Rhiannon Lambert
Serves: 4-6
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 1 hour 10 mins
Ingredients:
300g (10.5oz) sweet potatoes, peeled
2 red (bell) peppers, deseededv
250g (9oz) chestnut (brown) mushrooms
6 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil
3 tsp smoked paprika
3 tsp ground cumin
1 onion, chopped
1 celery stick, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1x 400g (14oz) can red kidney beans, drained
1x 400g (14oz) can black beans, drained
1x 400g (14oz) can chopped tomatoes
1 tsp dried oregano
1 bay leaf
1 tsp chilli powder
4 tbsp tamari or light soy sauce
1/2 tbsp maple syrup
25g (1oz) 70% dark (semisweet) chocolate
For the guacamole:
2 ripe avocados
1 small garlic clove, grated (shredded)
1 tomato, chopped
1 spring onion (scallion), chopped
Juice of 2 limes
Handful of coriander (cilantro), chopped
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
My kids love this dish so much that I make again and again. It’s packed with beans, pulses and whatever veg I have to hand and it freezes well for up to three months. To save time, you can roughly blitz the onion, celery and carrot in a food processor. Add a tablespoon of Marmite or miso for a gut-friendly umami kick.
Method:
1. Cut the sweet potatoes and red peppers into 2–3cm (1in) chunks and quarter the mushrooms. Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/400°F.
2. Put the mushrooms, sweet potatoes and peppers in your largest baking pan and pour in 4 tablespoons of the oil. Sprinkle in the paprika and cumin, season with salt and pepper and toss everything together to nicely coat. Bake the vegetables for 25–30 minutes until tender.
3. About halfway through the vegetables’ cooking time, warm the remaining oil in a large, deep pan and fry the onion, celery, carrot, garlic and a big pinch of salt for 10–12 minutes until the onion is soft and sweet. Crush one quarter of the kidney beans, with a fork, then add all the beans to the pan with the rest of the ingredients, except for the chocolate. Fill one of the cans with water and add that too.
4. When the vegetables are ready, add them to the pan and simmer for 30–40 minutes, until the sauce is thickened and everything is soft and delicious, adding the chocolate for the final 10 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, and more chilli powder if you want it spicier, or more maple syrup if you’d like it sweeter.
5. While the chilli is cooking, make the guacamole. Peel and de-stone the avocado, then crush the flesh in a bowl with a fork until you reach your desired texture (or use a hand blender if you want it really smooth). Stir in the other guacamole ingredients and season with salt and pepper.
6. Serve the chilli with brown rice, or jacket potatoes and coleslaw, and spoonfuls of the guacamole in top.
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
The eventual aim, if possible, is to get kids in the kitchen. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to mean they are with you from start-to-end creating mess and rising stress levels! It can be as simple as giving them one small job (stirring, measuring, pouring, grating, chopping…) ideally involving veg. They can come in to do their little bit, and have fun with you for a few minutes. Getting them involved, making it playful and praising them plenty for their involvement, perhaps even serving it as dinner they “made”, makes it much more likely they will eat the food offered, not to mention teaching them important life skills. Find ideas, safety tips, videos and even a free chart in our Kids in the Kitchen section here.
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.
Rhiannon Lambert
Rhiannon Lambert is one of the UK’s leading nutritionists, a Sunday Times bestselling author and chart-topping podcast host.
In 2016 she founded Rhitrition, a renowned Harley Street clinic, which specialises in weight management, sports nutrition, eating disorders, and pre- and post-natal nutrition.
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