Bonfire night

Make sure your bonfire night party goes off with a bang by giving your guests a dazzling array of healthy food. You can keep the food warm in the oven or re-heat it when the fireworks are over or the bonfire is blazing.

Food for fireworks

If you're having the traditional bonfire favourites of bangers and burgers, it's easy to make them a healthier option.

When you're choosing which sausages or burgers to buy, check the labels so you can pick those that are lower in fat and salt. To help reduce the amount of fat you're eating, try grilling or barbecuing instead of frying.

Try serving hot dogs or burgers in a wholemeal or granary roll. If you're serving onions, stir-fry them in a small amount of oil. Serve with tomato salsa or sweetcorn relish instead of ketchup. As a change from burgers, you could try filling warmed pitta bread with a mixture of stir-fried chicken and vegetables.

Baked potatoes are a healthy option and mash can be too. If you fancy some mash, instead of using butter or margarine add a little hot milk when you mash the potatoes. If you want to make it a bit different and bump up your portions of veg at the same time, you could stir in cooked puréed carrot, swede or spinach.

Or try using sweet potatoes instead of ordinary potatoes for your mash. They are a great bonfire colour and taste wonderful too. Sweet potatoes contain more vitamin E than any other low-fat food, they provide lots of beta-carotene (which is turned into vitamin A in the body) and vitamin C, as well as some copper, iron, potassium and vitamin B6.

To make sweet potato mash, peel, boil and mash the sweet potatoes with a little milk and a touch of ground cinnamon. You can also serve them baked in their jackets or as spicy sweet potato wedges. See the recipe for sweet potato wedges below.

Sweetcorn is another fun and healthy food for firework night. It's a rich source of the minerals magnesium, potassium and phosphorus. It also provides good amounts of dietary fibre. Serve boiled or roast corn-on-the-cob with a spicy tomato salsa.

Another way of bumping up your portions of veg is to have some mushy peas. If you're buying these tinned, check the labels for those lower in salt and sugar. You could serve them with a mint sauce.

Soup
A cup or bowl of steaming hot soup is a perfect way to help your guests keep out the winter chills. Home-made soup is quick and easy to make and if you use a low-salt stock it will contain much less salt than most shop-bought soups.

Curried parsnip soup, spicy tomato or a hearty lentil soup are all good choices. See the recipe for pea soup below.

Or you could buy cartons of fresh soup or cans of chunky vegetable soup, but remember to check the label so you can choose lower-salt varieties.

Serve with warm crusty bread. Try granary or wholemeal baguettes for a healthy choice.

Now for something a little bit different

If you're waiting until after the fireworks to eat, and you have a bit of time for preparation, you could serve something more elaborate.

A dish of roasted root vegetables would be a tasty treat and is a great way to help your guests eat plenty of fruit and veg portions. You could try squash, swede and celeriac, along with the old favourites such as parsnips and carrots.

Chop the veg into even-sized chunks and place in a roasting tin with some whole cloves of garlic (there's no need to peel these), drizzle with a little olive or rapeseed oil, then stir in a small amount of honey and wholegrain mustard. Roast in a hot oven until tender. You could serve them with chicken kebabs or grilled salmon fillet.

Chilli con carne makes a healthy filling for jacket potatoes or you could serve it on top of some nutty brown rice. For a healthy choice, remember to use extra-lean minced beef and if you use tinned red kidney beans, choose those without added salt or sugar. (If you use dried kidney beans, check our advice on cooking pulses.) Add a handful of frozen peas or sweetcorn to increase the vegetable content.

For vegetarian guests, or as a tasty alternative for meat-eaters, you could serve spicy bean burgers with ratatouille, or a vegetable curry or chilli.

Drinks to add a sparkle
A warm spicy fruit punch would go down a treat.

You can make this by mixing equal quantities of apple and cranberry juice. Add some slices of orange and lemon and a cinnamon stick, then heat the mixture gently.

Put it into a vacuum flask to keep it warm.

Bonfire recipes

Try out some of these tasty recipes this Bonfire Night.

