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Rachel’s Funky Monkey Shimmy Smoothie

Rachel De Thample

Featuring:
spinach icon
Spinach
Effort:
Complexity:
Cost:

Serves: 2

Prep time: 1 min

Ingredients:

2 bananas

100g baby leaf spinach or 50g kale

2 tbsp peanut butter or tahini

400ml milk (any kind)

A few ice cubes

½ tsp ground cinnamon

Veg Portions / Serving: 1

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Recipe donated by Rachel de Thample for Veg Power. Food photography by Claire Wright | addsomeveg.com

A bit of healthy kale or spinach added to the classic peanut butter and banana combo – with a hint of sweet cinnamon – is a great way to get kids to fall in love with green leaves.

Method:

Simply blend all the ingredients in a food processor or blender until smooth. Drink straight away or freeze as ice lollies.

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

Get the kids to make this one themselves. They can dump everything in the blender and push the button!

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.

Rachel De Thample

Rachel has worked as a chef, author, and Head of Food at Abel & Cole. She set up the award-winning Crystal Palace Food Market and Edible Garden, and teaches courses at River Cottage in Devon.

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