The darker the colour of the food, the better is the mantra

I had to tell a lie in English class today,” said the 11-year-old as he burst in the door from school. “I said you were a great cook,” he elaborated, rolling around the place laughing. If I needed anything to hasten my departure to Catherine Fulvio’s demonstration that evening, that, I guess, was it.

As the TV chef of Ballyknocken House and Cookery School chopped and chatted her way through the making of two healthy heart soups, roasted yellow pepper soup and roasted tomato soup, and an orange chicken stir fry, she shared lots of tips on how to fit healthy eating into everyday routines.

I love food but am guilty of culinary pornography - I drool over lots of cookery books but all too often don’t implement the good intentions. Being a vegetarian in a house of carnivores doesn’t help as it means shopping for and cooking two different dishes daily.

However, as Catherine and Janis Morrissey, dietitian with the Irish Heart Foundation, pointed out at the cookery demo, freezing can be your best friend. As well as freezing entire meals, it's also possible to freeze a lot of herbs, apart from basil and coriander, along with ginger and chillies.

Catherine told how she steals a march on the week ahead by chopping up peppers, potatoes and carrots and preparing brocolli and putting them in plastic containers on Sunday nights. It’s not the most glamorous way to end the weekend but helps avoid a stressful rush before evening sports training. “You will eat more and a greater variety of vegetables if they’re prepared in advance,” Catherine maintained. Potatoes left in water will leach some of the nutrients but the water can be reused in soups or gravy, Janis told the audience.

The aroma wafting from Catherine’s orange chicken stir fry was delicious so I did my best to recreate it next day, with brown rice. Having attended quite a few healthy eating events as part of the Portlaoise Healthy Towns initiative, I’ve tried to heed some of the professionals’ advice. So it’s been out with white bread and white rice the darker the colour of the food, the better is the mantra.

I’ve also cut back on meat portions and cut off visible fat. Fish has featured more often for dinner, but I haven’t quite won the 11-year-old on that yet.

This week, more fruit went into the shopping basket, with grapes, plums and oranges among the goodies. The fabulous September sunshine has meant a preference for lighter meals but porridge will be added to the list shortly.

One of the key messages from Catherine and Janis was that preparing meals from scratch gives you the opportunity to manage the quantity of oil or salt used. I have found that some vegetarian ready meals I bought in the past were very salty but really got a salt surplus when I had a hotel sandwich recently.

I guess home cooking can’t be so bad after all - I just have to convince the 11-year-old. At least Lucy the Labrador never turns her nose up at my efforts.