Cook up a healthy school lunch recipe

The food production at a company in Hastings which prepares hundreds of lunches like these every day. Photo / Supplied

Calling all cooks, chefs and anyone at all that likes to spend time in the kitchen cooking delicious healthy meals.

Nourishing HB: He wairua tō te kai and Ganesh Raj from Eat Well For Less is asking for your help to come up with some healthy and affordable school lunch recipes and take part in the Ka Ora, Ka Ako Recipe Challenge.

There are some fantastic prices to be won with all accepted recipes going into a draw.

The recipes will then be made into a recipe book and distributed to all schools participating in the School Lunch Programme.

And that's not all. One school will have the pleasure of a visit from Ganesh Raj .

On his promotional video for the competition, Ganesh says he hopes the recipes will help inspire schools.

"One in five children lives in a household that regularly runs out of food. The school lunch programme has so far provided 20 million lunches."

Nourishing HB project manager Pippa McKelvie-Sebileau says anyone can send in a recipe.

"It's open to everyone. Recipes must be healthy and tasty and of course affordable."

She says Nourishing HB was started last year and its goal was to improve food for children in the Bay.

"This followed some terrible statistics about the number of children who were going without decent food," McKelvie-Sebileau said.

"These children are aware that food at home runs out and they go hungry.

"Since the School Lunch Programme was introduced 40 per cent of school children in Hawke's Bay are now being provided with a free school lunch.

"Now at least these kids know they will get fed at school. It gives them a sense of 'food security' and being cared for.

"Many of the schools have taken on the cooking themselves. It's a huge undertaking so we thought this competition would be a great way to give them some inspirational new ideas."

Project co-ordinator Nat Alfonso said they worked alongside the HBDHB with support from the Ministry of Education.

She said when thinking about your recipe to remember that they were not choosing the best or the fanciest one.

"All entries that meet the guidelines of mostly healthy food within the budget will go into a draw for some fantastic prizes thanks to the support of our local businesses."

The budget is $5 a head for a junior and $7 a head for secondary schools.

Entries launched last week and close on September 30 at 5pm.

Send your entries tohttps://bit.ly/NHBRecipeComp