“My name is Oni­ka Coop­er, and I am a con­tent cre­ator whose love for nat­ur­al, flavour­ful cook­ing grew out of a per­son­al de­ci­sion to live more health-con­scious­ly. I made the choice to sub­sti­tute most preser­v­a­tives and harm­ful in­gre­di­ents, such as MSG, in my di­et, while still cre­at­ing meals that are rich in flavour and fa­mil­iar to many of the dish­es we love. I cu­rate my own menus, show­ing that healthy food does not have to be bor­ing or re­stric­tive.

I come from a home with two el­der sis­ters and a moth­er who al­ways cooked, and that en­vi­ron­ment be­came the foun­da­tion of my re­la­tion­ship with food. Watch­ing meals be­ing pre­pared dai­ly in­stilled in me a deep ap­pre­ci­a­tion for home-cooked food and the joy it brings to fam­i­ly life. Af­ter get­ting mar­ried two years ago, I de­cid­ed to ex­plore dif­fer­ent meal ideas that could help women plan their meals more eas­i­ly while still en­joy­ing food that is both nu­tri­tious and tasty.

This sea­son of my life en­cour­aged me to be­come more in­ten­tion­al about cook­ing with bal­ance, cre­ativ­i­ty, and pur­pose.

I am best known for my “Pack My Hus­band’s Lunch With Me” videos, which of­ten go vi­ral. Pack­ing my hus­band’s lunch was al­ways some­thing I did, but shar­ing that mo­ment on film al­lowed oth­ers to con­nect with it in a mean­ing­ful way. Through my cook­ing con­tent on Tik­Tok and Face­book, I’ve built a large fol­low­ing, and I of­ten re­ceive mes­sages from women thank­ing me for shar­ing recipes that work for their every­day lives.

In ad­di­tion to cook­ing, I am an award-win­ning hair­styl­ist, make-up artist, and sa­lon own­er. I am al­so a strong ad­vo­cate for youth and women’s em­pow­er­ment and strive to cre­ate pos­i­tive, up­lift­ing con­tent in every­thing I share, whether in the kitchen or be­yond it.

Af­ter more than 12 years as a youth work­er for the Gov­ern­ment, I re­cent­ly ex­pe­ri­enced a pe­ri­od of tran­si­tion when all youth de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cers’ con­tracts were not re­newed. Rather than al­low­ing that mo­ment to de­fine me, I made a con­scious de­ci­sion to re­main mo­ti­vat­ed and pur­pose­ful. I used the ad­di­tion­al time I had to lean in­to my cre­ativ­i­ty and con­tin­ue of­fer­ing mean­ing­ful con­tent.

Through my jour­ney, I hope to en­cour­age oth­ers to keep push­ing for­ward re­gard­less of life’s chal­lenges, to find pur­pose even in un­cer­tain­ty, and to turn dif­fi­cult sea­sons in­to op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth.

Re­cent­ly, a spe­cial­ly cu­rat­ed five-course meal I pre­pared for my hus­band’s birth­day went vi­ral, as did an Ital­ian spread I cre­at­ed for my moth­er-in-law.

Know­ing that I can use my cre­ativ­i­ty to do some­thing mean­ing­ful for the peo­ple I love brings me im­mense joy and con­tin­ues to in­spire the con­tent I cre­ate.”

“Ah want Ah Piece ah Lamb”

Recipe

"Ah want Ah Piece ah Lamb"

(You can use chick­en breasts for this recipe as well.)

In­gre­di­ents

For the lamb

• 2 lbs lamb chops or lamb slices

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 tsp black pep­per

• 1 tsp gar­lic pow­der

• 1 tsp onion pow­der

• ½ tsp cayenne pep­per

• 1 tsp smoked pa­pri­ka

• ½ tsp chilli pow­der

• ½ tsp chilli flakes

• 1 tb­sp olive oil

Sweet gar­lic but­ter sauce

• 2 tb­sp but­ter

• 1 tb­sp olive oil

• 5–6 cloves gar­lic, minced

• 3 tb­sp agave or hon­ey

• 1½ tb­sp brown sug­ar

• ¼ cup wa­ter

• 1½ tb­sp soy sauce

• Juice of ½ lemon or lime

• ½ tsp chilli flakes (ad­just to taste)

In­struc­tions

1. Sea­son the lamb

Pat lamb dry and place in a bowl. Add salt, black pep­per, gar­lic pow­der, onion pow­der, cayenne pep­per, smoked pa­pri­ka, chilli pow­der, chilli flakes, and olive oil. Rub sea­son­ing even­ly in­to the lamb and let rest for 10–15 min­utes.

2. Sear the lamb

Heat a large pan over medi­um-high heat. Add a lit­tle olive oil and sear lamb for 8-10 min­utes per side un­til nice­ly browned. Re­move lamb from pan and set aside.

3. Make the sweet gar­lic but­ter sauce

Low­er heat to medi­um. In the same pan, add but­ter and olive oil. Once melt­ed, add minced gar­lic and sauté for 30–40 sec­onds un­til fra­grant (do not brown).

Stir in agave (or hon­ey), brown sug­ar, wa­ter, soy sauce, lemon or lime juice, and chilli flakes. Sim­mer for 3–5 min­utes un­til slight­ly thick­ened and glossy.

4. Com­bine and glaze

Re­turn lamb to the pan and spoon sauce over the meat. Re­duce heat to low and let lamb sim­mer in the sauce for 5–7 min­utes, turn­ing oc­ca­sion­al­ly un­til ful­ly coat­ed and ten­der.

Serve with

• Gar­lic mashed pota­toes

• Fried rice or co­conut rice

• Lasagna