Simple Greek Salad

Claire Wright

Featuring:

Cucumber

Tomato

Effort:

Complexity:

Cost:

In season now

Serves: 4

Prep time: 10 mins

Ingredients:

4 large ripe tomatoes

1 red onion

1 cucumber

a couple of handfuls of pitted black olives

100g feta, crumbled

a large handful of roughly chopped fresh parsley

For the dressing:

1 tsp Dijon mustard

juice of 1/2 lemon

150ml extra virgin olive oil

2 tsp dried oregano

salt & pepper

Veg Portions / Serving: 2

Recipe created for Veg Power by Claire Wright. Food photography by Claire Wright | raisingsugarfreekids.com

Claire Wright from addsomeveg.com shares 3 simple ways to prepare tomatoes that the whole family will enjoy.

A Greek salad is a great light lunch or side for a big meal in the spring/summer months. And it is really easy to make, too!

Method:

Dice the tomatoes, onion and cucumber and small as you can. Halve the olives and mix with the diced veg and crumbled feta in a large bowl.

To make the dressing, add the mustard, lemon juice and olive oil to a lidded jar. Season with the oregano and some salt & pepper, then screw on the lid of the jar and shake well until combined and thickened. Pour over the veg and sprinkle with the parsley just before serving. Once you’ve dressed the salad, serve it as soon as possible for the best taste and texture.

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

Dice up the vegetables, then show them how to halve the olives with their hands and carefully chop the parsley with scissors. Get them to mix the ingredients together, and let them take charge of the dressing, adding the ingredients and shake-shake-shaking the jar when the lid is on tight. Have them pour over the dressing and sprinkle with the parsley.

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.

Claire Wright

Communications Manager: After leaving Exeter University with a degree in English Literature, Claire worked in various fields ranging from youth work and charities to publishing, before starting up a food-focused website when her first child was born. After being asked to project manage the publication of Veg Power's Crowdfunder book, Claire came on board as a fully-fledged team member in 2018 to take on the role of Communications Manager, looking after Veg Power's website and social media platforms.

addsomeveg.com/

Similar recipes