With six children, two dogs and four ducks, there is a lot going on at home for Joe Swash. So the actor has turned to batch cooking to help him feed his family while still having time for a TV career and a spot of romance with his wife Stacey Solomon. “It’s difficult bringing kids up,” says Joe, 43. “There’s no book that tells you the correct way of doing it. You can only do your best.”
Now Joe has teamed up with best-selling author and time management expert Suzanne Mulholland, aka Instagram star @thebatchlady, for new Channel 4 show Batch From Scratch: Cooking For Less, which aims to help families save time, money and washing-up by cooking healthy meals in advance.
With Suzanne by his side, Joe gives great advice on transforming mealtimes, but he admits that until he met Stacey he was both disorganised and untidy. Now, with kids Harry, 17, Zachary, 16, Leighton, 12, Rex, five, Rose, three, and two-year-old Belle at home, military precision is often required.
(Image: Channel 4)
“It took Stacey a while to whip me into shape, to be fair,” laughs Joe. “It involved a lot of making me go back and tidy up the mess I’d left behind. A lot of, ‘This is how the cupboards are meant to look,’ and ‘I don’t want it to look different to this.'”
At first Joe pushed back against Stacey’s determination to run an organised and tidy home, but soon he realised that without following her advice, it would be chaos.
“I fought it,” says Joe, shaking his head. “I did fight it for quite a long time and then I just thought, ‘I’m just going to go with it.’ Now we’ve got the most organised kitchen in the world.”
Famous for her show Sort Your Life Out, which helps people let go of clutter and organise their homes, Stacey, 35, has strict rules about how things need to be kept at home. However, Joe admits she does panic if he accidentally upsets the system.
“I’m slightly scared of opening cupboards,” he winces. “We’ve got all of our crisps on a tension rod hanging on little pegs. Now, sometimes when I’m in a rush, I’ll just grab one and pull the whole tension rod down. The crisps will go everywhere. I’ll get in a panic where I’m like, ‘Oh my God, where’s Stacey? Right, Rex, make sure mum doesn’t come in…’ Then I’m trying get the tension rod back in quickly. She’s definitely got me whipped into shape.”
(Image: Instagram/ @staceysolomon)
Now he’s taking advice from Suzanne too, and together they are passing their wisdom on to the families on their show. “If someone has got a way of doing it even better, then you should take it on board,” says Joe. “Today I’m going home at four o’clock and I’ve got to feed six kids. I can relate to the families on the show.”
Suzanne and Joe teach families to batch cook everything from cottage pie to chicken curry. Before they leave, each family has a 28-day meal plan and a freezer full of healthy and cheap meals.
The meals are also nutritionally balanced and leave the families feeling full. That’s something Joe has benefited from himself after an indulgent Christmas left him with a few pounds to lose. Joe says, “We are batch cooking at home and it’s working. I’ve lost about half a stone since we were filming.”
Cooking in advance also leaves more time for exercise. Joe adds, “I’ve started to go back to the gym. I went three days ago. It was the first time in ages and I’m still really sore. I can’t put my jacket on properly. “I’m at the early stages of bettering myself,” he grins. “Get back to me in a couple of months and you’ll see the difference.””
(Image: OK!/Lee Malone)
On the show, not only are the families grateful for having the stress taken out of mealtimes, they’re also delighted to be spending more time eating together at the dinner table. It’s something Joe and Stacey believe is crucial to family life. “It’s so important,” says Joe. “In our family we like to use the dinner table as a way to interrogate our kids without them even realising it!”
It’s one of the few times they’re all in the same place, given their different ages, so Joe and Stacey find mealtimes are the ideal time to share their news and feelings. “We can’t get our kids to sit down for anything,” Joe explains. “But one time a day we sit down, we have our dinner, we talk to our kids about their day, their guard is down, and they let us know what they’ve been getting up to. The kids get to socialise with each other. We find the dinner table such an important place and such an important time for our family. “
Joe often seeks feedback from Stacey on his TV appearances because he doesn’t like watching himself on-screen and finds his TV personality “annoying”, but he’s confident Stacey and the kids will enjoy Batch From Scratch. “I really find it hard to watch myself and I really annoy myself on telly,” he admits, cringing. “If I weren’t me, I’d be like, ‘Oh my God, turn that geezer off he’s doing my head in!'”
“My kids like to watch me and I like Stacey to watch me because she gives me fair opinions. If I’ve done something that doesn’t look good she’ll quite honestly tell me that. This one I will watch with the kids and the family, because the kids will like it and Stacey will like it.”
Batch From Scratch: Cooking For Less, Monday 17 February, 8pm, Channel 4
View news Source: https://www.ok.co.uk/tv/joe-swash-admits-fought-wife-34653626
