SPEEDY PITTA PIZZAS

These pitta pizzas are so quick and easy to put together, making them perfect for an after-school dinner or a weekend family lunch. If you're particularly hungry, you could cook some oven chips to serve with them or add some vegetable sticks or salad on the side.

You can use whatever toppings you like - well, any that are child-approved anyway! I've given a recipe for a simple vegetarian topping here, but have included suggestions for alternative ingredients below. My girls' favourite topping is sweetcorn and pepperoni.

My kids love to help to make these and I usually set out the prepared toppings in little bowls so they can choose whichever they want (any leftovers can be tossed into a salad). This is a good activity to do when your child has a friend over and you're not sure what toppings the visiting child likes, plus it seems to be something the kids enjoy doing and it produces a fairly minimal amount of mess.

Speedy Pitta Pizzas

Makes 2

2 white or wholemeal pittas
2 tbsp frozen sweetcorn
1 tbsp chopped red onion
¼ green pepper, deseeded and sliced
4 button mushrooms, sliced
55g grated mozzarella and Cheddar cheese

Tomato pizza sauce
1 tbsp tomato purée
2 tbsp passata
½ tsp dried oregano

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6.

In a small bowl, mix together all the ingredients for the tomato pizza sauce.

Place the pittas on a baking sheet and top with the tomato pizza sauce, spreading it right to the edges. Arrange the sweetcorn, onion, green pepper and mushrooms on top, then cover with the grated cheese.

Transfer to the preheated oven and bake for 10-12 minutes, until the cheese is melted and slightly browned.

Our favourite toppings:

• Cooked chicken, red peppers, mushrooms and sweetcorn
• Pepperoni, green peppers, onions and black olives
• Pepperoni and sweetcorn
• Ham, pineapple and sweetcorn
• Ham, mushrooms and black olives

This is a great recipe for getting some veggies into your child. Even if they're not keen on vegetable toppings, just one tablespoon of tomato purée counts as one of their five-a-day. Add vegetable crudités on the side or perhaps some sweet potato fries and you're on to a winner!

SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE

I find it hard to believe that I've been writing this blog for over six months and I still haven't shared my recipe for spaghetti bolognese (or "spag bol", as us Brits call it). This was my favourite meal as a child growing up in the 1980s, probably because it was one of the most exotic meals on the menu. Back in those days, spaghetti bolognese night was the only time we ever ate pasta (unless you count canned spaghetti in tomato sauce), which I find rather incredible considering how much of the stuff my own children consume!

This recipe is probably as far from a classic Italian spaghetti bolognese (or ragu) as you can get but it's the only version I can contemplate making because it's the dish of my childhood. It's not my mother's recipe, but it tastes similar (from what I can remember) even though I've made some tweaks to make it more acceptable to my own children. They are not keen on "bits" so I've learnt to grate the carrots rather than dice them, and to use passata in place of canned tomatoes for a smoother sauce - and cleaner plates!

The recipe I've given below serves four adults, but the sauce is ideal for batch cooking so the ingredients can easily be doubled, or even tripled if you have a large enough saucepan. I also use the sauce as a base for lasagne (recipe to follow another time), which is a fabulous dish to serve when you have a crowd to feed.

Spaghetti Bolognese

Serves 4

2 tsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 small carrots, peeled and coarsely grated (100g prepared weight)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
500g lean steak mince (5% fat)
1 reduced-salt beef stock cube
2 tbsp tomato purée
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp dried mixed herbs (I like to use Italian seasoning)
400g passata
350g dried spaghetti
grated Parmesan cheese, to serve

Heat the oil over a low-medium heat, then add the onion and cook for 5 minutes, or until softened. Add the carrots and cook for 3 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook for a further minute.

Increase the heat and add the mince and cook, breaking it up with a wooden spoon, until browned all over. Crumble over the stock cube and stir until thoroughly combined.

Add the tomato purée, Worcestershire sauce, herbs and passata. Season to taste with pepper. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low-medium and simmer for at least 25 minutes, or until the sauce is thick and reduced.

Meanwhile, bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, then add the spaghetti and cook for 8-10 minutes, or until tender but firm to the bite. Drain and transfer to dishes along with the bolognese sauce. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

Tips

• There's no reason why you couldn't add extra vegetables to the sauce - mushrooms work especially well, but finely diced red peppers or celery, or grated courgette would also make fantastic additions.
• The bolognese sauce freezes successfully and is very useful to have to hand when you need a quick dinner. Freeze in single portions in freezerproof containers or freezer bags. Remember to label and date them - unless you enjoy playing freezer roulette!
• When I'm cooking meals that the children will eat, I only season with pepper as I figure that some of the ingredients I use (for example, the stock cube, Worcestershire sauce and Parmesan) are salty already.

MUSHROOM RISOTTO

Before I say anything about this recipe, let me just put this out there – I LOVE MUSHROOMS! Unfortunately for me, my family hates them with an equal passion. As a result, whenever I'm dining on my own I usually cook something that is so utterly mushroom-heavy that none of them would ever eat it. This recipe fits that bill. It's the dried porcini mushrooms that do it. Before I tried adding those to my risotto it just wasn't, you know, mushroomy enough, but the porcini give it that extra depth of earthy mushroom flavour. Occasionally, if I fancy a bit of variety, I add a couple of handfuls of spinach a couple of minutes before the end of the cooking and maybe crumble over a little blue cheese too.

Risotto isn't the quickest meal to make but it's not exactly difficult either. I certainly don't stir it constantly – I find a quick stir every couple of minutes perfectly adequate. And, of course, the added bonus of making risotto for dinner is that it gives you an excuse to open a bottle of wine – and enjoy a glass while the risotto is cooking!

Mushroom risotto

Serves 1
10g dried porcini mushrooms
1 tsp olive oil
10g butter
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
150g chestnut mushrooms, sliced
80g risotto rice (I use Arborio)
½ tsp dried thyme
75ml dry white wine
225ml boiling vegetable stock (I use Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon)
30g Parmesan cheese (or vegetarian alternative), grated

Place the porcini mushrooms in a cup and pour over boiling water to cover. Set aside to soak for at least 10 minutes.

Heat the oil and half the butter over a low heat in a medium-sized saucepan. Add the shallots and cook for 5 minutes, or until softened. Add the garlic and cook for a further minute. Increase the heat slightly, add the chestnut mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the rice and thyme.

Pour in the wine and simmer until the liquid has been absorbed. Add the stock a little at a time, stirring frequently, allowing each addition to be absorbed before adding the next. This process will take a good 20–25 minutes.

Drain the porcini mushrooms, reserving the soaking liquid, and slice. Add the porcini to the pan along with the reserved soaking liquid. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the liquid has been absorbed and the grains of rice are tender.

Remove the pan from the heat, add the Parmesan cheese and the remaining butter, and stir until melted. Enjoy!