Chris Chinn
Serves: 4
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 20 mins
Ingredients:
375g pack fresh ready-rolled puff pastry
120g sundried tomato paste/pesto
1 bunch asparagus, washed and trimmed (snap the woody stems off)
150g soft goat’s cheese
Olive oil
Fresh basil leaves, to serve
Veg Portions / Serving: 1
It doesn’t get much simpler than this – grab 6 ingredients and have a delicious healthy lunch or dinner ready in no time! It even makes a good breakfast that packs in some veggies to start the day right.
Method:
Preheat the oven to 190°C.
Unroll the puff pastry and cut into four equal rectangles. Score a 1cm border around the edge.
Spread the sundried tomato paste over the centre of the pastry, top with the asparagus spears and dot all over with the goat’s cheese.
Season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown.
Serve with a few fresh basil leaves on top.
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 can spread the tomatoe paste, snap the asparagus stems off where they naturally bend and snap, scatter the asparagus tips over the tart, and sprinkle over basil leaves once cooked.
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.
Chris Chinn
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