Published on 27th September 2018

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We chat to Jenny Tschiesche, nutritional therapist, author, and founder of lunchboxdoctor.com. Jenny’s latest book, The Modern Multi-Cooker Cookbook: 101 Recipes for your Instant Pot, is available to buy from Amazon. www.jennytschiesche.com/

 

Tell us about your new book

“It came out on the 11^th September, and became the number one bestseller on cooking equipment on Amazon two days before it was published. When it was published we sold out within hours! It’s designed for something called a multi-cooker – the brand that I use is called an Instant Pot. And the reason that I recommend that as a way of cooking is, if you think about all of the food delivery companies – from Riverford and Abel and Cole through to Hello Fresh and Gousto, and all of those – we are moving away from processed food… we don’t have any more time than we use to have, but we do want real food meals… we just don’t necessarily have the time to slave over the kitchen stove. Both of my recipe books are about allowing something else to do the work! You prepare a few vegetables or some protein, you put it on the tray and put in the oven in the case of Sheet Pan Cooking, but also in this book, you put it in the pot and you press a button, and you go away and you get changed out of your work clothes and you get on with having a chat with your kids or your partner, and then you come back and your meal is ready, and it’s a real food meal.”

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What is a cook pot?

“It’s basically a stainless steel electric pressure cooker…. But it doesn’t just do pressure cooking, it’s also a slow cooker, it does rice, yoghurt. So for people with small kitchens it’s the gadget to have, because it’s not that expensive and it can do multiple different meals with one machine.”

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The theme for your two cookbooks is quick easy meals – what are your top tips for busy people who want to eat well and feed their families healthy meals

“I always say that we want to buy food that doesn’t have a label. It’s got to be minimal effort on the part of the person preparing the meal – so simple instructions. And I like to think my recipes can be cooked by an older child through to a less proficient partner – of either sex! And so you take the real ingredients, you do a few things like chopping, and then you let something else – like [in the case of] the two books I’ve written, the oven or the multi-cooker, do the work. So my top tips would be to make sure you’ve got your fresh produce, not overly expensive, only purchase within your budget. I would definitely meal plan, because that means you’ve got exactly what you need for the recipes you’re going to be making… how much you’re going to be making, and you’re not going to waste money and you’re not going to throw food away, which is a massive issue at the moment.”

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What are your go-to ingredients at this time of year, when it’s getting colder and nights are getting darker?

“I love those root vegetables… the brightly coloured root vegetables, from carrots, through beetroot, through potatoes, butternut squash, parsnips… they’ve got great flavour, they’re full of nutrients, full of lots of energy… And actually, even some of the more dense meat proteins; I tend to eat more lamb at this time of year, more beef. Perhaps a bit more dense food that’s going to give me that longer lasting energy, but that’s also going to make me feel quite satisfied, so a stew or a casserole, or something like that.”

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Out of either book, do you have a favourite recipe?

“I do, definitely. The lamb tagine in the multi-cooker [book], and coq au vin in the sheet pan book.”   

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How important is comfort to your recipes?

“Really important, because I’m a parent and am really keen on encouraging children to want to a) make food and b) eat a range of different foods. And having foods that make you feel kind of happy and satisfied… a good quality meal that you can eat together as a group, be that a family or group of friends, or socially, to me that’s the outcome I’m looking for when I design recipes.”

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You also have a book on gut health. Do you incorporate gut health principles into your cooking?

“I do. You’ll notice that 99 per cent of my recipes are without any gluten. Sometimes I’ll make a recipe with spelt flour. I personally don’t eat any gluten and my family eat limited amounts of it and so from that perspective you’ll notice I am trying to be sensitive to people’s gut health as I’m not a fan of wheat. I’d also say that there are plenty of recipes that are lactose-free, or low in lactose. For the same reasons, I don’t believe the majority of us are in the situation where we can actually digest lactose. There are some people who definitely can and have no problem, but there are others who can’t, and some who haven’t even realised that they can’t, so these recipes will just be gentle on the gut from that perspective too.”

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Can you compare life before and after becoming a nutritional therapist, in terms of what you eat – has it changed?

“Definitely it has changed. The biggest learning curve for me has been about managing intake of food, in relation to blood sugar. I was playing national league sport just before I started training in nutrition, I used to be a national league hockey player, and although I was super-duper fit, my blood sugar levels were all over the place and I was absolutely exhausted, particularly in the middle of the afternoon, and I tended to overeat. I carried more weight than I do now – and yet we’re talking 20 years on! And I just feel much happier, much more in control as a result of knowing what I know now, having qualified in nutritional therapy, but also having practised it for all these years.”

 

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