Real food for real kids
Home » Magazine » Good, issue 4 » Real food for real kidsIf your kids help grow and cook their own food, they’ll be much more likely to eat and enjoy it. Nicola Galloway serves up three recipes your kids—and you—will love
Photo from CityMama courtesy of Flickr.com
Involving children with growing, harvesting and preparing food from an early age is the key to encouraging a lifetime of good eating habits.
Even if you have minimal garden space, planters or pots can be used to grow herbs, salad greens, cherry tomatoes and strawberries. Children can help tend the plants. Watering, weeding and harvesting gives them a sense of responsibility—and the magical experience of watching a small seedling grow to an edible food item.
Involving children with choosing food for the family also educates them to make wholesome food choices. To supplement the home garden, visit a farmers market or an organic produce store. Show children how to carefully handle the produce to check for ripeness and freshness.
Encouraging children to smell produce also familiarises their senses with a new food, so when it’s served up later it is already a recognisable food item.
And, of course, including children in food preparation is a sure-fire way to get them to try new food, and hopefully devour it! From an early age children can help with mixing and kneading, progressing to chopping and frying as they become more confident with kitchen equipment. Children introduced to the art of cooking from an early age will carry this skill throughout their lives. Sharing your passion for cooking real food is the gift of
a lifetime.
Chocolate Fig Truffles
Made with love, an edible gift nourishes the receiver and won’t sit around gathering dust on a shelf. Home-made preserves make delicious gifts, as do harvest pickles and marinated olives.
- 200g pitted dates
- 200g dried figs, stems removed
- 1 cup desiccated coconut, plus extra for rolling
- 1 cup ground almonds
- 1 tbsp (heaped) Fairtrade cocoa, plus extra for rolling
- 1 tsp grated orange zest
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 100g Fairtrade dark chocolate (70% cocoa), broken into pieces
Makes about 36 truffles
Roughly chop the dates and figs and place in a food processor. Add the coconut, almonds, cocoa, orange zest, cinnamon and chocolate, and process to combine well. The mixture should hold together easily when squeezed into a ball.
Shape into walnut-sized balls and roll half the truffles in cocoa and the remaining half in coconut. Refrigerate to set.
Tips
Children can have fun making labels and decorating. Make boxes from coloured card (make a pattern from a used gift box) and decorate with potato-cut stencils and glitter. It’s a great way to give the kids something creative to do on a wet day.
Use Medjool dates if you can—they’re more expensive, but they’ve been linked with decreased cancer rates.
Quick Yeast-Free Pizza
This is a quick method for home-made pizza. The base is more like a scone dough, so it doesn’t require kneading like yeast dough.
- 2½ cups standard flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp sea salt
- Handful of grated parmesan cheese (optional)
- Handful of fresh herbs, chopped (oregano, thyme, rosemary)
- ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- ¾ cup water or milk
- About 1 cup tomato-based pasta sauce or pesto
- About 2 cups grated cheese (edam or mozzarella are best)
Pizza toppings:
- Pesto, salami, mushroom and capsicum
- Roast pumpkin, wilted spinach, sundried tomatoes and feta
- Smoked salmon, broccoli and cream cheese
- Fresh pineapple and free-range ham
Serves 4–6
Preheat oven to 220°C.
Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, parmesan and herbs in a large bowl and make a well. Pour in the olive oil and water or milk. Mix with a spoon or your hands until the dough comes together.
Tip onto a bench and knead (very) briefly, adding extra flour if needed to create a scone-like dough. It is important not to over-knead or the base will be tough when cooked.
On a floured surface, roll the dough into a large 5mm-thick pizza base, or several small bases. Place on an oiled baking tray or hot pizza stone.
Spread with pasta sauce or pesto and scatter with grated cheese. Add toppings of your choice and bake for 15–20 minutes until the base is crispy and the cheese melted.
Tips
Substitute half the flour with wholemeal, rice, cornmeal or buckwheat flours. Gluten-free flour can also be used. The water quantity may need to be adjusted as some flours absorb more water because of their higher fibre content.
Substitute half the grated cheese with grated carrot and mix together for a lower fat topping.
The trick in preventing pizza toppings from sliding off with the first bite is to scatter most of the cheese over the sauce base. Then cover with toppings and finish with a small sprinkling of cheese. When cooked, the cheese melts and ‘glues’ everything together.
Summer Fruit Iceblocks
Iceblocks make scrumptious cooling snacks on a hot day. They provide healthy phytonutrients and fibre, and can be nutrient-boosted with yoghurt or ground flaxseeds.
- 1kg ripe fresh fruit (peaches, nectarines, berries, banana)
- 1 cup natural yoghurt or coconut cream (optional)
- 2 tbsp ground flaxseeds (optional)
- Honey to sweeten, if needed
Makes 10–12 iceblocks
In a blender or food processor purée the fruit. Iceblocks made with whole fruit rather than juice are better for children’s teeth, as the fibre in the fruit encourages chewing,
which produces saliva to protect teeth.
Add yoghurt or coconut cream, flaxseeds and honey to taste. Carefully pour into iceblock moulds (a jug comes in handy here) and place in the freezer on a level surface. Freeze
until solid.
You could also layer fruit, freezing between additions, to create multicoloured iceblocks. Make a traffic light by layering strawberry, peach and kiwifruit purées.
To remove iceblocks from the mould, hold it under running hot water or sit it in a sink of hot water for a minute until the iceblocks come out easily.
