Turn up the heat on easy ideas for everyday meals that will tickle all taste buds

There’s nothing like the taste of a home-cooked meal. With a new season is upon us and with a bit of a stretch in the evenings it’s a good time to push forward with any home-cooking resolutions you may have made or to start spring with a new approach to food.

But meal planning isn’t anyone’s idea of fun – at least until now. As a former Master Chef participant, food science communicator for the Science Gallery, Clare Anne O’Keefe now has a busy life working as a food stylist, bringing all manner of edibles to life. She also makes many celebrity chef names look good by ghost writing recipes for their brands and books.

A mother of two she is in charge of meal prep in her household and understands the many dynamics of families. She is also one of the many of us who is time poor. She favours an easy approach to cooking and is suggesting the nutritionally dense everyday menu below in part because it doesn’t feature a lot of ingredients. “The courses share ingredients so you don’t have to do as big a shop,” she explains. “This menu lets Belling’s range of ovens do the heavy lifting for you,” she says. Music to the ears of the harried.

She says the secret to smart recipe writing is that the repasts she cooks will help form the basis of other meals. “Each recipe is adaptable for those with nutritional and dietary requirements. It also covers fussy eaters. The tabbouleh and cauliflower are vegan, for example, while the cauliflower and lamb are both gluten-free.”

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This kind of cooking brings kids into the prep work too. When doing these meals at home she asks hers to help and asks them about seasoning, is there enough lemon on the tabbouleh, for instance, so that they feel in control of their choices, she explains.

These raw ingredients offer added nutrition but it is the visual appeal that really helps ensure empty plates, she counsels. “A whole cauliflower is more relatable to kids than florets. It cooks softer too. My five-year-old can cut through it with a butter knife. He then helps to dress it. He loves pumpkin seeds and crispy onions. He will l scatter a handful and then eat a handful. If I chop herbs for the tabbouleh I’ll get the boys to mix them in. So it makes it engaging and delicious. It’s food as fun.”

While she’s cooking for four she says this menu is not a last-minute meal option, but its structure will save you a lot of hassle during the school week, she counsels advising that you plan ahead and spend one night in the kitchen, say, a Tuesday, so that you can then relax in the knowledge that you have the base materials for several other dishes. The cauliflower, for instance, can be chopped up and served with pesto to make a moreish pasta dish. The lamb, which is slow-cooked for seven hours so that it falls off the bone in a stock of lemon juice and the brine from a tin of anchovy-stuffed olives, with the fat skimmed off, which improves its taste, can become a curry or a shepherd’s pie. Tabbouleh is heavy on fresh Irish-grown herbs such as curly parsley; kale; Irish-grown tomatoes and scallions and imported lemon juice. As long as you don’t dress the tabbouleh in advance you can add the herbs and sprinkle with feta and lamb for a lunch box salad.

Because it is high in almond and yoghurt content and made with olive and Irish rapeseed oils the cake will keep all week and can become a breakfast slice on the go. The sugar syrup features seasonal clementines or even ones that are a bit off. You can also drizzle it over warm porridge or overnight oats, add to fizzy water if you’re still doing dry January or to add to a negroni to sweeten it, or a warming hot toddy.

She has to work smart. “With two kids under 10, I have time to spend about 15 to 20 minutes preparing food, put it in the oven, clean down and know that there’s stuff cooked for use over the next few days. It’s a squirrel fund if you like, for when you come in hungry on a dark evening You could buy kebabs in the butcher on the way home and know you can serve it with the tabbouleh.

The range of Belling ovens has up to four different cooking cavities and with this menu, you get to utilise every single one, she explains. “The two large main ovens offer a choice of fan or conventional cooking”. Cook the lamb and roast the cauliflower in one oven. Elsewhere you can bake the cake in the other, all at the same time.”

She treats this easy supper menu as a meal prep day, she says explaining it can be done ant day of the week. “I will pop the lamb in the oven midmorning and usually make the clementine syrup at the same time giving the syrup time to cool down and the flavour develop. Then early evening I will put the cauliflower in to roast in the small fan oven in the Belling range and mix the cake batter using the yoghurt pot as my cup measure. In the other oven I will bake the cake at 140C, then prepare the tahini dressing and cinnamon-lemony tabbouleh dressing pouring them into glass jars to keep for use as needed – I often make two or three times the dressing quantity as it is handy for roast veg or salads. Lastly, I quickly chop herbs and mix the tabbouleh and gather my crunchy toppings for the roast cauliflower. A bit of prep and chopping while I listen to a podcast means I have a delicious supper for that night with the leftovers giving protein, salad and cooked veg for the rest of the week not forgetting extra slices of cake for lunch box treats as well as breakfast.

The serving ideas pictured below have been designed so that the food is within easy reach of everyone seated. It creates an interactive meal that brings those around the table closer.

