Serving meals with a variety of different textures will help stimulate your child intellectually through tactile learning (playing, touching and eating), and physically (encouraging mouth, jaw and tongue muscle development), assisting in speech development. All this from food!
I encourage you to improvise with this recipe with whatever you have in your refrigerator and pantry. Substituting and exploring your way through a variety of wholefoods will help pique your families interest in mealtime.
Vegetarian Paella (serves 4)
- 1 leek, chopped
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 1/4 tsp chilli flakes (optional)
- 2 garlic cloves, peeled and grated
- 1/2 tsp fresh turmeric, grated
- 1 tomato, chopped
- 1 1/4 cups Arborio rice
- 1 green capsicum, chopped
- 1 zucchini, diced
- 1/2 cup sugar snap peas
- 4 cups chicken stock (reduced sodium)
- 4 spring onions, washed, chopped
- 1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley
- Zest of a lime
Heat a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil in a large frypan over medium heat. Add the leek and cook, stirring for 5 minutes or until soft. Stir through the paprika, chilli (if using), garlic, turmeric, and tomatoes. Add the rice and cook, stirring for 1 minute.
Add all remaining ingredients except lime zest. Bring to a gentle boil before reducing to simmer and cook for 15-20 minutes without stirring. Sprinkle with zest, parsley, and serve!
About the author
A beautiful visual content creator, Amie is also an Author of two children’s recipe books, Baby Pip Eats & Little Pip Eats, and also holds a B.Sc. in Food Science and Nutrition. Amie has over 15 years of experience as a food technologist for some of the world’s largest consumer goods companies and has also worked as a freelance food stylist and recipe writer for magazines, including the Australian Women’s Weekly, Gourmet Traveller and Good Taste
A career highlight for Amie was having the ability to use her varied talents internationally, working as a Food consultant in the USA with food retailers; WholeFoods, Trader Joes and Giant Eagle. On large scale labelling system implementation in accordance with the FDA and USDA regulation nutrition updates for 2020.
More recently, Amie has been involved in managing multiple small and large corporate food projects with more of an ethical purpose, including; Patagonia Provisions range, Cobram Estate, and a small Indigenous food based social enterprise start up.
Amie continues to use her Instagram feed as a means to inspire families to plate up healthy, economical and simple seasonal fare that everyone can enjoy.
