Fruit and veg

[Chaosonthehorizon]

How do you make sure your children have at least five portions of fruit and veg at home every day? Five year old is great, three year old is bad and I am in a Rut of broccoli, avocados (😱but all I can get the 3 year old to eat) or homemade veggies sauce for pasta etc. Not enough though is it and have twins arriving next year! Thanks

What about home made vegetable soup, which would be good for lunch, or perhaps a fruit smoothie through the afternoon?

Fruit juice can count as one of the 5 a day (only one though) as can tinned pulses eg Baked Beans or Spaghetti Hoops
Little boxes of raisins on cereal or as snacks
Homemade pizza
Fruit based desserts eg banana or baked apple and custard or yoghurt
Sweet potato chips or wedges
Peas or sweet corn stirred through rice
Carrot sticks or cucumber batons dipped in salsa or peanut butter
Cream cheese filled celery sticks
Always leave a bowl of cherry tomatoes or grapes somewhere they can reach
Get them involved in shopping for fruit and veg - ask them to pick up one they’d like to try

It’s so much easier ‘when the veg is the star of the show’.
Things like vegetable curry
Cauliflowers cheese
Veggie burgers (jack Monroe’s carrot and kidney bean burgers are great)
I make fishcakes with sweet potato
Butternut squash falafel
Add parsnip and carrots to mash.
All easier said than done (eaten!) but may give you the odd idea.

Veggie sticks for snacks or a side with lunch, carrots, cucumber, peppers, etc with hummus.

Sweet potatoes count as one of your five a day, easy to swap out white potatoes for them in your mash, Shepard’s pie topping, wedges etc

If doing white potatoes then add in some cauliflower and mash it in, generally they won’t notice.

I put finely chopped onions and carrots in everything, can’t even tell they are there.

Soups are an easy way to get in a nice variety if they enjoy that with some bread.

My kids just love fruit so we’ve never struggled with that luckily. But apples with a dip can be fun. Bananas in a tortilla with peanut butter rolled up and sliced, or strawberries and cream cheese (if you eat dairy) ina wrap. You can also put veggies in with soft cheese in a wrap and slice into rings, looks a bit like sushi which can be fun.

Thank you so much, please keep the ideas coming and will print out. Any suggestions for nutritious teas for them (Which I can have as lower carb) but that are quick and easy. Absolutely no energy by the end of the day at the moment, maybe with a twin pregnancy you never get a nice energetic stage?!!

I always now make my mashed potatoes half steamed cauliflower. Just steam it above the cooking potatoes, stops them being too soggy if you steam it.

There is a book by James Wong called 10-a-day with loads of family friendly recipes in it. I have really enjoyed making a whole load of them.