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Rukmini’s All-in-One Tomato Orzo

Rukmini Iyer

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In season now

Serves: 4

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Ingredients:

200g orzo

400ml vegetable stock

400g cherry tomatoes on the vine, halved (save the vines)

½ red onion, very finely chopped

2 bay leaves

Freshly ground black pepper

2 tsp sea salt

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

A good handful of fresh basil or flat-leaf parsley, chopped

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The Green Roasting Tin by Rukmini Iyer

This simple dish allows the concentrated flavour of the roasted tomatoes to really infuse into the pasta, packing an intense flavour hit. An elegant, risotto-like dinner – easily one of my most popular recipes.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/200°C/ gas 6. Mix the orzo with the vegetable stock in a deep roasting tin and lay the vines over the top. (The tomato flavour will infuse into the stock.)

Arrange the cherry tomatoes in an even layer over the orzo, then scatter with the red onion, bay leaves, plenty of black pepper and 1 teaspoon of sea salt. Transfer to the oven and cook, uncovered, for 20 minutes. 

As soon as the orzo is cooked (the pasta should be just al dente), remove the vines and stir through the extra virgin olive oil, another teaspoon of sea salt and the herbs. Taste and season with more salt and pepper as needed, and add a little dash more stock if you like. Serve immediately.

Engaging Kids

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 in the kitchen

The eventual aim, if possible, is to get kids in the kitchen. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to mean they are with you from start-to-end creating mess and rising stress levels! It can be as simple as giving them one small job (stirring, measuring, pouring, grating, chopping…) ideally involving veg. They can come in to do their little bit, and have fun with you for a few minutes. Getting them involved, making it playful and praising them plenty for their involvement, perhaps even serving it as dinner they “made”, makes it much more likely they will eat the food offered, not to mention teaching them important life skills. Find ideas, safety tips, videos and even a free chart in our Kids in the Kitchen section here.

Activities

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

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

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.

Rukmini Iyer

Rukmini Iyer is the bestselling author of The Roasting Tin series selling a million copies to date (The Roasting Tin; The Green Roasting Tin; The Quick Roasting Tin, The Roasting Tin Around The World, Green Barbecue and Sweet Roasting Tin). She originally trained as a lawyer but left the industry to retrain as a chef and food stylist. Her aim is to transform Britain's midweek meals one roasting tin dinner at a time from omnivores to vegans, flexitarians to families or households of one or two.

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