Andrew Walker
Serves: 4-6
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 30 mins
Ingredients:
1 tbsp oil
2 medium onions, finely diced
1 garlic clove, crushed
300g rice (Arborio is best, but any will do)
1-1.2 litres reduced salt vegetable stock
500g frozen peas, defrosted
80g spinach
125g reduced fat cream cheese
10 fresh mint, basil or parsley leaves, cut into strips, or 1 tsp of dried basil
50g grated or shaved Parmesan (or other hard cheese)
Veg Portions / Serving: 1
Originally appeared in the Eat Them To Defeat Them 2020 Activity Book | Photography by Claire Wright | addsomeveg.com
Fill your belly with this pea-packed tea-time winner from our Eat Them To Defeat Them 2020 Activity Book.
Method:
Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Cook onions and garlic over low heat, stirring regularly, until see-through.
Add rice and keep stirring! Cook for a couple of minutes.
Carefully add in one ladle of stock (use a cup if you don’t have a ladle).
When stock is absorbed, add another ladle and keep going until rice is cooked and most of the stock is used up, stirring all the time, then set aside.
Blend or mash half the peas with the spinach and 200ml of stock.
Add green mixture, remaining peas, cream cheese and mint leaves to the rice.
Warm through and serve with Parmesan.
Shovel up a spoonful and send it down town!
Power Up: Pop in different vegetables for other veggie versions like sliced leeks, cubed sweet potato, diced courgette or celery in with the onions.
Watch It: See the video on how to make this recipe here.
Download it: Make sure you download the recipe card, along with the rest of the vegetable files and activities here.
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:
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.
Andrew Walker
www.youtube.com/channel/UCyu3g1IGSmMJAqGQGOJr7MA
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