Bettina Campolucci Bordi
Serves: 2
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 15 mins
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small or ½ leek, cleaned and chopped
½ red bell pepper, finely diced
240g drained tin chickpeas
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1 pinch of chilli flakes
Salt and freshly cracked black pepper
100g spinach leaves
Cherry tomatoes, toast and avocado slices to serve
Recipe kindly donated from Bettina Campolucci Bordi of Bettina's Kitchen
Such a brilliant, filling meal – with plenty of delicious veggies and made in no time! You can serve it for breakfast, lunch or dinner – whatever floats your boat.
Method:
Put a large saucepan over a medium heat and add the olive oil, leek and pepper and fry for about 5–10 minutes until soft and lightly browned.
Put half the chickpeas (garbanzos) into a blender and blitz, then add to the pan with the remaining unblended chickpeas, stir well and simmer for another few minutes until heated through.
Sprinkle in the paprika and chilli and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Finally add the spinach and let it wilt into the mixture.
This is great served with fresh cherry tomatoes, toast and slices of avocado.
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 could easily rinse the chickpeas and spinach, or help you push buttons on the blender to blitz the chickpeas.
Activities
Why not try making a 3D veg “picture” by using spinach leaves and a couple of other veg to create an image? Spinach leaves make great tree foliage, bushes or green raindrops!
Kids more interested in science? Why don’t you explore the colour and shape of the spinach together? How similar/different are spinach leaves to leaves you can’t eat that you see on trees? Can you see the veins if you zoom in on the leaves with a magnifying glass or zoom on a camera? Is it a different green colour to peas or broccoli?
You can find more at-home science fun with veg with our videos from Stefan Gates’ here.
Sensory
Try using a few raw spinach leaves to explore with your sense of sight. Ask your child what it reminds them of – does it looks like a tree leaf, a green teardrop, a thumbnail from a green giant? Encourage them to explore it and use their imaginations, using descriptive language. See if they are willing to give it a sniff, lick or even bite at the end (and make sure they see you trying it and describing its taste and texture, too!).
Find more sensory ideas, tips and videos here. If you get stuck and need a little help with describing words, we have a selection for you here, too!
Serving
When you make this meal, why not ask your child to help you with one small step in the preparation of the spinach (maybe washing or tearing it), then see if they want to help you serve it as “their” meal. Perhaps they could help lay the table and even create a fun centrepiece, maybe with all green objects to reflect the spinach’s colour?
Find the best ways of involving your own child and their skills and interests on our Roles for Kids page.
Bettina Campolucci Bordi
Bettina is a self-taught chef and passionate advocate for plant-based and free-from cooking. She develops recipes for brands, hospitality, and cookbooks, including Happy Food, 7 Day Vegan Challenge, and Celebrate. Bettina also runs a Retreat Chef Academy, teaching sustainability, waste-free cooking, and seasonal, feel-good food principles.
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