Midweek kitchen table supper menu

Starter

Whole roasted cauliflower with lemon tahini dressing (vegan)

• 1 whole cauliflower plus a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and pinch of salt
• 1-2 garlic cloves
• 3 tbsp tahini paste
• 1 lemon, juiced, plus extra to taste
• 2 tbsps crispy onion pieces
• 2 tbsps mixed toasted seed (mix of pumpkin, sunflower, linseed and sesame)
• 2 tbsp pomegranate seeds

Method

1. Preheat the small fan oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Place the cauliflower on a baking paper-lined oven tray. Drizzle with a little olive oil and season with a pinch of salt. Cover the cauliflower head with foil and bake for one hour.
3. After one hour, remove the foil and bake for another 20 or so minutes until beginning to brown.
4. Crush the garlic with a good pinch of sea salt using a pestle and mortar or garlic press. Mix in the tahini paste with a balloon whisk. Keep whisking as you slowly mix in the lemon juice – the tahini will lighten in colour and thicken as you whisk. Thin with a tbsp of water if it is too thick.
5. Check cauliflower with a skewer to see if it’s tender throughout. If tender, remove from the oven; if not, cook further in 10-minute increments.
6. Serve the roasted cauliflower on a plate. Spoon over the tahini sauce and top with seeds and crispy onion pieces and pomegranate seeds.

Main course

Herbed tabbouleh with slow-cooked shredded lamb

Herbed tabbouleh

• 200g course bulgar wheat
• 250ml extra-virgin olive oil
• About 135ml (1 large lemon) fresh lemon juice
• 3 garlic cloves, grated
• 1 ½ teaspoons sea salt
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• Pinch of cinnamon
• about 6 bunches finely chopped curly parsley
• 200g finely chopped Kale
• 2 large tomatoes
• 2 bunches finely chopped fresh mint
• 6 scallions, chopped

Method

1. To cook coarse bulgar, bring 500ml of water to a boil in a medium pot. Stir in the dry coarse bulgar, cover, and remove from the heat. Let sit for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the bulgar is tender. Drain any excess water, then fluff with a fork. Allow the bulgar to cool to room temperature before adding to the salad.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt, coriander, and cinnamon. Pour this dressing into a glass jar and store in the fridge for up to a week
3. Place the bulgar in a large bowl or container with a lid, add the parsley, tomato, mint, and scallions. Toss to combine.

Slow-Cooked Lamb

• 1 large leg of lamb, about 3kg
• 4 onions, sliced
• 8 garlic cloves, peeled, but left whole
• 1 stock cube dissolved in 300ml water (chicken, lamb or veg)
• I tin (350g) Manzanilla green olives stuffed with anchovy
• 3 lemons

Method

1. Preheat the tall oven to 120°C
2. Place a very large casserole on the hob and brown the seasoned leg of lamb on all sides until it is properly browned. Pour away any fat that collects in the bottom of the pan.
3. Pour over the stock and the brine from olives, you want this to be a bit salty. Cover with a lid or 2 sheets of tin foil to really seal in the lamb. Bake for 6 hours, then uncover and add in the olives and the lemons. Quarter or half the lemons giving a good squeeze over the lamb leg as you add them to the casserole.
4. The lamb will be super soft and can be served straight from the oven with no resting time, it can be shredded with 2 forks or even served up with a spoon.

Dessert

Quick one pot yoghurt cake with clementine syrup

• 1 pot (125g) Yoghurt
• 2 pots (250g) Self-raising flour
• 1 pot (175g) light brown sugar
• 1/2 pot (75ml) Olive oil
• 3 Medium Eggs
• 1 pot (125g) Flaked almonds
• 2 tsp Vanilla extract

Method

1. Prepare an 18cm cake tin by lining with parchment (not greaseproof) paper
2. Using the yoghurt pot, measure and add yoghurt, self-raising flour, sugar, and olive oil to a bowl.
3. Add the eggs and whisk the ingredients well until the mixture is smooth.
4. Carefully fold in the flaked almonds into the batter.
5. Line a loaf tin with baking paper.
6. Pour the cake mixture into the prepared tin.
7. Using the cavity splitter in the main Bake at 160°C for 45-60 minutes in the main oven or until a skewer comes out clean.

Note: For kids in nut-free schools leave the almonds out

Timings: Cooking the cake low and slow ensures the inside cooks thoroughly before the outside browns too much. If the top is browning too quickly, cover with tin foil and continue baking.

Clementine syrup

• 240ml Water
• 125g fine Caster Sugar
• 8 Clementines, thinly sliced crosswise

Method

1. In a medium saucepan, bring 240ml water, 125g sugar to a simmer on a medium heat on the hob.
2. Cook until sugar dissolves, approximately 1 minute then add the sliced clementines and cook on low for a further 10 minutes.
3. Turn off the heat and allow the clementines to stand in the syrup for at least 30 minutes before pouring on the cake

To find out more about the Belling range and for your nearest stockist visit their website here