Preparing ahead for back-to-school lunchbox snacks

Irish Examiner

2 days ago

AFTER the long, lazy, languid holidays, we're coming close to returning to school day structures, timetables — and the oft-dreaded lunchboxes. The coming weeks are an ideal time to plan and get organised, particularly in the back-to-school snack department.
There are times when it feels as if children are fuelled by snacks. Even if your kids' school is involved in the hot school meals programme, they will still need to eat at small break, have something to keep them going when they come home from school, and perhaps a grab-and-go bite before sports activities. Caught on the hop, parents can be easily persuaded to part with hard cash for brightly packaged, smartly marketed, ultra-processed foods. This is where Galway-based chef Lou Robbie can help. Published this summer, her book Make & Freeze: The Ultimate Guide to Family-Friendly Meal Prep features many ideas, savoury and sweet, for parents worried about snack time.
A professional chef, Robbie is well-practised at feeding people of all ages, with a particular focus on family-friendly options. With a BA in culinary arts from Atlantic Technological University (ATU, formerly GMIT), she started her culinary career in Galway restaurants Cava and Ard Bia@Nimmos, then worked in The Kitchen in Galway City Museum for eight years before it closed during the pandemic.
Without a restaurant to work in, Robbie applied her training and skills to the home kitchen, feeding her two children: Maeve, now 10, and Hamish, who is seven. In 2021, she set up her own business —Little Lou Cooks — to teach online cooking classes to adults and children, while sharing recipes and batch-cooking tips on Instagram.
A simple Instagram reel of Robbie making and freezing batches of her mini-scones, oat bars, energy balls, and savoury muffins for school lunchboxes went viral in 2023, striking a chord with parents who wanted to add more homemade food to their kids' diets. 'That's when my page blew up,' she says. She gained 77,000 followers from that reel — her total is now 920,000.
'That's what really resonated with people, being able to batch-make snacks, whether they're sweet or savoury, portion them into bags, label, and freeze them,' Robbie says. 'It's what I've always done since my daughter started preschool.'
She knows that it's important to make plenty; fresh baking is always irresistible. 'If you like a recipe, then double it up.
'There's no point in making just 12. Make 24, so at least half of them will get to the freezer. Put them into bags, label and freeze to be defrosted as you need them.'
While the freezer can be a neglected kitchen appliance, a stopping off place where food is deposited for a time before it heads to the rubbish or composting bin, Robbie uses it in a much more proactive way. It's a lesson that she learned from her grandmother and mother.
At the packed Galway launch of Make & Freeze, Robbie spoke of how her granny used to bake, portion, and freeze loaves of homemade bread, making the point that batch cooking frees the cook from being tied to the kitchen every day.
'It's about helping people to save time and money,' says Robbie. 'I want these recipes to be accessible for parents to cook for their kids … with ingredients that are easy to find in supermarkets. My recipes aren't cheffy, and hopefully they'll be recipes that people will make time and time again.'
Lou Robbie working in her kitchen at home in Galway focusing on back to school food prep which are illustrated in her cookbook. Photo: Ray Ryan
Planning is key
Along with chapters on pre-portioned savoury or sweet items that can be frozen for lunchboxes — think mini bacon and cheese quiches, pizza scones, pea mint and feta pancakes, or easy oat bars, apple/banana/carrot muffins, and nut-free energy balls — Robbie includes chapters on breakfasts, slow cooker dinners, air fryer favourites, family pies, and breads.
Lots of recipes include nutritious ingredients such as oats — she is a big fan — seeds, vegetables, dried and fresh fruit, and pulses.
A section entitled 'sneaky sweet stuff' involves using squash in chocolate mousse, chickpeas in blondies, and energy balls with lentils. All recipes have instructions on storage, freezing, and defrosting, which is where some of us can come unstuck.
'We're often great at filling the freezer,' laughs Robbie, 'we're not always the best at remembering to take things out.'
For her, planning is vital: 'We make our lunches the night before and every night we defrost for the next day because it's just too rushed on school mornings. Everything is too hectic, and I don't like going to the freezer in a panic because I'm likely to pull out the wrong thing.'
Habit-forming is key, says Robbie, adding, 'It's what sets you up for success.'She has learned this over the last five years of snack-making. 'The first year, I started in September, did it for a few months and stopped after Halloween. The next year I went to Christmas, then Easter, and now it's all year round. Start by making one thing per week, like sausage and egg muffins, or mini sweet scones. Make a big batch, freeze it, and see how that goes. Don't forget to defrost them and put them into the lunchbox. Then add another couple of recipes, like easy oat bars and energy balls, so that's three options that you have in the freezer.'
It's also important to spread the workload. 'It's too much for one person to do. Get everybody in the family involved in keeping the freezer stash topped up — it gives them ownership as well. As much as I cater for kids, these are things that are good in everyone's lunchbox.'
Don't get discouraged if your children turn up their noses at your lovingly homemade snacks. Robbie has experienced this too. 'Meet them where they're at and don't be disheartened. If they like chocolate, then make something like banana muffins and put three chocolate chips on top. It's mostly good, with a little bit of what they like, and every child is so different.'
Parents want to see lunchboxes that come home empty, with all those carefully made, nutritious snacks eaten, and Robbie, through her book and social media, is ready to lend a hand.
'I'll be sharing and re-sharing a lot of recipes,' she says, 'and I'm really excited to see people baking sweet and savoury snacks for the lunchboxes this September.'
Lou Robbie's black bean chocolate chip cookies
It's safe to say that cookies are always welcome in our house. These are soft and fudgy and delicious as a snack.
Servings
12
Preparation Time 
20 mins
Cooking Time 
15 mins
Total Time 
35 mins
Course 
Baking
Ingredients 250g oats
1 x 400g tin of black beans, drained well
125ml maple syrup or honey
2 heaped tablespoons cocoa powder
40g butter, at room temperature
80g chocolate chips
TO DECORATE: 70g chocolate, melted
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C fan, and line two baking trays with baking parchment.
Put half the oats into a blender. Add the drained black beans, maple syrup, cocoa powder and butter and process until fairly smooth.
Scoop the mix into a mixing bowl, and stir through the other half of the oats and the chocolate chips.
Divide the mix into 12 balls. Place on the baking trays and push down to flatten. If you have a cookie cutter, use it to mould them into nice round shapes if not, do your best to shape them with your hands. Bake for 15 minutes. Let them cool on the trays for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.
Melt the chocolate in the microwave in short bursts or in a small pot on a very low heat. Drizzle the cooled cookies with melted chocolate. Serve with cold milk or a hot coffee.
STORAGE: These cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
TO FREEZE: Freeze in labelled ziplock bags for up to 3 months.
TO DEFROST: Defrost in an airtight container overnight.
Make & Freeze by Lou Robbie (Michael Joseph, €19.99) is out now.
See: littleloucooks.com