SUPER GREEN SMOOTHIE

Smoothies are a super way to pack lots of nutrients into your diet. I tend to avoid taking in too many calories in drink form (unless we're talking wine) but I've been doing lots of running recently and have been enjoying the occasional smoothie as a post-workout snack.  I also find them to be a good breakfast option on mornings when I don't feel like eating anything too heavy or if I simply fancy a change from cereal.

Green smoothies have been around for some time but, to be honest, I've never really fancied trying them because they seem just too, well, healthy. Despite its vibrant green colour (no getting that past my kids!), I think this version is the perfect introduction to green smoothies as the sweetness of the banana and mango completely masks the taste of the kale, which can otherwise be quite bitter.

My girls aren't big smoothie (green or otherwise) drinkers but my 6-year-old was intrigued enough to try this - she even said "that's nice, Mummy", although she declined to have her own glass. I'm taking that as a partial success!

  

Super Green Smoothie

Serves 1

½ banana, peeled
60 g frozen mango
45 g frozen kale
225-250 ml coconut water

Put the banana, mango and kale in a blender with 225 ml of the coconut water and process until smooth. Check the consistency - it will be fairly thick, so stir in the remaining coconut milk if you prefer a runnier smoothie.

Tips

• I've used frozen mango and kale in this recipe but you can, of course, use fresh - it's just quite nice to include frozen ingredients in a smoothie because they'll make it nice and cold.
• Frozen fruit and vegetables are super-convenient - let's face it, preparing a mango can be a bit of a faff, and with frozen fruit that's all done for you. Using frozen also helps me to prevent wastage because my family is not keen on greens and I'd struggle to get through a whole big bag of kale on my own. With the frozen stuff, I just take out what I need and put the rest back in the freezer for another day.
• That said, if you're using frozen fruit or vegetables in a smoothie, please be aware that not all blenders will be able to cope with rock solid ingredients. The stick blender I've been using for my smoothies is definitely on its way out! Ideally, you need to use a blender with a powerful motor that is advertised as being capable of crushing ice - this has the advantage of giving the finished smoothie a velvety-smooth finish too. Alternatively, allow the frozen ingredients to partially defrost before blending them.

CARROT CAKE OVERNIGHT OATS

I definitely find that eating a nutritious, filling breakfast sets the tone for my whole day's eating. However, with two little girls to get fed, dressed, kitted up and out the door by 8.30am, mornings in our house can be hectic and if I'm running short on time I often find myself skipping breakfast.

That's why I'm loving overnight oats right now. When I get up in the morning, all I have to do is grab the bowl from the fridge, take a spoon out the drawer and dig right in! Sure, they take a bit of pre-preparation but I can honestly say that I put can them together in five minutes flat (usually while I'm cooking our evening meal) and one batch will last me two breakfasts.

Overnight oats need never become boring because it's so easy to change up the ingredients for new and exciting flavour combinations. Carrot might seem like an odd ingredient to use but, trust me, it totally works!

Carrot cake is my absolute favourite cake so these carrot-cake-inspired overnight oats were always going to be a winner for me. They marry together all the delicious flavours of the a traditional carrot cake - the sweet carrot, warming spices, juicy sultanas and hint of zesty orange - and the walnuts add a welcome crunch against the soft oats.

Carrot cake for breakfast? Yes, please!

Carrot Cake Overnight Oats

Serves 2

80g rolled oats
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground mixed spice
40g sultanas
25g walnut pieces
1 carrot, peeled and finely grated (about 80g prepared weight)
finely grated rind of 1 orange
400ml semi-skimmed milk or unsweetened almond milk
1 tbsp maple syrup

Put the oats and spices in a large bowl and mix until the spices are evenly distributed. Add the sultanas, walnuts, grated carrot and orange rind and stir well.

Divide the mixture between two bowls (or jars/leak-proof containers if you intend to transport the overnight oats). Pour half the milk into each bowl - it should just cover the ingredients. Top each with 1/2 tablespoon of maple syrup and stir gently, then cover with clingfilm or a lid and chill in the fridge overnight.

In the morning, simply give the mixture a good stir and dig in.

Tips

• I prefer to use finely grated carrot in this recipe because it softens nicely overnight; coarsely grated carrot retains more of its crunch.
• I've used cow's milk but you can, of course, use non-dairy milk. I've tried this recipe using unsweetened almond milk and it was equally delicious.

