🥘  1 large pan  🍽 Serves 6  🛒 5 ingredients  ⏱ 15 minutes + chill overnight €8

Ingredients:

• Frozen berries 1kg
• Seedless raspberry jam
• 7 slices of bread, crusts removed
• Fresh berries of your choice to serve
• single cream

Step by step:

1. Defrost the berries and combine with 5-6 tbsp of jam in the large pan. simmer for 2 minutes until nice and juicy. Strain the fruit over a large jug. Set aside 150ml of the juice for serving and you should have about 200ml left for making the pudding.
2. Use 5 bread slices to line a 1.2L basin. Fill the basin with 950g of the fruit and the 200ml of juice. Cover with 2 bread slices, trimmed to fit and a sheet of baking parchment. Weigh it down with a snug fitting side plate or saucer and a couple of cans. Chill overnight.
3. Turn the pudding out onto a serving plate and then brush with some of the reserved juice to fill any patches. Decorate with the remaining berries and serve with cream and the remaining juice.
4. We used some fresh berries and a sprinkle of caster sugar to decorate. Serve with single cream or yoghurt

Brazil’s national cocktail, Caipirinha (which means little country girl in Portuguese) is made with just three ingredients, shaken and served over ice.

Ingredients:

• 1 lime cut into rough cubes and a couple of slices
• 1 tbsp golden caster sugar
• 65 ml cachaça
• A good handful of cracked ice

Step by step:

1. Put the lime cubes in a cocktail shaker (or sturdy glass tumbler) and crush them with a muddler or end of a small rolling pin. Extract as much lime juice as you can, then add and dissolve the sugar.
2. Add the cachaça and a little ice. Give it a stir and serve over ice with a slice of lime and a swizzle stick to stir.

Many years ago the old remedy for treating a fever was to hold a cloth moistened with alcohol to your forehead whilst sucking a lime. One day, a man who found the taste too bitter added a spoonful of sugar and hey presto the caipirinha was born. It also goes to prove the saying – a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down

Cachaça (pronounced ka-sha-sa) is the national alcoholic drink of Brazil. Like rum, it is a sugar cane spirit. However cachaça is distilled from fermented sugar cane juice rather than from the molasses. Originally a poor man’s drink and given the slang name pinga from the Portuguese pingar, meaning to drip referring to the distillation process.

It is a clear strong spirit with a grassy flavour and recently the production of mature cachaça aged in wooden barrels has become popular. This gives a rounded more mellow flavour with notes of cinnamon, vanilla and dried fruits and makes an ideal alternative after dinner drink such as brandy or whiskey.

Nothing beats a stir fry for a quick, crunchy, colourful and healthy meal. Get the kids involved and they’ll be eating loads of vegetables and learning how to cook in no time.

Whilst you will obviously have to supervise the chopping and cooking of ingredients. There are many opportunities for children to learn about flavours of sauces and herbs and how long different vegetables take to cook.

🥘  2  🍽 Serves 4  🛒 up to 16 ingredients  ⏱ 20 minutes €6 V

Ingredients:

• 200g thin rice noodles
• 1 red onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 thumb sized piece of ginger
• 1/2 bunch of coriander
• 100g broccoli
• 1/2 red or yellow pepper
• 100g sugar snap peas
• 1 lime, sliced into 2 halves
• 1/2 fresh red chilli
• 2 tbsp sesame seeds
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 100g baby spinach
• 2 tbsp reduced salt soy sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil

Step by step:

1. Cook the noodles to the packet instructions, then drain them in cold water to stop them overcooking.
2. Peel and finely slice the onion and garlic. Peel the ginger and chop it into matchsticks.
3. Pick the coriander leaves and set them aside, then finely chop the stalks. Carefully cut the broccoli into little florets and thinly slice the stalks. 
4. Scoop the seeds and white pith out of the pepper, then slice into strips.
5. Carefully cut the baby corn and sugar snap peas into 3 cm pieces at an angle.
6. Hold the chilli by the stalk and run a teaspoon down the cut side to remove the seeds and white pith. Remember to wash your hands thoroughly after this stage.
7. Place the wok or a large frying pan over a medium heat, add the sesame seeds and toast until golden. Set them aside in a small bowl.
8. Put the pan back on a high heat, add the vegetable oil, red onion, garlic, ginger and coriander stalks and fry for 2 minutes or until lightly golden. Stir the vegetables regularly 
9. Add the broccoli pepper and mixed vegetables and fry for another 2 minutes.
10. Add the noodles and spinach, squeeze over the juice of half a lime and add a tablespoon of soy sauce.
11. When the spinach has wilted, stir it well into remaining ingredients. Use tongs to to divide the stir fry into serving bowls, then drizzle over the sesame oil, remaining tablespoon of soy sauce and a good squeeze of lime juice.
12. Sprinkle over the sliced chilli, coriander leaves and toasted sesame seeds.

Use this recipe as a guide and use any vegetables you have to hand. If you don’t have sugar snap peas, mangetout is fine. If you don’t have red onions, spring onions are great. The whole idea of stir frying is to use what you have, or like and have fun cooking.

Knobbly fresh ginger can be easily peeled with a teaspoon. Hold the ginger in the palm of your hand and scrape the skin towards you.

Getting kids used to the taste of garlic early is a good idea. The vitamins B6 and C aid a healthy immune system. Stir fry is also a great way to introduce the children to using chopsticks.

Buy the best wok you can afford. Le Creuset is one of the best premium brands but Salter make a very good wok for less than €50.

Quick and easy, packed full of vitamins, chicken soup is an ideal way to get your five a day.

Cold remedy…

Chicken soup is known to help cure the common cold. As the chicken cooks in the soup, an amino acid called cysteine is released. Cysteine thins mucus in the lungs, aiding decongestion and faster healing.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• 2 cooked chicken legs or thighs, torn into strips.
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 leek, chopped
• 1 large potato, chopped
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 2 handfuls of peas
• 1 tbs flour
• 1 chicken stock cube
• a good handful of chopped parsley

Step by step:

1. Place two glugs of olive oil in a saucepan and add all the chopped vegetables. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the flour and cook for another minute.
2. Add the stock cube to 1 litre of hot water to make the stock. Pour it into the vegetables and cook for 30 minutes until nice and tender.
3. Add the peas and chicken and cook for another 10 minutes.
4. Add the chopped parsley and serve

Per serving: 339 kcals, fat 13g, saturates 3g, carbs 18g, sugars 11g, fibre 6g, protein 39g, salt 2g

Yoghurt and garlic dressing (optional)…

Mix Greek yoghurt with garlic and lemon juice and a good grind of black. Stir a small swirl into the soup just before serving.