I think that after the epidemic is over, personal trainers and dieticians will have their hands full. Most of us (I hope) are staying at home, looking after the kids and baking, cooking and keeping the peace. My children treat this time off school as a winter break, and they choose to eat dumplings, pancakes, pikelets and cakes, so all the things that I don't have time for during a typical weekday and which I prepare on weekends and holidays. As parents we also eat these treats with our kids. Today I said 'enough' and I prepared a vegetable snack – courgette in cheesy batter. I served it with a yogurt-garlic sauce. I didn't eat much, because it appears to be my children's favourite snack. Next time I will make it when my kids are at school, and I will eat it all by myself 

Ingredients:
2 small courgettes
100g of breadcrumbs
50g of grated parmesan
1 teaspoon of thyme
1 teaspoon of sweet paprika
salt and pepper
oil for frying
3-4 tablespoons of flour
2 eggs
sauce:
200g of natural yoghurt
2 tablespoons of cottage cheese
1 clove of garlic
3 tablespoons of chopped chives
salt and pepper

I'm almost sure that everyone has at least once bought too much bread. Later we eat it without any pleasure, because we don't want to throw it away. We can turn rolls into breadcrumbs, but what about bread? If we have to buy a large amount of bread, we can freeze some of it and later take it out as and when needed. But if we have a little bread left over, we can make croutons and add them to soup or to salad.

Today I want to share with you a recipe for a light salad with croutons. I used ciabattas, which I often buy because we all like this type of breadstuff. We can also add some mozzarella cheese, feta cheese, bacon or Parma ham. This time I added cooked chickpeas.

Ingredients (for 2 people)
croutons
1 ciabatta
olive oil
thyme
salt
salad
2 tomatoes
a fistful of green olives
a fistful of black olives
a fistful of capers
half a red onion
basil leaves
3 tablespoons of olive oil
salt and pepper