I know Pancake Day has been and gone, but whenever we have pancakes, there are always cries of “we should have these more often!”

Here’s a brilliant way of turning pancakes into a proper meal for any time, not just a pudding for Shrove Tuesday. It’s a surprising hit (especially as it’s meat-free) and turns cauliflower cheese into a more substantial, although not too carb-heavy, lunch or supper.  (If you need to upweight the carbs for a growing child, it’s great with a hunk of crusty wholemeal bread to mop up the sauce.)

Serves 4.

Ingredients:

8 pancakes (either my buckwheat pancake recipe, or ready-made such as Crepe Cuisine savoury butter crepes)

1 small cauliflower

half a head of broccoli

350g tub of fresh cheese sauce

a few teaspoonfuls of sundried tomato pesto

a handful of grated, lower fat mature cheddar cheese

Method:

1. Cut the cauliflower and broccoli into small florets (small enough to roll up in pancakes) and boil for a few minutes until tender
2. Meanwhile, spread a little sundried tomato pesto on one side of each pancake
3. Drain the cauliflower and broccoli, heat two-thirds of the cheese sauce in the pan, then stir the cooked vegetables back into the sauce
4. Spoon the cauliflower and broccoli cheese sauce down the centre of each pancake, roll up, and pop them into a gratin dish
5. Heat the remaining sauce and drizzle over the top of the pancakes, adding a sprinkle of grated cheddar
6. Put it in the oven heated to 180° for 10-15 mins until golden and bubbling

Carb-count:

23g carbs per portion (2 buckwheat pancakes)

19g carbs per portion (2 Crepe Cuisine pancakes)