Deep Dive
Why is snacking often a challenge for people trying to eat healthily?
Snacking is challenging because people often opt for quick, convenient options like supermarket products instead of preparing nutrient-dense snacks. Time constraints and convenience lead to less healthy choices, despite good intentions.
What are the key ingredients for making overnight oats, and why are they beneficial?
Key ingredients include Irish oats, natural yogurt, dairy milk, milled chia seeds, and milled flax seeds. These ingredients are nutrient-dense, supporting gut health, heart health, and brain function. Adding protein powder can increase protein content from 6g to 10g, making it a more filling and balanced snack.
How can tomato soup be made more flavorful and nutritious?
Tomato soup can be enhanced by adding grated Parmesan cheese, balsamic vinegar, and fresh basil. Using passata, garlic powder, and a stock pot creates a simple base, while cream or milk adds richness. These additions make the soup both delicious and nutritious, avoiding the perception of soup as boring or depriving.
What is a simple way to prepare a Mediterranean roast veg and gnocchi dish?
Chop vegetables like peppers, courgettes, aubergine, and butternut squash, then roast them with olive oil, gnocchi, and baby potatoes. Add chicken with basil pesto halfway through roasting. Toss in lentils for added protein and fiber, making it a balanced and satisfying meal or snack.
What are some high-protein snack options mentioned in the podcast?
High-protein snacks include trail mix (8g protein per 60g), Greek yogurt (20g protein per 200g), and pre-packed grains like whole grain rice and quinoa (6g fiber and 4g protein per 100g). These options help curb sugar cravings and keep you full longer.
How can chia jam be made, and what are its uses?
Chia jam is made by simmering frozen strawberries, chia seeds, and vanilla in a saucepan, then blending it. It can be used on porridge, overnight oats, or as a healthier alternative to regular jam in peanut butter sandwiches. Honey can be added to sweeten it if needed.
What is the recipe for making protein-rich Powerballs?
Powerballs are made by blending oats, medjool dates, cocoa, and optional chocolate protein powder. The mixture is rolled into balls and coated in dark chocolate. Adding smoked sea salt enhances the flavor, making them a healthier alternative to traditional chocolates.
What makes the flapjack recipe unique and healthy?
The flapjack recipe uses Irish oats, butter, sugar, real vanilla, and sea salt. Adding milled chia and flax seeds boosts their nutritional value. The recipe avoids ultra-processed ingredients, making it a wholesome and delicious snack option.
What resources does Aisling Larkin offer for those interested in mindful eating?
Aisling Larkin offers an e-book with recipes, including breakfast and wellness-focused options. She also shares cooking videos on her Instagram and website, aislinglarkin.ie, providing accessible and practical guidance for mindful eating.
- Focus on nutrient-dense snacks.
- Prioritize convenience without sacrificing nutrition.
- Simple recipes for overnight oats and tomato soup are provided.
Shownotes Transcript
Yes, Aisling Larkin is back with me, the TV chef and the mindful eating coach. So what are we talking about? The whole of 2025 laid out in front of us. It is January. I love January. I'm one of those weird people. I really like January. We're going snacking. So obviously, like we talk about food, food for wellness, that modern kind of take on it that's as accessible to people as possible and realistic. So I think
people kind of start off with great notions and I'm going to do this for breakfast, I'm going to do this for lunch. And one area that people fall down in is snacking because it's like, oh God, what do I bring? And it's, they grab something quick and convenient and a lot of times we reach for the products that are the convenience ones, the ones from the supermarket as opposed to maybe making something that is nourishing, nutrient dense. And like, I get it, it takes time. It does. I'm the first one to admit that. But,
But I suppose it's a little bit like everything, isn't it? It's where you invest your time and your energy. That's where you're going to reap the benefits. So that's, I think, a good motto for January. OK, so then let's talk about what we have in front of us in terms of snacky bits. We're going to start. I almost feel like I brought you like breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yeah, OK. Yeah, got here. That's OK. The other thing that I've brought, which I'm going to talk about, is like I literally took these straight out of my pantry. So we've two plastic boxes full of...
