James Evans
James Evans is Creative Development Chef for organic veg box company Riverford. You’ll may recognise him as one of the faces of Riverford's new Veg Hacks series, found on YouTube, social media and on Wicked Leeks.
James’ Potato & Sugar Snap Mayo Salad Sticks
James Evans
Featuring:
Sugar Snap Peas
Effort:
Complexity:
Cost:
Serves: As many as you like!
Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 10 mins
Ingredients:
New potatoes, halved
Sugar snap peas (some for the mayo, and extras to thread between the potatoes on the sticks)
Mayonnaise
Fresh squeezed lemon juice
Veg Portions / Serving: 1
Recipe and photography from Riverford | riverford.co.uk
Salad sticks are a fun, attractive and engaging way to get kids more excited about veg! Perfectly portable, they are great for summer campouts, travel, picnics, lunchboxes and BBQs. Get the kids making these salad sticks this summer – it’s as fun to make as it is to eat. Why not come up with your own favourite combinations and share them with us on social, tagging @VegPowerUK and #SaladSticks.
Method:
Cut washed new potatoes into halves, or leave whole if very small. Boil in salted water until just tender. Drain and leave to cool.
Finely chop sugar snap peas into thin slices, widthways. Mix with mayonnaise and a dash of lemon juice.
In a bowl, mix the new potatoes with a small amount of mayonnaise, to lightly coat. Season with salt and pepper.
Thread the potatoes (and any extra whole sugar snaps) onto your skewers, then top with the sugar snap mayo.
Still got ingredients leftover? Toss the remaining chopped ingredients together for a more ‘traditional’ potato salad that gets a little veg in with the sugar snaps, too! Potato salad is very portable, and the sugar snaps will stay crisp for a while. Chopped peppers, cherry tomatoes, sliced spring onions, pitted green olives, lightly cooked green beans and rocket are all great additions if you have them, and up the veg content even more (potatoes are delicious and great for you, especially with the skins on, but unfortunately, they do not count as a portion of veg).
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 really take charge here, which is part of why salad sticks are so popular with them! Make sure to prep any chopped ingredients and boil the potatoes for them, and keep an eye on their fingers around the sharp end of the skewer, but otherwise let them build it themselves. Help them with any harder ingredients, and let them mix up the mayo themselves, 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.
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Complexity:
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Cost:
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