ANNABEL’S FAMILY RECIPES FOR SUCCESS

IF there’s one thing family life revolves around it’s food. “Mum, I’m hungry!” “Dad, what can I have to eat?”

Yet according to Annabel Karmel, pictured above: “The frantic nature of modern life can detract from the dinner table and our efforts to get everyone eating together.

“We all know that sitting down as a family is about more than food … it is about being in the moment with the ones you love.”

Hoping to help, Annabel has a new book, Real Food Kids Will Love (Bluebird, £16.99), which should get your offspring round the dinner table and helping to prepare it.

“OK, so inviting your pint-sized sous chefs could be a little chaotic, but the skills they will learn will be well worth the slightly raised stress levels,” she says. FRUIT FLOWER POTS You’ll need: I small watermelon ½ pineapple 150g/5oz blueberries 200g/7oz red seedless grapes Small star or flower cutters Small melon baller Cocktail sticks 6 small plastic cups 6 cake pop sticks

1. Cut the watermelon in half and cut a 2cm slice off one. Stamp out three stars or flowers. Scoop out balls of watermelon from the other half.

2. Remove skin and core of pineapple and cut two 2cm slices off. Stamp out three stars or flowers, slice remaining pineapple into cubes.

3. Break six cocktail sticks in half. Insert a cocktail stick into the middle of each flower and push a blueberry onto the stick to make the centre.

4. Insert cake pop stick to make the stems.

5. Put a cube of pineapple into the bottom of each cup. Divide the grapes, melon balls, pineapple and blueberries between them. Insert cake pop stick into the pineapple to hold it up.