Comforting Creamy Tomato Soup (Includes Thermomix and Instant Pot instructions)

A deliciously comforting tomato soup to take you back to your childhood...

There's nothing like a bowl of tasty tomato soup to comfort you on a cold day. It floods the house with delicious smells too, as it cooks. If you want to be really indulgent, you can't beat having a toasted cheese sandwich on the side!

I made this so my daughter could enjoy it too, as she is on a gluten free, lactose free diet (you could make it dairy free too, by using appropriate 'milk', e.g. rice, oat or nut milk, or and extra 500ml of stock - although we are avoiding oats for her as well - if you do this and cut out or substitute the honey, you can make it vegan too) - but if you're not restricted in your diet, there's nothing stopping you from adding a splash of cream at the end to make it ultra-indulgent!

If you'd rather avoid potatoes, you could substitute sweet potato or squash instead (although maybe don't add any kind of additional sweetener until after you've tasted it for seasoning). As we're a family of four, I do tend to cook in large quantities so we'll enjoy this two days on the trot then freeze the rest in portions - but you don't need to make this much if you don't want to - it's very easy to just make half the quantity.

Yields: approximately 4.5 to 5 litres; 16 servings (approximately two ladlefuls for a serving) - easily halved!

Calories: 101 calories per serving.

Chocolate, Banana and Walnut Porridge with No Added Sugar

OK, so as you can see, I'm adding to the 'oats arsenal' with healthy breakfasts - I figure most people like chocolate, right?

Seeing as I've been quite inventive with oats the last few days, I decided to start keeping a record of what I've been making. Especially as it's what I consider to be pretty healthy breakfasts (especially in comparison to a lot of cereals 'out of the box' marketed at children).

Now, chocolate porridge is never going to be the most attractive-looking food, but this really does taste good! Plus, you can always try and pretty it up by scattering on a few toppings.

Serves two, 363 calories per serving - to reduce the calories, leave out the walnuts and dates, and it will go down to 244 calories per serving.

Pear and Orange Porridge with Sunflower and Poppy Seeds

Here's a little quickie which was thrown together whilst waiting for my children to get up - but it tasted so good (even with no added sugar!) that I had to write it down so that I can make it again!

Also, it's rather healthy stuff because as well as having no added refined sugar, is made from wholegrain cereal with a nutrient boost from the seeds, and if you use almond milk it's dairy free!

Sorry, no photo of the finished article as it got scoffed down before I had a chance, so here's a quick one of the ingredients - but it does look quite pretty for porridge with the little flecks of orange zest in it, and smells absolutely divine!

Serves two, 280 calories per serving using almond milk. (If you want to reduce the calories further, skip the seeds and dates and this will reduce it to 216 calories per serving). N.B. If you use 350ml semi-skimmed milk, this raises the calories to 343 per serving.