We love to see food expert, Domini Kemp coming our way, as we instantly feel sooo much healthier. This is one busy lady, *deap breathe* - co-founder of Itsa/Joe's Dublin/Hatch and Sons/Alchemy Juice, chef, author, TV host AND a mum??? #wow
Seeing as the school bell is about to ring for another year (we can hear it already), Alison thought it a perfect time to ask Domini in to give us some inventive ideas, and recipes, to make lunch time more beneficial for everyone.
They started off by discussing how arduous a task making lunch actually is, referring to it as "a battlefield". The challenge is to try and find that mythical balance between what your child wants to eat, and what your child should be eating. Parents get deluded into thinking they can force their kids into eating the healthy stuff all the time, but Domini says, "that's nonsense-they won't do it!".
Majority of diets (for adults and children) centre around processed carbohydrates, and this isn't good. For example, we start with cereal for breakfast, then some toast and that's followed by a sandwich for lunch. So in hindsight, people find it very hard to keep their bread intake low.
When it comes to meat in lunches, parents have to be careful with having it refrigerated. According to food safety regulations, food should not be kept at room temperature for more than 40mins, but we all break that rule. "If you want to be really good about it, you get a little freezer bag and put your lunchbox in it", she advises.
Some parents may not know this, but nuts are no longer allowed in schools due to the possibility of allergies. This is a bit of a hindrance as they are an excellent snack and source of nutrients, but parents can substitute-in cheese, fruit and veg (carrot strips, diced peppers etc).
With the school term back, parents may have less time to prepare meals/lunches, so Domini has done up a few mouth-watering recipes for you to try at home. Big batches are always the way to go as they are less time consuming in the long run.
Recipes for her Carrot, Ginger & Turmeric soup, Tandoori Chicken, Crunchy Chickpeas and Banana Bread can be found at the bottom of the page.
You can listen to their chat in full here:
You can listen to Weekend Breakfast, every weekend here on Today FM - Saturday Breakfast 8-11am & Sunday Breakfast 7-9am.
Carrot, Ginger & turmeric soup
You need a hand blender or something similar to puree the soup. Turmeric is great stuff: anti-inflammatory and oh-so-good for you, as is ginger and garlic.
Ingredients
Good glug of olive oil
2 onions, peeled and chopped
6 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
Big knob ginger, peeled and sliced
2 tsp turmeric
Black pepper
About 1.25 kg carrots, peeled and chopped
1.25 litres water
Salt & pepper
Method
Heat the olive oil in a big saucepan. Sweat the onions, garlic, ginger, turmeric and black pepper. After a few minutes, add the chopped carrots and sweat to get the flavours going. Add the water, simmer gently until the carrots are tender and then cool slightly and whizz until smooth. Season and serve or cool down to room temperature, keep refrigerated for 2-3 days.
Tandoori chicken
Ok, this isn’t exactly authentic, but it’s handy to make a bit batch for dinner and use the leftovers for sandwiches and wraps.
Ingredients
6 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
Big knob ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp Garam masala
2 tsp ground cumin
Good pinch chilli flakes
500 g plain yoghurt
2 tsp salt
Juice from 2 limes
6 skin-less chicken breasts
Method
Sweat the garlic and ginger in the olive oil and after a few minutes, add the spices. Cook for a few minutes to get the flavours going and then turn off the heat and cool down fully before mixing with the yoghurt, salt and lime juice. Slice the chicken into strips and marinate for ten minutes. Cook in a hot oven (180 C) for about 10-15 minutes, turning half way through or better still cook under a hot grill so that the chicken gets all charred. You have to turn the pieces over regularly so that it gets evenly cooked. The chicken has a tendency to “stew” in the oven, so the grill works well or combination of the two. Serve for dinner or cool down and refrigerate and use in wraps with avocado, lettuce, tomato and some of the chickpeas from the recipe next.
Crunchy chickpeas
These are very moreish and if you can get the kids on board with these as a snack, you may even be able to wrangle the crisps away...
Ingredients
1 tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
Splash olive oil
Good pinch dried rosemary or thyme
Good pinch coriander seeds
Good pinch smoked sweet paprika
Good pinch turmeric
Salt & pepper
Method
Preheat oven up to 220 C. Toss the chickpeas around a roasting tin with the rest of the ingredients. Get them well coated and then roast in the oven for 15 minutes or so until golden, crunchy and well coated in the seasonings. Serve warm or cool down (although they do go a bit soggy, but still are very tasty) and stuff in sandwiches or eat as a snack.
Banana Bread
(12 thickish slices)
Ingredients
60g coconut oil or butter (I used butter)
4 over-ripe bananas (about 540g)
2 eggs
100g coconut palm sugar (available in most health stores)
100g coconut flour
100g ground almonds
generous pinch of salt
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon (more if you like it)
scrape fresh nutmeg
½ tsp ground cardamom
100g chopped walnuts
Method
Soften the butter (or melt the coconut oil) and mix (or blend) it together with the eggs and the bananas before adding in the coconut sugar and mixing thoroughly. Next, in a large bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients except the walnuts . Then add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and mix well before folding in the nuts.
To cook it, grease and line a loaf tin and empty in the mixture. It will be pretty cement-like, but don’t worry. Bake at 170C for 50 minutes until a skewer will come out of it clean. Leave to cool before removing from the tin. Cool a bit more before slicing and lathering on some butter. Or not.
