Foods in season in August- Food For Kids Podcast episode 20

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. So it's the start of August already and as usual it's the monthly rundown of what seasonal foods to buy in August so you can explore some foods with your children while they're at their best and hopefully save a bit of money and environmental footprint at the same time.

Okay so we're in August now and the next month or so is a bit of a high point in the fruit and veg calendar here in the UK. This is when the range of colours and flavours really feels like it's at its widest, with all the summer fruits ripening and then still plenty of vegetables coming in strong, if you're looking to cook with what's in season, this really is one of the easiest months to do it. Let's start with the foods that we grow lots of here in the UK and that you should be able to find local or at least UK grown versions.

Courgettes are coming thick and fast now and we're starting to get into the time of year where gardeners start making jokes about them. If you've got a plant in your garden this year you may already be at that point where you can't quite keep up and there are lots of memes online about people leaving courgettes on neighbours doorsteps and running away.

If your child isn't keen on the texture of just courgette on a plate with other vegetables, then they are great added to things as they're cooking like sauces and stews because they kind of melt away a lot. They are brilliant in risotto. We love them in our house if you slow sauté them with olive oil and garlic until they're very soft and then mash them a bit and add lots of cheese or nutritional yeast if you're dairy free so that you end up with this like cheesy paste that is great stirred through pasta or piled on toast.

If your child likes baking, a courgette loaf or muffin is a great way to use them up and get them involved because when they're grated they disappear to almost nothing and they add moisture to bakes without adding any really noticeable courgette flavour. You can also add them to smoothies for the same reason. And don't forget that if you have small young ones, you can actually eat them raw. They're quite crispy and good for dipping.

And next UK food is blackberries, because they're one of the classic August signs that summer will soon be starting to tip towards autumn. By the back end of this month you might see them in the hedgerows near where you live, available in the shops now and the price should be slightly lower than they were a couple of months ago. If you can spot some on sale you can also freeze them, a few at a time in a single layer on a tray and then decant them into a bag in the freezer to keep for the winter when they're not so easily available.

Green beans like French beans and runner beans are in full swing now and you're more likely to find them from UK growers in all the shops and markets. I'm not personally a fan of runner beans, which I know is a bit of a sacrilegious of edge grower, but I've always preferred the texture of French beans. You can get children involved with prepping green beans by pulling the strings off the sides of runner beans while you're prepping them or snapping the ends off French beans.

My favourite way to eat green beans is to steam them for a few minutes either in the microwave or a steamer and then sauté them with very very ripe chopped tomatoes that sweat down and lots of garlic.  You can make a more child-friendly version of them by steaming them until they're just soft but still a bit al dente and then putting them with a little pot of ketchup or another favourite dip and kids can dip them Their shape makes them great for dipping.

Raspberries are at peak now. The early raspberries are finishing but the autumn fruiting ones are just getting going so we have a couple of months left on them. Apart from being great to snack on, raspberries are a lovely fruit for children to mash with a fork and stir into something they like like yoghurt, ice cream or porridge because they break down so quickly and colour everything bright pink. And don't forget Kate Hall's about freezing berries as snacks too, obviously being careful for choking for little ones. I'll put link in the show notes for her video about that.

Spinach is still in season, and although if you've been growing it you might find that the hot weather of midsummer has slowed it down a bit, commercial growers do keep it shaded enough to keep it going through the middle of summer. Spinach leaves are great to stir into pasta sauces or soups right at the end, they wilt down in seconds and can be a really easy and gentle way to add something green without a strong flavour. If your child likes smoothies then a handful of raw leaves in with the fruit often completely disappears into the mix.

Sweet corn is at its absolute best for the next few weeks. If you see cobs in the shops with the leaves around the outside, they can be fun for your children to learn about how they grow. Taking off the leaves and the stalk is called shucking. S-H-U-C-K, shucking. And there is an article on my website about getting kids involved with harvesting corn, but also with shucking corn from the shops. It's a really fun way to explore it.

Did you know that the little tassels that come out the top of the cob are where the cob is fertilised? Each one of those tiny little strands called silks connects to an individual kernel on that cob, which is why sometimes you get cobs with empty white kernels if the plant didn't get good fertilisation.

