Chef AJ
Serves: 1
Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: no cook
Ingredients:
1 carrot (topped and tailed)
1/4 red pepper
3 sprigs coriander
2 tbsp natural yoghurt or sour cream
1/4 lime
1 wholemeal wrap
45g black beans (drained weight)
30g sweetcorn (drained weight)
Method:
Using a swivel peeler, peel the skin off the carrot and then peel a few thin slices. Carefully pull the seeds out of the red pepper and cut off any white pith and then cut the pepper into very thin strips.
Using the scissors, snip the coriander into little pieces over the bowl of yoghurt or sour cream and mix together well. Add a squeeze of lime.
Lay the wrap down, use the back of your spoon to spread the yoghurt and coriander mix evenly over the wrap. Layer the carrot slices over the yoghurt mix, then lay the strips of red pepper on top of the carrot. Lastly, spoon the beans and sweetcorn over the peppers.
Fold the two sides in towards each other, then using your thumbs, fold the bottom of the wrap up and over the middle, then start to roll it up tightly all the way to the top. Cut the wrap in half on the diagonal so you can see the rainbow colours inside. Eat and enjoy!
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.
Chef AJ
Chef AJ came to food teaching after a career in professional kitchens - and found it just as demanding, and far more rewarding. Working with children every day brought a different kind of pressure, but also a different kind of joy: watching them taste, cook and genuinely enjoy food.
leiths.com/explore/partner-schools/leiths-primary-cookery-programmes/
Similar recipes
