Home cooking

As reported on TV this morning, there's a trend away from buying ready-made meals and towards preparing meals at home to save money. Excellent! This is one of the upsides of a recession - people become more resourceful and push back the boundaries of habit.

In recent years chefs cooking on television has attracted huge audiences and, not surprisingly, as we Brits seem to have an obsession with food. Whilst watching celebrity chefs concocting some exotic and exquisite dish can be inspiring, unfortunately it can have a negative affect on our confidence to cook at home - we don't have the skills, ingredients, panache and well, confidence, to try something that exciting to present to our families just in case it is beyond our capability and they don't like it. TV chefs tend to use copious amounts of oil, butter and cream - not exactly helpful when we are trying to lose weight.

But cooking at home doesn't need to be complicated and we don't have to use any ingredients that could be classed as remotely exotic or difficult to find in our local supermarket. Anyone who has made recipes from my magazine or my low-fat cookbooks will testify to that. I work with a chef, Dean Simpole-Clarke, who is happy to work to those parameters, designing recipes that are uncomplicated, low in fat and delicious as well as easily do-able. Check out our website for details of the books available and if you are a complete novice, try my Step-by-Step Low Fat Cookbook which will teach you how to cook.

I am going to cook a chicken stir-fry here in Portugal tonight for Mike and our friends who are staying with us. I will cut the chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces and dry fry them in our non-stick wok without any oil or fat. When the chicken is almost cooked I will add chopped red and green peppers, crushed garlic, chopped celery, red onion, sliced mushrooms and when almost cooked I will add some grated fresh ginger and fresh coriander. I will add a ready-made stir-fry sauce I have in our store-cupboard and then I'll serve it on a bed of boiled basmati rice. It is Mike's favourite dinner and I love cooking it because it is so easy. My only tips for this dish is to make sure the chicken is thoroughly cooked and the vegetables are not over cooked and soggy. They need to be crisp.