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James and Paul’s Balsamic Chicken

James and Paul Anderson

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Serves: 4

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

1 onion, finely diced

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

4 tbsp balsamic vinegar

600g (1lb 5oz) cherry tomatoes, halved

2 tsp dried rosemary

175ml (6fl oz) chicken stock

20g (3⁄4oz) fresh basil leaves, chopped

Veg Portions / Serving: 2

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TwoChubbyCubs Fast and Filing: 100 Delicious Slimming Recipes by James and Paul Anderson, published by Yellow Kite

Balsamic chicken is one of our go-to meals at Chubby Towers because it is ridiculously easy to prepare – and when we say prepare, really it amounts to nothing more than bumbling a few ingredients into the pan and stirring occasionally. All the best recipes are like this – there’s certainly a time for me to be mincing around the kitchen with eight pans on the go and something fabulous in the oven, but I’m a lazy, lazy man, and this recipe speaks to me.

Method:

Spray a large pan with a little oil and place it over a medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook for 5–6 minutes each side, then remove from the pan and set aside.

Reduce the heat to medium, add the onion and garlic and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the balsamic vinegar to deglaze the pan, and cook until thickened.

Add the tomatoes, dried rosemary and stock and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 8–10 minutes. Put the chicken back into the pan and gently stir into the sauce.

Serve, sprinkled with the chopped basil.

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 carefully helping you add the ingredients to the pan, and have them sprinkle over the basil at the end.

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.

James and Paul Anderson

James and Paul Anderson are the duo behind the enormously successful slimming blog @twochubbycubs, which has over half a million online fans. They lost 18 stone between them and went on to share their journey with the world. Their tasty, easy recipes prove that it is possible to lose weight without sacrificing your soul and you can actually have a laugh whilst you're at it. Their first cookbook became an instant Sunday Times bestseller, an Irish bestseller and one of the most popular cookbooks of 2020, with over 3500 5* reviews.

twochubbycubs.com/

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