Claire Wright
Serves: 1-2 (just adjust as needed)
Prep time: 2 mins
Cook time: 5 mins
Ingredients:
(olive) oil or butter
sliced mushrooms (as many as you need - 80g is a portion)
1 clove garlic, finely chopped (add another if making more than 2-3 portions)
salt & pepper
optional: fresh herbs, roughly chopped
Veg Portions / Serving: 1
Mighty, meaty mushrooms can be used in so many different ways! Claire Wright from addsomeveg.com shares 3 of the most simple ways, starting with simple garlic mushrooms. One pan, a few minutes, no fuss.
Method:
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
Mushrooms are a great veg to start teaching children knife skills with as they are so soft. Get a kid-friendly safe knife or a butter knife and show them how to carefully slice through the mushrooms with your help. As they build confidence, let them have a go themselves (with your supervision). If using fresh herbs, let the kids scatter them over at the end.
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.
Claire Wright
Claire has been working with children, food and communications for over 15 years, and is our Editor at Veg Power, helping translate expert advice into small, practical steps for busy families, and creating recipes that are actually simple.
Similar recipes
