Joanne Roach (00:13)
Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. Today's episode is the March instalment of our monthly roundup of five straightforward family-friendly recipes that use the fruit and veg that are in season right now in the UK. The point of this quick list is to take away a bit of that mental load with deciding what to make for dinner, while at the same time giving you some easy family-friendly ways to incorporate more seasonal fruit and veg.
March is full of hope and a little bit of sunshine, and although we still want some of those warm comfort foods on the cold white sky days, we also want some reminders that warmer days are on their way and something a little bit lighter and greener on our tables too. If you want a full rundown of fruit and veg to buy in March, then head over to episode 80 where I gave a fuller list. But here I've picked out three family meals, a dessert and a snack that can use that March mix of late winter and early spring ingredients. So let's get to the recipes.
My first meal idea is to make the most of this season's thin-stemmed purple sprouting and green broccoli in a pesto pasta meal. In my roundup of seasonal foods I pointed out that purple sprouting broccoli changes from purple to green when it cooks, especially in water, and this can be fun for kids to watch and help to decide when to stop cooking, when it's still purple or waiting for the change to green. Pesto pasta can be a great background for this because you have the very simple pasta with a jar of pesto as that base meal, and while that pasta is cooking, you can use a little bit of their after-school energy to engage your child with checking on the broccoli, steaming or even boiling in the pasta water and watching it change colour. It's just a few minutes of input and then you take the broccoli out and then you've only got the pasta and the pesto to finish off.
On the other hand, if you don't fancy this familiarity activity right now or you can't get hold of the purple stuff, then tender stem or regular calabrese broccoli will work just as well. And if you like the broccoli and pesto combo idea, then another way to include broccoli into a pesto meal is to blend it into the pesto itself. It works really well. I'll link in the show notes to one recipe where the broccoli is separate and one where the recipe blends the stems into the pesto but uses the florets in the finished meal which is a really good way to help children about minimising food waste.
Finally, if you're lucky enough to get hold of any wild garlic while it's in season, I'll also link to a recipe for wild garlic and purple sprouting broccoli pesto pasta. So you've got a few options there for your basic pesto pasta but adding in some broccoli goodness.
My second main meal idea is cheese and leek jacket potatoes but using cream cheese as a shortcut to make a quick sauce. If you want to engage your kids in this recipe then they can help with the leek prep to pop all the rings or half rings out so they cook quicker and they can help with stirring the sauce together at the end before piling it back onto the potatoes. If you want some pictures and instructions for kids to follow this, I have a recipe on my website for cheese and leek pasta, which has all the same sauce preparation, but it just uses pasta instead of a jacket potato. I'll link to that as well as a recipe for the jackets version which cleverly uses garlic and herb cream cheese with the leeks to make the taste more complex, although obviously if your child isn't yet comfortable with herby flavours you can use plain cream cheese and some grated cheddar for now or a mix of the two. You can of course use vegan cream cheese if you don't eat dairy and it would work just the same.
My last meal idea is a very simple assembly meal but with one seasonal component on the side that you can engage kids with. So the main meal is something you know your family enjoys and is an easy cook convenient staple such as some sausages, some battered fish, a piece of chicken or a vegan alternative alongside some easy oven or air fryer potato wedges or whatever easy potato your family prefers. So that's a fairly easy convenience meal. And then for a seasonal component on the side, a quick carrot and orange sunshine salad to use two seasonal ingredients but also add bit of sunshiny brightness to remind us that we're one season closer to summer. The carrot salad is a great way to get kids involved in a very small quick way because they can either grate some carrot or use a peeler to peel long strips of carrot on a chopping board and this is the basis for the salad. Then you're just adding orange juice and zest which they can also help with if they want to and a little olive oil to help it coat. And then you can put in any other additions you like such as nuts, sultanas or herbs or just as it is with the carrot and dressing is lovely. They can help to toss the carrot shreds or strips in the dressing and it's a really quick way to get them involved in dinner while the main element and the potatoes are just in the oven or air fryer. This is a reminder that the whole meal doesn't have to be seasonal, just a little seasonal element gives variety through the year.
So that's the three main courses. For dessert this month, we're going to use the brilliant all year round staple that is a fresh pineapple. These are pretty cheap in the shops and while they are imported they're usually harvested green and shipped rather than flown and right now while there isn't much local fruit around it's nice to explore them. The dessert idea I'll link to is a really simple recipe using fresh pineapple and a mint sugar which you can use to get kids involved in making if they want. Depending on their age and skill, they can also get involved in prepping the pineapple and that will also build their familiarity. Or if you don't have time for prepping a fresh one, you can also use a can of chunks in juice and just drain them and use the crushed mint dressing on those. Either version can be eaten on its own or put with some vanilla yoghurt or vanilla or chocolate ice cream.
The snack idea for this month is a chocolate banana milkshake using another all year round staple of bananas, but adding in some nut butter and cocoa to make a rich tasty filling milkshake. If your child can't eat nuts then a seed butter is fine too or just leave it out. Or you can replace the nut butter creaminess with a quarter of an avocado if you have a blender. And that avocado swap also works if your child finds banana flavours overpowering, you can just take the bananas out. You can of course use plant milk if you don't drink dairy. I'll link to a recipe with nuts and bananas in the show notes and you can alter your ingredients to suit. It's a really nice way to have a snack in drink form and it's great after or before an after school activity.
So that's my roundup of five seasonal family food ideas for March. I'll put the links to example recipes in the show notes so you can find them easily. And as always, if you give one a try, I'd love to hear how you get on. I'll be back next month with another set of seasonal ideas and I hope to see you later in the week for another episode. But in the meantime, happy eating.
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