NO-BAKE WHITE CHOCOLATE & RASPBERRY CHEESECAKE

I made this cheesecake for one of our Christmas Day desserts this year (to go with the more traditional offerings of sherry trifle and Christmas pud). It proved popular with everyone so I've already decided that cheesecake will be a permanent feature of our Christmas Day menu in future. Yum!

The great thing about this recipe is that it is really easy to adapt. You don't have to use white chocolate - dark chocolate and milk chocolate work just as well - and you can also use different varieties of biscuits in the base or fruits in the topping. I chose raspberries because they're my oldest daughter's favourite fruit yet we don't have them very often, and they have the additional bonus of being a rather festive colour!

Here in the UK, this style of cheesecake with a biscuit base and cream cheese topping is probably more widely known than its baked counterpart. Not all recipes will contain chocolate in the topping but I find it a useful ingredient because it means that the topping will set without using gelatine. Besides, what recipe can't be improved by chocolate?

I haven't even mentioned the best bit yet. This recipe is so easy to make. Standing-on-your-head-with-your-hands-tied-behind-your-back easy! There's no baking involved (just a bit of gentle mixing) and it can be made in advance too. The only thing that could possibly go wrong - and I'm only mentioning this because it has happened to me - is that you could burn the chocolate when you melt it. Consider yourself warned!

No-bake White Chocolate & Raspberry Cheesecake

Serves 8-10
Biscuit base
175g digestive biscuits
75g unsalted butter, melted

Topping
225g white chocolate
150g full-fat soft cheese (I use Philadelphia)
20g caster sugar
375ml extra-thick double cream
225g fresh raspberries
white chocolate stars, to decorate (optional)

Line the base of a 20-cm round springform cake tin.

Crush the biscuits to make fine crumbs. Place in a bowl, pour in the melted butter and stir until the biscuit crumbs are thoroughly coated. Tip into the prepared tin and press down using the back of a spoon to form a base with an even thickness. Place in the fridge to chill whilst you are making the topping.

Break the chocolate into pieces and place in a heatproof bowl. Place in the microwave and heat on MEDIUM in bursts of 30 seconds, stirring in between, until melted. Set aside to cool slightly.

Put the soft cheese in a large bowl, add the sugar and mix thoroughly. Stir in the cooled melted chocolate, then gently fold in the cream. Spoon the cream cheese mixture on top of the biscuit base and smooth the surface. Return the tin to the fridge to chill for 3-4 hours, or overnight.

Run a sharp knife around the inside edge of the tin, then unclip the tin. Transfer the cheesecake to a plate and arrange the raspberries over the top. Sprinkle over the white chocolate stars to decorate, if using.

Tips

• To crush the biscuits into crumbs, I tend to put them in a strong freezer bag and bash with a rolling pin. This is a job you can easily delegate to your kids - just keep an eye on them (mine can become a little over-zealous when it comes to bashing). You can do this using a food processor if you prefer.
• Another way to melt chocolate is to set the bowl over a saucepan of  gently simmering water and stir regularly until melted. Just make sure that the base of the bowl doesn't touch the water and that none of the water gets into the chocolate.
• Whichever method you use for melting the chocolate, it's best to remove the bowl from the heat source before the chocolate is fully melted as the heat of the melted chocolate should be enough to melt any remaining solid bits of chocolate. 
• It is important to use full-fat soft cheese in this recipe because the topping won't set properly if you use a lower-fat version. It'll still taste nice though!  
• I tend to use extra-thick double cream in this recipe for ease of use - you don't have to whip it before using, thus saving a bowl's worth of washing up! You can use regular double cream instead, but you will need to whip it until it forms very soft peaks before folding it very gently into the soft cheese and chocolate mixture.

CLASSIC MINCEMEAT

Mince pies are a Christmas staple here in the UK. For anyone who's not familiar with this delicacy, they are individual sweet pies containing a mixture of dried fruits, sugar and spice called mincemeat, which despite its name doesn't contain any meat (unless you count the suet, although these days many British cooks use vegetable suet rather than the traditional beef suet). Over here, we can buy ready-made mincemeat in pretty much all supermarkets (well, at least we can around Christmas-time) but honestly it's so simple to make at home that I'm surprised that more people don't. Mincemeat can be made a good few weeks before you intend to use it; in fact, it should be made in advance to allow the flavours to mingle and mature. So apologies for my tardy posting of this recipe - it's admittedly somewhat late for Christmas 2016!

In our household, we leave out mince pies and real ale for Santa, and a carrot for Rudolph. Today, my 5-year-old insisted that we picked the biggest carrot we had so that the other reindeer could have a bite too!

