Katie Wheaton
Serves: 1 small jar
Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 5 mins
Ingredients:
70g radish tops (1 large bunch), washed and drained
1 cup (50g) fresh spinach
1/2 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup (30g) sunflower seeds, dry roasted on a tray for 5-10 minutes in the oven at 180C/gas 4.
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice or apple cider vinegar
Salt and pepper, to taste
Lemon zest (1/4 lemon)
Veg Portions / Serving: 1
Using the radish tops is a great way to reduce food waste, plus they’re a power house of nutritious value – radish greens are rich in gut supporting fibre and many nutrients including vitamin C, vitamin A, magnesium, calcium, iron, and phosphorus.
Method:
Place all ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth or pulse blend for a more textured pesto.
Place in a sealed jar and store for up to a week in the refrigerator.
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
Help kids to make this all themselves. Roast the sunflower seeds for them and get the ingredients together. They can wash the radish tops and spinach, add all the ingredients to the blender and push the button until it’s smooth enough.
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.
Katie Wheaton
sustainablekitchenconsultants.com/
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Vic Borrill (Brighton & Hove Food Partnership)
