Donal Skehan on combatting burnout and sneaking veggies into his kid's meals

Plus recipes from his new book Everyday Cook

Donal Skehan's new book is a celebration of family life. Picture: Evan Doherty

Cookbooks are not just a record of recipes, but a record of meals cooked and eaten together, of travels and gatherings, events and moments both ordinary and extraordinary. They are effectively records of life, and for Irish presenter and food writer Donal Skehan, every one of his cookbooks “ends up being a little bit semi-autobiographical” in the sense that they “come with, or identify, a purpose in my life that needs recipes.” 

The 35-year-old’s latest, Everyday Cook, is no different. Skehan and his wife, Sofie Larsson, have two boys under three (Noah and Oliver) and have moved three times in 18 months, on top of a pandemic – and so this, his 10th book, is a “real celebration of family life” and the doable recipes “we come back to; the ones that get us through.”