The lovely Nelleke is back in our kitchen today sharing another scrumptious recipe! I would love to encourage moms to step out of their usual go to food and explore different foods with their toddlers and kids. It’s such a rewarding feeling knowing they are getting in the goodness of all these ingredients and becoming a bit more adventurous with food.

I mean aren’t you tired of preparing the same old fish fingers and sausages? I know I am.

Over to you Nell

   |  Often, we as mothers decide what our children will or will not like without giving them a fair chance to explore and try new ingredients. This said, it’s really important to cultivate an interest in food from a young age. My daughter of eighteen months has surprised me again and again with her adventurous spirit, but lets face it, all toddlers are inquisitive and popping foreign things in their mouths is something they’re quite use to.

When I’m making a salad, I often sit my daughter on the counter and allow her to watch what I’m doing. I find it isn’t long before she’s pointing as something and asking for a taste. I’ve been quite cheeky, giving her olives, raw red peppers, artichokes and even capers, which she loves! As I’ve mentioned before, I think there’s so much we can do as parents to nurture our children’s interest in various foods from a young age.

This salad contains nuts and seeds, so it’s obviously for older children or simply omit for toddlers, but I thought what better way for children to learn to love food than to be able to pick their way through a salad and see what the various ingredients are! I think this is prefect in that there are some sweet elements like the roast sweet potato and the pomegranate pips (also a big hit with toddlers) and if your kids won’t eat broccoli, try replacing it with crispy blanched green beans or another raw ingredient that they enjoy. |

Freshly grilled vegetable salad with sweet potato, broccoli, almonds, pomegranate seeds, and spinach

Portions: Makes 6 portions

Preparation time: approximately 1 hour

Ingredients:

3 large sweet potatoes, cubed and roasted with a drizzle of honey. Long-stem broccoli forrets or green beans, blanched. pips of 1/2 pomegranate.

50g almonds, toasted (optional)! 2 tbsp pumpkin seeds, toasted (optional), extra virgin olive oil, to drizzle over.

30g watercress leaves, pinch of salt.

To assemble:

Simply toss the blanched broccoli or beans, the cooled roasted sweet potato and the rest of the ingredients together. Season it with salt and drizzle the salad with a good quality olive oil.

Enjoy!

Don’t forget you can follow this incredibly talented mama chef on her blog Of the earth and keep updated with all her other creations. You can also click on the link to take you to Mums Kitchen to check out some other recipes your kids will LOVE!!

I don’t know about you but I’m feeling hungry!

xoxo

Hi I’m Leigh! Did you enjoy reading this post? I really hope so and would love you to stick around a little longer! Please feel free to browse my blog for other articles or to keep up with all the latest news and to be the first to hear about some great competitions, come and find me me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You can also email me directly at leeloobaggins@hotmail.com or simply subscribe below and never worry about missing out!