So, we had our Happy Healthy Life Christmas party this week. It was exciting on several counts. It was the first official event for Happy Healthy Life, and it was our first visit to the wonderful Oken’s Kitchen, but what was most exciting to me was to get 30 people together with a common interest in healthy food! We are passionate as a team about promoting healthy living, but we want to make that as easy and as fun as possible, so we wanted to get people together to launch the idea of a ‘Family Batch Cooking Social’. There are several barriers when it comes to eating well; time and inclination being two important ones. People are busy, and eating well takes a bit of mindful planning.  Many people might also argue that healthy food just doesn’t taste as good. So, our aim is to make healthy eating both easy and delicious. We are hoping the ‘Family Batch Cooking Social’ will be fun and that it will help people in a very practical way to make tasty, healthy food that can be batch frozen for busier days.

At the party, in a fun ‘Ready steady cook’ fashion we created some nutritious and delicious batch meals as an idea of what we could cook together.

For me, eating well is also about making sure you have a range of nutritious ingredients to hand. That way you can create some dishes with relative ease. I am a huge fan of the new Jamie Oliver book, ‘5 ingredients, so I adapted one of his genius salads to give it a more festive twist! So simple, yet delicious, and light and refreshing amongst heartier festive fayre. Why not give it a go and let me know how you go? Come and join us for our first ever ‘Family Batch Cooking Social’ at the Oken’s Kitchen in Warwick on January 9th 2018. We’d love to see you! Please click on the link for more details!

https://www.facebook.com/events/298609597292803/?notif_t=event_calendar_create&notif_id=1512664591384678

 Ingredients

Fresh green salad leaves

200g frozen soya beans

1 red pepper

1 red onion

Handful pecan nuts

Fresh pomegranate & mint to serve

30 g parmesan, pecorino or feta cheese

Drizzle of Olive oil & red wine vinegar

Method

• Defrost soya beans
• Roast pepper & onion in a drizzle of olive oil until soft
• Toast pecan nuts until golden & chop
• Shave hard cheese, or crumble feta
• Combine leaves, beans, pepper and onion & dress with oil & vinegar
• Sprinkle over nuts, pomegranates, mint, & cheese