We used to have these full of like treats and sweets and biscuits and cakes. Yeah. And they still exist, but they've moved to a higher shelf.
They're not gone, but like when we talk about... Harder to access. They are. We start you with breakfast? Yeah, let's start with breakfast. Overnight oats. Okay. I know they're a classic, right? Yes. But these are passion fruit and blueberry. Okay. Okay? Keeping it as close to nature as possible. That actually is nice. Isn't it lovely? Yeah. As close to Irish as possible, right? Irish oats. Passion fruit's nice. Tastes like a salero. Yeah. I love passion fruit. It's one of my favourites. And that is Folons. So they're an Irish company, right? It's a passion fruit curd. Okay.
Okay. I didn't buy real passion fruit. I haven't done anything extraordinary. You buy it in the supermarket beside the other jams. But like between passion fruit curd and lemon curd, it's like, it's an easy win. We're looking for the easy wins. So one mug of oats, Irish oats, one mug of yogurt, try and get a live bacteria, you know, natural yogurt, good for your gut. One,
mug of dairy milk Irish good milk and then level it up with your milled chia seeds and your milled flax seeds so I'm taking these out right these are whole chia seeds milled chia seeds a lot of people don't like the texture of the whole so just buy the milled you don't even know they're in there and that's all going in the night before all going in the night before four
hours of dewy. You don't even need it the night before. Okay. And the other one is flax seeds. Flax seeds, brilliant for our heart, brilliant for our brain, all that good stuff. The other thing that I like to put in is protein powder.
Oh yeah. So there's a little bit of protein powder gone in there, but there is rice protein powder. Oh right, okay. So instead of your natural whey, or like your whey that's going in, sometimes I get an organic whey, but this is a rice protein. Really mild in flavour, a little bit. So all of a sudden you're taking something that goes from 6 grams of protein to 10 grams of protein for a little bit of strong smell. Yeah, I know, it's not great, but when you put it in, it's good. But you're not putting in your curd or anything until the next morning?
No, the whole thing. Oh, everything goes in. So I made that raw, then layered it in. So I put a layer of the overnight oats, a layer of the passion fruit curd, layer of overnight oats, dollop of Greek yogurt for your extra protein or live natural yogurt for your gut on top and then blueberries on top. We're moving on to lunch. Lunchtime. Tomato soup. But we're going to level up our tomato soup. So if you're going to eat well, it has to be delicious as well as eating well. So I'm currently grating a little bit of Parmesan cheese over your tomato soup.
And I'm finishing it with a little bit of balsamic. So these guys are burnt balsamics, but they're spherification. These are balsamic pearls. Oh. So they're black garlic. Look at that.
Look at that. Be open now. So it's basically balsamic vinegar, right? They use a process called spherification and they turn them into these little bubbles. They look like caviar. Well... You were going to say something else, were you? They look like you could say a raspberry maybe they look like. Maybe a slightly gone off one. They kind of look like
I know. Hemorrhoids. Happy, quiet and eat the soup. Eat the soup. Eat the soup. Stop it. Eat the soup. My lovely soup. Cheeky it. What else might you like? Frog spawn? Frog spawn. That actually is a really good one. They're quite bougie. They're quite like, you know, chefy. Just put a drizzle of balsamic vinegar over your tomato soup. Oh, it's lovely. Can I tell you how to make that tomato soup? It's the easiest tomato soup you're going to make in the world. Yeah. Pasata.
