Lucy Hosken
Serves: 4
Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 10 mins
Ingredients:
1 onion, sliced
50g butter
200g smoked lardons, or diced bacon
1 Savoy cabbage, sliced/shredded into thin strips
200ml boiling water
Veg Portions / Serving: 1
This winter warmer side dish is veg-packed comfort-food at its simplest. Ready in minutes and made with just a few ingredients, it’s a perfect way to introduce younger palates to a dark leafy green like savoy cabbage.
Method:
Fry the onion and bacon lardons in butter for 2 mins, then cook for a few mins more until fully golden.
Stir the savoy cabbage into a saucepan with the boiling water. Boil for 2 mins over medium heat until wilted, cover the pan, turn the heat down low and cook for another 5 mins.
Uncover and stir well, mixing the onion and bacon in; the cabbage should have a little colour. If not, increase the heat and cook for a few moments more. Season with pepper to taste.
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
With plenty of supervision and help, most kids will be able to stir the ingredients in the pan. Teach them about kitchen safety and heat first and show them where not to touch. Keep the heat low and give them a wooden spoon and help them stir everything together a few times. Kids will also love shredding the cabbage. They can use a child-friendly knife, clean scissors, or you can just give them small strips of cabbage to tear with their hands! Encourage them to taste the dish when its ready and help you decide whether it needs some seasoning.
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.
Lucy Hosken
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