The twins lost their mum, so I taught them how to cook

LEE CRIPPS, a 40-year-old it manager from Berkshire, discovered Pinch of Nom last June. A friend suggested it as inspiration for fun and healthy meals he could make with his twin daughters, sophie and Lauren, aged nine, after their mum, Alex, died from cancer aged 40 last January. he says:

AFTER their mum died, I wanted the girls to learn to cook so we’d have something positive and enjoyable to do together each evening.

The first Pinch of Nom recipe we tried was Creamy Garlic Chicken, and it’s remained a firm favourite. At the weekend we made sausage and egg muffins out of the new book, and they went down a storm, too.

They were like a healthier, tastier version of what you’d get from McDonald’s. The girls loved making them almost as much as eating them — they sit down at the table with a real sense of pride.

Although I try to keep an eye on my weight, the girls are still growing so need plenty of calories — that’s easy to achieve simply by using full- fat versions of everything.

For example, we slosh in olive oil where the recipe says to use a low-calorie spray and use whatever cheese we have in the fridge instead of buying low-fat versions.

The girls are learning great life skills: not just mastering cooking healthily from scratch, but also how to organise themselves.

It’s reassuring for me to know that when they eventually go off to university, they won’t be relying on Pot Noodles and takeaways but will be able to cook for themselves. That’s what Alex would have wanted for them.

For us, Pinch of Nom is about having a choice of nutritious recipes for fun food using fresh ingredients that are easy to cook and within realistic time frames.

We know that whatever we choose to have for tea, if the book says we can have it on the table in 25 minutes then that really will be the case.

It’s no good if a recipe says it’ll take half an hour, but it ends up being so complicated that you’re still faffing about 90 minutes later and the kids have stormed off in frustration.

I always make sure we’ve got a decent supply of fresh food and store cupboard ingredients, and thanks to the way the cookbook works, we can usually pull something together from what we have in.

For example, last night we had minced beef and peppers in the fridge — we found a recipe for Kate and Kay’s version of Sloppy Joes, peppers stuffed with mince and topped with cheese, and it was a great success.

Other times the girls will go through the two recipe books and pick out either old favourites or new things to try. They’ll look in the cupboards and the fridge to see what we’ve already got, and then make a list of what else we need to add to the next supermarket shop.

It’s changed the way we eat for the better.