If you plan to keep the mincemeat for a while before using it, it's important to sterilise the jars. I find that the easiest way to do this is to wash them in hot, soapy water, then rinse well, place on a baking tray and transfer to an oven preheated to 140°C for at least 20 minutes. Leave to cool down a little before adding the mincemeat because (1) you don't want the glass to shatter when adding the cold mincemeat to a hot jar, and (2) this will prevent the suet from melting.

I like to use a recipe for a sweetened orange-flavoured pastry that I found in Good Food magazine a few years ago when making my mince pies. I use a round fluted cutter for the bases and top with pastry stars.

Classic Mincemeat

Makes 3 x 450g-jars

150g each sultanas, raisins and currants

70g chopped mixed peel

120g peeled and grated Bramley (baking) apple

juice and grated zest of 1 large orange

juice and grated zest of 1 lemon

150g dark muscovado sugar

½ tsp ground mixed spice

½ tsp ground cinnamon

50ml brandy

70g vegetarian suet

Put all the ingredients in a large bowl and give them a good stir (yes, that's it!) Cover and leave to soak in the bowl overnight before transferring to sterilised jars. I give the jars a shake every couple of days as the liquid tends to sink to the bottom. The mincemeat should be fine to keep in a cool, dark place for a few months but store the jar in the fridge once opened.

CHOCOLATE REFRIGERATOR CAKE

Chocolate refrigerator cake (or tiffin, as we know it in our household) - what's not to like? It's dangerous for me to have this in the house because it's so tempting to nip to the fridge for an extra square (it goes SO well with a cup of tea), yet sadly it's hugely calorific. Luckily, this week I had a good excuse to make it because it was my birthday. And we all know that calories consumed on our birthdays don't count, don't we?

Before I had my kids, one of the things I looked forward to doing with them was baking. I have fond memories of baking cakes with my maternal grandmother and I have even more respect for the endless patience she showed my 5-year-old self now that I realise just how stressful baking with small children can be! My solution is to keep it simple by getting my kids to help with recipes that don't require precision or a light touch. Chocolate refrigerator cake is ridiculously simple to make - as the name suggests, it doesn't even need to be baked. The children can weigh the ingredients, crush the biscuits, cut up the fruit with scissors (obviously with assistance), stir everything together and press it into the tin. Oh, and lick the bowl!

The fact that this ended up looking festive (thanks to the white chocolate star sprinkles) was a happy coincidence but, as it happens, it would make a great Christmas gift. It keeps incredibly well and I've actually sent a slab of it through the post as a present on more than one occasion. It would look super pretty cut into small squares, then packed in a clear cellophane bag and tied with ribbon.

Tips

• If you don't have a square tin, you can use a traybake tin - just make sure that it has a similar surface area.
• To stop the golden syrup from sticking to the spoon, place the spoon in a cup of boiling water for a minute or so before using. The syrup will then slide off the spoon very easily.
• I like to include almonds in this recipe, but they're completely optional. Aside from the allergy risk, they can be a choking hazard for small children. If you choose to leave them out, just replace with an equal weight of dried fruit.
• This is an incredibly versatile recipe - you can use whatever biscuits and dried fruit you fancy, as long as you keep the overall weight the same.

Chocolate refrigerator cake

Makes 16 squares
100g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
2 tbsp golden syrup
180g dark chocolate, broken into squares (I used Cadbury's Bourneville)
200g digestive biscuits
50g glacé cherries, quartered
25g dried apricots, chopped
25g raisins
25g almonds, chopped (optional)
220g milk chocolate, broken into squares (I used Cadbury's Dairy Milk)
white chocolate star sprinkles, to decorate

Grease and line a 23-cm square cake tin.

Place the butter, golden syrup, and dark chocolate in a small saucepan over a very low heat (I use my hob's lowest setting) and melt gently, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, place the biscuits in a strong plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin. I like to leave some chunks and not completely pulverise the biscuits into crumbs.

Put the crushed biscuits, dried fruit and almonds into a large bowl and pour over the melted chocolate mixture. Stir well until everything is completely coated in chocolate. Tip into the prepared tin and, using the back of a spoon, press down to cover the base completely. Transfer to the fridge and chill for at least 10 minutes.

Melt the milk chocolate, either in the microwave or in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Pour the melted chocolate into the tin and spread it out to form a thin layer over the biscuit base. Scatter over the sprinkles.

Return the tin to the fridge and chill until set. Remove the tiffin from the tin and cut into squares using a large heavy-bladed knife.

Images and text © Louisa Smith