Two things of passata into your saucepan. A good old sprinkle of garlic powder. Drop in a stock pot. Top it up with a bit of water. Let that bubble for like 15 minutes. Pour in about 250 mils of cream or milk. Blitz it all up. That's
that's your tomato soup done that's it that's it season it with salt and pepper and then finish it like I said so it's how you finish it little bit of fresh basil in there little bit of parmesan cheese little bit of balsamic so sometimes soup can be seen as deprivation soup can be seen as boring soup is not could you give it just a splash of balsamic 100% like that's what I would do you don't need your bougie balsamic you don't need them a little splash of balsamic but again rather than thinking of soup just for lunch it's at 4 o'clock when I get hungry dinner okay
Okay. Lovely. This is Mediterranean roast veg, crispy gnocchi and a little bit of pesto chicken. I'm converting it into a snack because it's leftovers. That's lovely, isn't it? Isn't it delicious? Because I wouldn't usually go for gnocchi now. I know. I find it a bit stodgy sometimes. Totally. So this is roast. So it's roast gnocchi. Okay. So again, you know me, all of my cooking techniques are so simple. This is basically chopping up a few veg, chopping up peppers, courgettes, aubergine, um,
I'm trying to remember what else is in there. Butternut squash, a couple of olives. Those olives has pits. Just be careful with it, OK? And then you're roasting that with olive oil, throwing the gnocchi in, putting baby potatoes in. I love the baby potatoes. Roast that off for an hour. Sit your chicken on top after half an hour. I just put a little bit of basil pesto over the chicken, roast it all and then toss in some lentils. So you want protein. We're trying to get that protein. We're trying to get the fibre in. So you want 25 grams of...
fiber a day you want about 30 grams of protein in a meal okay but this as a little lunch or as that again oh god I'm starving like it's double batch whatever you cook for dinner if you're a family of four make enough that serves six and have it left over for your own lunch the next day because you're going to eat so much better than running to the petrol station or running to the convenience store and picking up a sandwich or something like that and when you eat something that
that filling at lunchtime you're much less likely to snack at the 3 o'clock and the 4 o'clock or you'll curb those sugar cravings just a little bit more That's the problem people hit this time of year isn't it? Trying to eat healthy they just don't eat enough and then kind of 7 or 8 o'clock they're like oh do you know what I'm just going to have those bourbon creams That's it How do you do that if you've got a really bad habit of tea and biscuits at half 9 at night? You just go to bed earlier
That's my way of it. I'm starving. I'm just going to go to sleep. Yeah, go to sleep and just get up earlier because you're so much, psychologically, you're so much more better to have better habits and more, you know, habits for wellness in the morning. You have more conviction. You have more motivation in the morning. One of the other products when we talk about snacking is these pre-packed grains. You can buy them in the supermarket. So there's whole grain rice and quinoa. I have another...
couple here, which is, these are the Merchant Gourmet. These are a little bit pricier, but it's a Jamaican style rice. So again, even if you never cooked that whole tray bake, right, or you did and you wanted to kind of bulk it up, just toss it through with some of these grains. They're microwaved, like literally two minutes in the microwave. And all of a sudden, like from 100 grams of that, you're getting six grams of fibre, four grams of protein. So we've got snacks then as well to dot in throughout the day. Is that the idea? When you're looking for kind of
I suppose those higher protein ones which we talk about a lot something like a trail mix 60 grams of a trail mix which is your nuts your dried fruits is going to give you about 8 grams of protein if you're looking at Greek yogurt 200 grams is 20 grams of protein now the other thing I brought is my chia jam okay so this is one bag of frozen strawberries about 50 grams of chia seeds
bit of vanilla in there. You just boil it up in the saucepan, not boil it, that's too strong of a word. You simmer it in a saucepan and then you just blitz it down. That's all? That's it. This sits in my fridge. This is one of my absolute Sunday preps. This goes onto the porridge for the kids in the morning. It goes onto the overnight oats and
when they come home from school, peanut butter and jam. So use your brown bread, your peanut butter, and then use this as your jam. And if you think this is, oh my God, that's a stretch too far because it's a little bit tangy. You can put honey in to sweeten it up. Just mix half jam, half chia jam. So like baby steps. Don't be, you know, don't ever present anybody with something that
they're just not going to eat. So make it sustainable and make it accessible. So that's the chia jam, which I really, really love. Flatbreads is another great one. 250 grams of Greek yogurt. Is that what this is? They're your flatjacks. No, they're your flatjacks. You didn't bring a flatbread. I didn't bring a flatbread. You didn't bring them. Ah, Aisling, God almighty. I am here. People just need a studio. You actually can't even see the desk. There's so much food here. I didn't get around to the flatjacks. I think we could have squeezed in the flatbread now. We were putting in the effort. But anyway. Oh!
