Wise words for weightwatchers

Book: Slimming World, Food Optimising, Ebury Press, £14.99

Chef's CV: No chef credited. Instead, the sleeve profiles Slimming World, the slimming club founded in 1969 by managing director margaret Miles-Bramwell. Club manages thousands of classes nationwide, has more than 250,000 members attending each month, with 10,000 to 30,000 joining each week.

Road tester's CV: I have attended the Wednesday evening class in Knaresborough under the ever understanding, eternally jovial Sharon Bartram, not always adhering to the eating plans but certainly advocating them. Claire Barnham, director of communications at Slimming World, would have it that this book is a response to "concern at the widespread mis-reporting of our eating plans by journalists who tried to work out how it works - and got it completely wrong. We had to explain it and we've broken a 30-year silence to do so." That might suggest a covert operation to rival the Freemasons, but I haven't had to hide the Green Day, Original Day books from other members of the Hutchinson household!

Presentation: The book carries textbook sense of authority and practicality, introducing the concept of food optimising, offering words of advice and encouragement for sustaining weight loss, and then puts policy into practice with smartly laid-out recipes and daily eating plans, plenty accompanied by colour photographs and cook's notes. Food optimising, as opposed to food combining, does allow cross-fertilisation between carbohydrates and proteins, albeit on a meticulously calculated basis.

Ingredients: Aiming to "open the door to a British company that has remained an enigma - till now", the book explains the weight loss system involving daily eating plans, divided into Green Days (carbohydrate based) and Original Days (protein based) with a "Sin" allowance (enabling you to incorporate a limited number of foods and drinks with a sin value, such as chocolate, cream sauces, biscuits and wine). Healthy nutrition is imparted in 120 recipes and daily menus designed to help you lose weight steadily and "feel great". Recipes are filed into standard lines of Starters; Main Courses (Meat, Fish, Vegetarian); Vegetables and Salads and Desserts, concluded by guide to "sin values".

Recipe chosen: Main Course, Vegetarian selection, Macaroni Cheese Stuffed Peppers

Ready, steady cook: Fuss-free, uncomplicated preparation, with no rushing from instruction to instruction. Keep an eye on pepper skins to check they are not browning up. Turn up heat once Parmesan is applied to ensure macaroni remains hot.

Taste test: Never tried quark skimmed milk soft cheese before; won't be trying it again in a hurry. Chilli powder does add much-needed fire, but quark is like a dull November day and the spring onions struggle to make their presence felt. Peppers and macaroni are substantial, however.

Verdict: Poor choice of dish by the road tester, but there are diverse flavours in colourful, nutritional and filling yet slimming dishes - and the eating plans DO work.

HHH

RECIPE

Macaroni Cheese Stuffed Peppers

Use any peppers, but the red and yellow varieties are particularly sweet. For a milder flavour replace chilli powder with ground paprika.

Serves 4

Preparation time: approximately 15 minutes

cooking time: approximately 35 minutes

Ingredients

4 large red peppers

salt and freshly ground black pepper

17g/6oz dry macaroni

1 garlic clove

4 spring onions

170g/6oz quark skimmed milk soft cheese

4 tbsp very low-fat natural fromage frais

1 tsp mild chilli powder

2 level tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 tbsp freshly chopped chives

Method

1 Preheat the grill to a medium/hot setting. Halve and de-seed the peppers, leaving the stalks intact. Arrange side by side in the grill pan and cook for seven to eight minutes on each side until tender and lightly charred.

2 Meanwhile, bring a saucepan of lightly-salted water to the boil and cook the macaroni as directed on the packet - around ten minutes. Drain well and return to the saucepan.

3 Peel and crush the garlic. Trim and finely chop the white and green parts of the spring onions. Mix both into the quark and fromage frais. Add the chilli powder and season well.

4 When the macaroni is drained, toss the quark mixture into the pasta and mix well. Pile into each pepper half and press down lightly to fill them properly.

5 Return the peppers to the grill pan and sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese. Place under the grill for a further three to four minutes until golden and hot. Serve sprinkled with chopped chives.