Ben Tish
Serves: 4
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 1 h 15 mins
Ingredients:
Roasted tomatoes:
800g ripe cherry or datterini tomatoes
4 tbsp extra‑virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, lightly crushed
A few thyme or oregano sprigs
Sea salt & freshly cracked black pepper
Salsa verde:
30g flat‑leaf parsley, finely chopped
15g basil leaves, torn then chopped
1 tbsp capers, rinsed and finely chopped
1 small garlic clove, grated
Zest of ½ lemon
1½ tbsp red wine vinegar
6 tbsp extra‑virgin olive oil
Wholemeal quick flatbreads:
300g wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp fine sea salt
200g natural yoghurt
1½ tbsp olive oil
Extra flour, for dusting
Method:
Heat the oven to 160°C fan.
Tip the tomatoes into a roasting tray and add the olive oil, garlic, herbs, and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Give everything a gentle toss.
Roast for 1 hour, until the tomatoes are collapsed, sweet, and sticky but still holding their shape. Remove the herb stalks and squash the garlic into the juices. Set aside warm.
Combine the parsley, basil, capers, garlic, lemon zest, and vinegar in a bowl. Stir through the olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper.
Taste – it should be sharp, green, and lively. Adjust with more oil or vinegar if needed.
In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the yoghurt and olive oil and bring together into a soft dough.
Knead briefly on a lightly floured surface – just a minute or two – until smooth. Cover and rest for 10 minutes.
Divide the dough into 8 pieces. Roll each into a thin round, about 18–20cm wide.
Heat a heavy frying pan over medium-high heat. Cook the flatbreads one at a time for 1½–2 minutes per side, until puffed, cooked through, and nicely charred in spots. Stack and wrap in a clean cloth to keep warm.
To serve
Spread the warm flatbreads with roasted tomatoes and their juices. Spoon over the salsa verde and finish with a final drizzle of olive oil.
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
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
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.
Ben Tish
Ben Tish is a chef, restaurateur and cookbook author known for his flavour-driven, Mediterranean-inspired cooking. As Chef Director of Cubitt House, he oversees the food across eight London pubs, combining British seasonal produce with Mediterranean influences to create generous, ingredient-led dishes. His work is rooted in a passion for exceptional ingredients, bold flavours and food designed to be shared.
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