Growing up beside a farm in Galway, Lou Robbie has always been surrounded by local and in-season fruit and vegetables. This grounding sparked Robbie’s love for food which continued into adulthood when she decided to train as a professional chef. While gaining experience in restaurants furthered her technical expertise, Robbie’s passion for cooking blossomed again after becoming a parent.
While conjuring up creative and nutritious meals for little ones came naturally to Robbie, she saw that across social media there was a hunger for this kind of information. From there, she developed her channel Little Lou Cooks on Instagram, focusing on simple-to-prepare, nutritious, and delicious food that both parents and children can enjoy. In the last year she has amassed a following of more than 600,000 fans, demonstrating that her tried and tested recipes are hitting the mark.
As part of the Best in Season campaign for 2024, Robbie has partnered with Bord Bia to encourage people to enjoy in-season fruit or vegetables with any meal this summer. Below, she shares her top tips for creating nourishing, nutritious and balanced meals that include locally grown and in-season produce.
Lou Robbie’s top tips
- Consider the cooking method: People can often be discouraged from using some vegetables as part of their daily meals, thinking that the only way to cook them is to boil them, as this is what they might have grown up with. There are much tastier ways of preparing vegetables, however, that are equally as convenient. Roasting is an obvious favourite but the air fryer is a fundamental tool in our kitchen to ensure you can prepare any vegetable quickly and conveniently.
- Get to the root: I think people can feel unsure about how best to cook root vegetables, but they are particularly versatile. In my house, we love incorporating swede and turnip into our mashed potato. By steaming them with New Season Queens potatoes, you can add a new depth of flavour and colour to mashed potato and add more nutrients to your meal. You can use your mash as a side, to top a cottage pie, or to enjoy with a summer bake.
- Play it safe: My top tip for encouraging my children to enjoy a variety of vegetables is always ensuring that there are safe foods around that I know they like. Adding new flavours and textures into old favourites is a great way of overcoming food fear in children. There’s plenty of ways to be inventive with recipes that keep children in mind but are also full of nutritious goodness. Fool-proof lunch box favourites can be parsnip fritters or cauliflower bites, both of which I’ll be sharing recipes for on my channel this month as part of the Best in Season campaign.
- Family-style favourites: My daughter is an excellent eater, while my son can be a little more challenging. We have found that creating meals that can be enjoyed family-style has made trying new things and creating a safe space to learn to like new foods easier. In summer, we often make big salad bowls with cucumber, lettuce, tomatoes, and carrot ribbons as well as other early salad vegetables. We will fill our plates ourselves around the table together, and this way they can pick up what they want, without too much pressure on them. We love pairing these with home-made dips like Greek yoghurt with grated cucumber, or freshly made carrot hummus.
- Colour is key: Colour is really important to me when I’m preparing food for my children. We eat with our eyes, and creating plates that are inviting for them to look at will help encourage them to try new things as well as help create a densely nutritious meal.
- Change with the seasons: It’s much easier than you assume to shop in-season and locally. I plan my shopping list with seasonal vegetables in mind, as there are an abundance of local growers around the country that are producing high-quality fruit and vegetables. I highly recommend the Bord Bia Best in Season calendar on their website as a tool for shopping seasonally, you can see when produce is at its peak. Eating seasonally is also a great way for younger ones to try more produce and to learn what textures and flavours they like.
In-season sensations
Fruits and vegetables currently in season and readily available in Ireland include: New Season Queen potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, swedes, parsnip, kale, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and strawberries.
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Bord Bia’s annual Best in Season campaign aims to educate people about what is in season and the benefits of buying seasonal produce, which not only supports local growers and communities, but also guarantees the freshest, tastiest and most nutritious ingredients. Consumers are encouraged to actively check on-pack information and labels such as the Bord Bia Quality Mark to ensure that what you’re buying is locally grown.
To promote the benefits of eating locally grown, in-season fresh produce, Bord Bia has developed an interactive Best in Season calendar along with a range of tasty recipes highlighting the versatility and flavour of seasonal fresh fruit and vegetables.
To find out more about what is currently in season, along with some inspiring recipe ideas visit its website