The cheek. The cheek and it's only January. Yeah. Relaxing things for the new year, I see. But anyway, come on. 250 grams of set fries. 250 grams of Greek yogurt. You basically mix them together in a bowl. Leave them sit for about 20 minutes. That gets you eight flatbreads. That with a bit of hummus. Brilliant. Six grams of protein in them. Sounds delicious. I'm going to move you on to the Powerballs next. I'm going to leave you with the flapjacks. Go with the one that's covered in dark chocolate first. Oh.
Okay. Okay. So it's the same base mixture. Oats, medjool dates or regular dates that you get. Cocoa. Marks and Spencer's at the moment are selling a high protein chocolate topper. It's basically like a protein powder, chocolate protein powder, a little bit, right? So if you want to up your protein from them to take them from four grams of protein to eight grams of protein, sprinkle in a little bit of that. How are they?
Delicious. Isn't it delicious? Yeah. That is your transition from the box of chocolates that was in the price of Christmas to, okay, I still want some chocolatey that tastes delicious with a cup of tea. They're really, really good. Basically, blitz them up in your food processor, roll them into balls and coat in dark chocolate. So that's your...
Least healthy version. Okay. So that was coated in dark chocolate and I put a little sprinkle of smoked sea salt on top. Okay, yeah. Delicious. Chocolate, dark chocolate, smoked sea salt. This version is the exact same thing, but it just got a sprinkle of chocolate on top. Yeah, just a few lines of chocolate. So slightly less indulgent, a little bit more healthy, but still really nice. Yeah, I love the dates though. So do I. And you know what? This recipe is different to any recipe I've ever created. I only literally worked on it a couple of days ago.
There's way more dates in it than are in any other recipe I've ever had or used. If I was selling these as a company, I couldn't because I could never make margin on them because there's so many dates in them. But for making them at home for yourself, absolutely gorgeous. Those freeze excellently. Absolutely excellently. So put them in the freezer. Make a big batch, put them in the freezer. Yeah, they're lovely. Last but not least, if you have any space...
Do you have a bit of space? Yeah, I'm not reading a lot. You probably wouldn't have fit in those flapjacks anyway. The flatbreads. There are flapjacks here now. So I fit them in. My flapjacks. This recipe has been going for over a decade. Irish oats, Irish butter, Irish sugar. And then the secret is real vanilla and sea salt.
They're good, aren't they? They're lovely. With the vanilla pod. I've got a reel going up on my Instagram to make these and show you how to make them. So again, going back to what we said at the start, moving away from that ultra processed food. Salt is lovely enough. Isn't it delicious? Yeah. The salt and the vanilla. Yeah.
It's an absolute little winner. And then to level them up, again, my milk chia seeds, my milk flax seeds, anything I can get them into. So the milk chia and flax seeds, they're in the Powerballs, they're in the Overnight Oats and they're in those flapjacks. So you're just levelling up those foods for wellness all the time.
Great start to the year as I suspected it will be. Aisling, thanks a million. You're very welcome. And we'll talk to you again at the same time next week. As Aisling said, she's going to get a video up on her social channels of the flapjacks in particular, but there'll be detail on everything else as well as there always is. I actually have an e-book as well. Oh, hey, go on. Full recipe book with all of these recipes and loads more in it. There's a breakfast one and a full one and there's a full wellness e-book being launched
today as well. Oh wow, okay. So that's great and you can find that at Aisling Larkin? Absolutely, aislinglarkin.ie and Instagram. There you are, Aisling Larkin, TV chef, mindful eating coach. Thank you very much.