hmmmm. “What,” you may ask, “is an edible book?” “Quite literally that!” would be my answer! The Edible Book Festival is being held  on the lovely blog Playing By the Book, where we are invited to join in by creating …

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Things to do with kids in cold weather – making icicles!

When the snow is fresh on the ground it is the best feeling in the world. Kids whizzing down powdery slopes, squealing in delight, not noticing the cold. Chucking snowballs and building snowmen, until we are breathless and rosy-cheeked with cold and laughter. Then home for hot chocolate and an argument about who got the most marshmallows. But when it gets colder, and snow turns to dirty ice, it is no longer fun. So as the weather looks set to get colder again, here is something you might want to do with the kids this weekend – Icicles! You will …

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Easy Chocolate Biscuit Cake Recipe Kids Can Make Themselves

"chocolate biscuit cake"

To be eaten under controlled circumstances only. The best chocolate biscuit recipe in the world, ever. According to me 😉   ♥ (With Marshmallows, Cherries, Nuts, Broken Meringues, Glitter, Exploding Candy, and anything else you can think of!) ♥ ** Update! This recipe has started something of a craze! Take a look at the Facebook post and comments on it. Feel free to add your own suggestions – we’re always looking for ridiculous delicious additions to try out! We adapted this recipe from one we found in Sainsbury’s magazine. I say, adapted; what I really mean is doctored, embellished, played …

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A Boxing Day Tradition: Gingerbread House (and Mini Cooper!)

Boxing Day is traditionally when the Actually Mummy household break into our gingerbread house. Lovingly crafted sometime during December, it takes pride of place on Mummy’s counter, suffering mini-burglaries, and minor structural damage until Boxing Day, when we are officially allowed to demolish it, and demolish it we do! Our gingerbread recipe comes from BBC Good Food, complete with template. It makes perfect gingerbread: firm enough to cope with the house structure and onslaught of decorating by young children; not so hard it breaks your teeth when you try to eat it! Use a template to lay on the rolled-out …

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Top tip for picky eaters – do more cooking!

I am not what you might call a picky eater, safe yes, but not picky. Fish fingers, pizza, sausage, tick. I do vegetables and fruit to the extent that Mummy feels reassured that her healthy cooking has not gone to waste, and I may even be coerced into trying something like beetroot – so long as it comes in the form of a ‘red-velvet’ cupcake (read ‘chocolate with a faint whiff of beetroot’). Apart from that I am about as predictable as a 6-year-old can be. Imagine my predicament when my younger brother arrives on the scene. Milk, baby-mush, the odd bit of soggy toast; …

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