Jamie's Sweet Potato Quesadilla with Smash-It-Up Salad

Jamie’s Sweet Potato Quesadilla with Smash-It-Up Salad

Jamie Oliver

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Serves: 2

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 15 mins

Ingredients:

2 sweet potatoes (250g each)

1⁄2 a cucumber

100g radishes

4 ripe tomatoes, on the vine

red wine vinegar

extra virgin olive oil

1⁄2 a bunch of fresh coriander (15g)

8 spring onions

30g Cheddar cheese

2 wholemeal seeded tortilla wraps

optional: chipotle Tabasco sauce

1⁄2 a ripe avocado

2 heaped tablespoons natural yoghurt

1/2 a lime

Veg Portions / Serving: 2

Recipe donated by ©Jamie Oliver for Veg Power. Portrait photography © Jamie Oliver Enterprises Limited, by Matt Russell | mattrussell.co.uk. Food photography © Jamie Oliver Enterprises Limited, by Ella Miller | ellamillerphotography.co.uk.

I absolutely love this recipe. Not only it is totally delicious, it’s also great fun to make. Get the kids involved by letting them bash up all the veg to make a juicy rough-and-ready salad. The sweet potato is the real star here – it’s a brilliant source of vitamin A, and as an added bonus it’s a non-starchy carb, so unlike regular potato it counts towards your 5-a-day. Serve it up pizza-style in grabbable slices to make it even more kid-friendly. Parents, feel free to hit this up with a few shakes of Tabasco to really make it pop!

Method:

Scrub the sweet potatoes clean, then prick with a fork and cook in the microwave for 8 to 10 minutes, or until tender.

Score the cucumber skin lengthways with a fork to create grooves (these will catch the dressing), then roughly bash with the bottom of a pan to break it up – it doesn’t matter how rough it is. Do the same with the radishes and tomatoes, halving the tomatoes first.

Place the bashed salad veg (juices and all) into a bowl, drizzle over 1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar and 2 tablespoons of oil, then season to taste with sea salt and black pepper. Pick and tear in the coriander leaves, then toss everything together.

Place a large frying pan over a medium heat to warm up while you trim and finely slice the spring onions, grate the cheese and mash the sweet potato (leaving the skin on).

Place a tortilla into the pan, sprinkle over half the cheese and spring onions, then top with all the sweet potato.

Add a good few shakes of Tabasco (if using), scatter over the remaining spring onions and cheese, then top with the remaining tortilla, pressing down slightly.

Carefully flip the tortilla and continue cooking for 1 further minute, or until golden and crisp. Slide onto a board and cut into 8 wedges.

Destone the avocado (if needed), drizzle over a teaspoon each of oil and vinegar, then place on the board.

Put the yoghurt into a small bowl, and swirl through a splash of oil and a few dashes of Tabasco (if using).

Serve the quesadilla wedges with the salad, avo and dollops of yoghurt. Slice the lime into wedges for squeezing over, then get stuck in.

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

There are loads of ways kids can get involved with this recipe. Ask them to help by washing the sweet potatoes, bashing the cucumber, radishes and tomatoes with a pan (carefully!) to break them up, measuring the dressing ingredients, and picking and tearing the leaves.

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.