Health, Beauty and Lifestyle with Denise McNamara

I have a son who has the most annoying habit of asking what’s for dinner as he’s munching on his brekkie. I don’t f***ing know, I would inwardly lament. I can’t think past this cup of coffee I’m swallowing down as I race around like a headless chicken of a morning.

We’ve never had as much choice when it comes to food, but we’ve never had less time.

A Galway-based chef has published a cookbook to make the best of the time we have to batch cook, freeze and produce a nourishing, homecooked meal most days of the week.

Make & Freeze also has a whole lot of ideas for lunch boxes, snacks and treats – all easily cooked and storable in the freezer for that time when you haven’t a notion of taking out the flour and a mixing bowl.

Lou Robbie has been sharing her recipes on social media for four years and has almost a million followers across her platforms.

Specialising in family-friendly recipes, the mum of two young kids started online cookery classes in her Knocknacarra home when the pandemic forced her out of a professional kitchen.

The Tipperary woman had studied business on leaving school but ended up working in hospitality in Australia and New Zealand for three years before returning to Galway where she worked in Tigh Neachtains and met her Scottish husband Mike. The pair decided to train as chefs in the then GMIT. While studying she worked in Cava restaurant owned by Michelin-star chef JP McMahon, winning a scholarship to study culinary arts for three months in the Johnson & Wales University in Rhodes Island.

She had a spell in Ard Bia@Nimmos before joining The Kitchen in the Galway City Museum where she had worked as a chef for eight years.

“That’s really where I honed my craft because it was so family focused. [Owner] Michelle [Crehan] could have put in more tables but always wanted there to be space for families and buggies. After it closed, I set up the cookery school in my kitchen, Little Lou Cooks, teaching adults and kids as I had my own daughter by this stage.”

When restrictions eased, she realised nobody wanted to be on zoom anymore so she started doing more tutorials online and was invited to do social media videos with Green Earth Organics in Corrandulla.

“This really helped me focus on getting my message across clearly, honing my recipes, improve my presentation. In November 2023 I did a video preparing four snacks for my daughter’s lunchbox and how I would make double the recipe and pop them into freezer bags for another day and it went viral – it was the mini-scones, oat bars, energy balls and savoury muffins.”

Lou is a great believer in forming habits slowly, picking three snacks and building on that. She uses freezer bags over boxes as they stack easily in the smallest freezer. She takes them out the night before to ease prep in the morning chaos.

“If you pick a few things, and if they like them, the next time make double and freeze. If you nail those you can then try two other recipes. The bacon and cheese quiches can be eaten cold or thrown into the air fryer. It’s not gourmet food, it’s easy food for busy families. You don’t need fancy equipment, I have recipes for the air fryer and the slow cooker – two great things to make life easier in the kitchen.”

She’s picked 20 of the most popular recipes from her Instagram and 80 new recipes for the hardback book. She has chapters on breakfast, savoury and sweet lunchboxes, soups and smoothies, slow cooker dinners, air fryer ideas, family pies and comfort dishes, treats, bread and ‘sneaky sweet stuff’ with meal plans for lunch boxes and family dinners.

She has a miracle (no-knead) loaf, her granny’s brown bread, a slow cooker lamb tagine and butter chicken and an easy bobotie from South Africa.

Her daughter Meabh is an adventurous eater, but her son Hamish is picky, so it’s pushed her to become more creative when it comes to recipes which sneak in more veggies – hence Hamish’s beetroot and chocolate traybake, chickpea and raspberry blondies and chocolate mousse pots with butternut squash.

She has never returned to a commercial kitchen and will concentrate on growing her social media presence. She doesn’t get paid for her clips on Instagram but now has partnerships with brands that she recommends on her pages.

“I put a lot of work into getting my videos right, getting the recipes right, I only shoot them when the light is good. People trust what I put up so I don’t share any old thing, it’s brands I use myself, mainly Irish brands.”

She was determined to publish a cookbook despite the huge popularity of her recipes online.

“You can have all the recipes you want online, you can share them as many times as you like on Whatsapp, but to have a physical book to stand up on the kitchen counter, to pass onto your teenagers, for your children to use, that’s something that will last.”

Make & Freeze by Lou Robbie (€22) is out now.

Pictured: Lou Robbie is a great believer in meal prep and freezing portions in bags so busy families can have homecooked meals every day of the week.