Spicy sweet potato wedges with tzatziki
Serves 4

3 large sweet potatoes, scrubbed
3 tbsp olive oil
3tbsp fajita seasoning mix

For the tzatziki:
½ large cucumber
200 ml reduced-fat Greek yoghurt

1. Preheat oven to 220°C/450°F/gas mark 8. Slice each sweet potato in half lengthways. Then cut each half into three to make fat wedges.
2. Mix the oil and fajita seasoning in a small bowl. Brush the mixture over the wedges.
3. Put the wedges in a non-stick roasting tin and bake for 15-20 minutes or until crisp and browned.
4. To make the tzatziki, slice the cucumber in half lengthways and remove the seeds using a teaspoon. Dice the remaining cucumber and mix with the yoghurt. Cover and set aside until needed.

Vegetable and chickpea tagine
Serves 4

1 tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed or finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tbsp harissa
125g dried apricots, roughly chopped
2 large carrots, peeled and thickly sliced
1 red pepper, cored, deseeded and roughly chopped
400ml hot low-sodium vegetable stock
410g can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
225g cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
2 tbsp fresh coriander, roughly chopped
Cooked couscous, to serve

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the onion and cook for about 5 minutes, until it begins to soften. Add the garlic, cumin and harissa and cook for another minute.
2. Add the apricots and all the vegetables to the pan and stir. Pour over the stock and bring to the boil. Season to taste, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Add the chickpeas and cherry tomatoes and cook for a further 10 minutes, or until the vegetables are just tender.
4. Stir in the coriander and serve with couscous.


Pea soup
Serves 4

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 large potato, peeled and chopped into small cubes
450g frozen peas
1 litre low-sodium vegetable or chicken stock
Freshly ground black pepper
4 tbsp reduced-fat Greek yogurt
Fresh chives to garnish, chopped roughly

1. Place the oil in a large saucepan and heat gently.
2. Add the onion and cook for about 5 minutes, until it begins to soften. Add the potato and continue cooking for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add the peas, stock and seasoning. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked.
4. Allow to cool slightly, then transfer to a food processor and blend until smooth. Return the soup to the pan and heat until steaming hot.
5. Just before serving, stir 1 tbsp of the Greek yoghurt into each bowl of soup and garnish with the fresh chives.

Finish with a bang

And for dessert you could serve a warm fruity pudding such as an apple and blackberry crumble. Add a generous handful of porridge oats to the crumble topping to increase the fibre content and serve with custard made with skimmed or semi-skimmed milk.

Baked bananas are sure to be a hit with all age groups, especially if you serve them with a little chocolate sauce or a scoop of ice cream.

Wrap the bananas (leaving their skin on) in tin foil and cook them in the dying embers of the bonfire.

Baked apples make a fun and healthier alternative to toffee apples. Core the apples and fill them with raisins. Then sprinkle on some brown sugar and wrap them in foil. You can also cook these in the last of the bonfire or in the oven.

For something a little more unusual, try warm dried fruit compote with a spoonful of creamy Greek yoghurt. To make the compote, put a mixture of dried fruit (you could use dried apples, prunes, apricots, figs and pears) in a large heatproof bowl.

Pour over equal quantities of orange juice and boiling water. Cover and leave overnight. Before serving, put the mixture into a small saucepan and heat gently, adding a little more juice if necessary.

Keeping food safe

Whether you're cooking inside or outdoors, it's important to remember the basic rules of food hygiene:

• Always wash your hands thoroughly before preparing food and again after touching raw meat and other foods. If you're cooking and eating outside, to save you running in and out of the house to wash your hands, take a bowl of warm water, some soap, and a hand towel or some antibacterial hand wipes into the garden.


• Keep raw and cooked foods apart. Use separate utensils for raw and cooked foods and throw away any leftover marinades if they have been used with raw meat.
• Make sure you cook burgers and sausages until the juices run clear and there is no pink or red left in them
• If you're using frozen food, make sure it's properly defrosted before you start cooking.