Charlotte's Chicken & Vegetable Traybake

Charlotte’s Chicken & Vegetable Traybake

Charlotte Radcliffe RNutr

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Serves: 4

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 50 mins

Ingredients:

8 chicken thighs (skinless)

100g mushrooms (quartered)

200g vine cherry tomatoes (keep on the vine)

1 courgette (sliced)

1/2 orange pepper (sliced)

1/2 yellow pepper (sliced)

1/2 red pepper (sliced)

1 red onion (cut into chunks)

2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)

1 tsp dried Italian mixed herbs

1 tbsp olive oil

140g couscous

1 stock cube (chicken)

1 & 1/2 lemons (juiced)

1 lemon (quartered into wedges)

Handful of parsley (chopped)

Veg Portions / Serving: 2

Charlotte Radcliffe’s chicken & vegetable traybake is perfect for serving in the middle of the table for everyone to help themselves.

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 200°C/ 180°C fan/ Gas 6.

In a baking try, add the chicken thighs, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, courgette, peppers, red onion, garlic, dried Italian mixed herbs, and olive oil.

With your hands mix everything well, ensuring everything is coated in the seasoning and oil. Position the chicken thighs so they sit on top of the vegetables.

Cover the tray with foil and place into the oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove the foil and return the tray back to the oven for a further 25-30 minutes. Halfway through cooking, baste the chicken in the juices from the try to keep it moist. Check the chicken is cooked thoroughly, the juices should run clear.

10 minutes before the chicken has finished cooking make your couscous. Add the stock cube to boiling water using the amount of water and cooking method as per the packet instructions.

Once the couscous is cooked, it should be light and fluffy. Add the lemon juice and parsley and mix through the couscous using a fork.

Remove the chicken from the oven. Place a portion of couscous onto a plate and top with 2 chicken thighs and a serving of the vegetables. Finish with a tablespoon of the cooking juices over the top and a wedge of lemon.

Notes

If you’re looking for a vegan-friendly option, you can replace the chicken thighs with a tin of chickpeas and a tin of cannellini beans. Reduce the cooking time slightly until all the vegetables are soft.

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 kids will love tossing the vegetables in the oil with clean hands. And get them helping with making and fluffing the couscous, too.

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.

Charlotte Radcliffe RNutr

Charlotte Radcliffe is a registered nutritionist (RNutr) and director of The Nutrition Consultant Ltd.

Having worked in the food industry for over 20 years, Charlotte has a unique combination of skills. She incorporates solid, evidence-based nutrition, communications and commercial expertise together with an in-depth understanding of food and ingredients. She has a strong food safety and technical background, and since qualifying as a nutritionist in 2007, she has performed many nutrition roles in the food industry (including working as Company Nutritionist for one of the world’s most recognised food brands).

www.thenutritionconsultant.org.uk

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