Corn on the cob is best cooked as soon as possible after harvesting because the sugars start to turn to starch as soon as they're picked, so beware of cobs in the shop that look old and dusty. Frozen ones are a better bet if you don't know how long a cob's been picked for. We get ours straight into boiling water for a few minutes right after picking them, but barbecuing them is also good for a nice smoky char. If your child isn't keen on the tinned kernels, the novelty of eating a corn on the cob with butter and nibbling like a big mouse might be enough to help them take a few bites.

Broccoli is still great through summer. Don't forget that as well as steaming or stir frying broccoli it stands up really well to roasting. If you cut it into small florets, toss it with a little oil and a pinch of salt and bake at a high heat for about 20ish minutes. It goes crispy at the edges and has like a nutty gnarly flavour. Sometimes children who don't like steamed broccoli can enjoy the roasted version.

We talked about summer squashes last month with all their unusual shapes and colours and they are a great kind of mystery vegetable for getting children curious. There are lots of great recipes out there for stuffing squashes and that can be quite a lot of fun. If you stuff a small one with a filling that your child likes as an individual portion, like bolognese or cheesy rice, then even if they more or less only eat the filling and hardly any of the squash, they will still have enjoyed the fun presentation of it being inside a squash and built some familiarity with the shape of the squash while they're spooning their filling, but even if not, it makes the meal a little bit more fun and different and the grown-ups can try the squash too.

Tomatoes are of course in peak condition now it's the height of the season. I did a whole episode last week on using up tomatoes so I won't go into detail here, I'll just link to it the show notes, but make the most of them, it's the best time of year for tomatoey joy.

Watercress is in season though too. It's got quite a peppery bite so it might not be a hit raw with every child but some children might be happy to literally just bite it as an experiment to see how peppery it is with a glass of water by the side to wash it down if they're not sure. They can even grade it out of ten for pepperyness. But for other people who can cope with a little bit of heat, a handful of watercress stirred into mashed potato, blended into a soup or mixed with cream cheese or egg mayo on a sandwich is delicious and it's an absolute nutritional powerhouse so definitely worth trying.

Okay, so that's the ones that are really abundant in UK gardens and farms. Now we've got some foods that can grow here, so gardeners who grow their own might have some and farmers markets and greengrocers might have some UK commercially grown ones but they are still more likely to be imported in your mainstream supermarkets because of the warmer climate where they come from.

So out of those, the first one up is aubergines. If you do spot British grown ones, they tend to be smaller varieties and sometimes different colours than the standard dark purple shiny version that we get that we recognise from the emoji. But the Mediterranean ones are in full swing now, so you should be able to get better prices on them. They are an acquired texture for adults as well as kids, but I like them best sort of melted down in a slow pan with oil and garlic and then stirred through pasta or blended into a dip like baba ganoush which is great with like pita sticks or toast or crackers.

Peppers are now also available from UK farms but are definitely more available and cheap in imported bags. The big family packs will have more reds and oranges and fewer green ones now so you can stock up. You can freeze pepper strips for cooking with later if you have too many. They are great for snacking, cutting strips for dipping like in the episode last week about summer snacks which I'll link to in the show notes.

And children are often really surprised to know that the green ones aren't a different type of pepper, they are just a red or orange pepper that hasn't ripened up yet. That's why they taste different and you might be able to get a curious child to try a bite of all three traffic light colours to compare the flavours and rank them in order of preference.

Figs are coming into their short but intense season, they do grow here and if you've got a tree in your garden or nearby then you will be picking from now through September. The ones we get in the shops in the UK are mostly from the Mediterranean or the Middle East and if you've only had dried figs before then fresh ones can really be quite a surprise. They're very soft, sweet and extremely juicy. You can eat them raw with ham or cheese or roast them with a drizzle of honey. You can eat the skins too if they're soft.

And then finally in this group is peaches. They are at their best now, soft and fragrant and sweet and coming towards the end of their outdoor growing. Biting into a juicy peach and the juice running down your chin is a glorious thing. A good way to help children explore peaches is to cut one open and let them look at the texture of the stone inside and how the different colours vein throughout the flesh and they can compare a slice of fresh peach to a tinned one and see which they prefer.

Anyway, so that's the roundup for August, full of flavour and one of the most generous months for fresh produce in the UK. So hopefully this gave you some ideas of things to pick up on this week's shop. You can get a full list from the link in the show notes or on one of our printables.

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!

Next week, like every month, I'll give you five family-friendly ways to eat some of these foods. I hope to see you on Thursday's episode, and in the meantime, happy eating!