Chris Bavin
www.instagram.com/chris.bavin/
Chris Bavin
Serves: 4
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 30 mins
Ingredients:
350g (12oz) plain flour, plus extra for dusting
salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for greasing
150ml (5fl oz) warm water
2 garlic cloves, crushed
400g can cherry tomatoes
large handful of grated mozzarella
½ red onion, finely sliced
toppings of your choice, such as: sliced red onion, sliced mushrooms, tinned sweetcorn, sliced courgettes, sliced peppers, black olives or even pineapple, if that’s your thing!
Veg Portions / Serving: 1
Recipe from: Fakeaway: Healthy Home-cooked Takeaway Meals by Chris Bavin. DK.com
Sometimes, when we are in a rush, we cheat and use shop-bought flatbreads and let the kids add their own toppings, which they love. My eldest son isn’t a great fan of pizza, but he enjoys making them with flatbreads! You can add some dried herbs to the dough, if you like.
Method:
For the flatbreads, sift the flour into a large mixing bowl and season with salt and pepper. Create a little well in the middle of the flour and add 2 tbsp of the olive oil, then start to add the water and mix well until you have a thick, but not too sticky, dough.
Knead the dough on a floured work surface for 1 minute or until smooth, then put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and rest for 10 minutes.
For the pizza sauce, heat the remaining 1 tbsp olive oil and gently heat the garlic for a minute, taking care not to burn it. Add the can of cherry tomatoes and heat for 3–4 minutes. Using a potato masher, squash the tomatoes – you don’t want to make it totally smooth, just start breaking the tomatoes a bit. Leave on a gentle heat for 10 minutes until it reduces down a sauce that is thick enough to spread on your flatbread.
Preheat the oven to 220°C (200°C fan/425°F/Gas 7).
Divide the dough into four balls and roll each one out to a thin pizza base. Put them on 2 lined baking trays and cook in the hot oven for 2 minutes. Remove the trays from the oven and turn the flatbreads over.
Spread the tomato sauce over the cooked sides of the pizzas, sprinkle over the grated mozzarella and then top with your veggies. Pop them back in the oven for 7–8 minutes or until the cheese is all melted.
Engaging Kids
Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.
Kids in the kitchen
Kids can really own this recipe: making the dough by themselves with pre-measured out ingredients, rolling it out, squashing the warmed tomatoes for the sauce and spreading it on the dough. And, of course, topping it with as many veg as possible! Make it a competition to see who can use the most veg, or let them choose their own from a selection of healthy, vegetable-packed toppings.
Activities
While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.
Sensory
Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.
Serving
The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.
Chris Bavin
www.instagram.com/chris.bavin/
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