Do you find it hard to eat enough vegetables each day? Or maybe you manage it yourself but you struggle to get the rest of the family on board? I know I do - I could definitely eat more vegetables myself and often spend far too much energy coaxing my children to eat theirs! In this fresh new year, I'm determined to improve my family's diet and I've taken the first step by signing up to Nairn's Naturally Energising Challenge.
The Naturally Energising Challenge is a six-week plan of videos, activities, recipes and action steps to help your family get active and lead a healthy lifestyle. It's packed with ideas and motivating tips using the Naturally Energising Philosophy - five simple steps to help keep you happy, healthy and naturally energised. The six emails contain a wealth of great advice from nutritionist Amanda Hamilton, helping you feed your family a balanced diet of 'real' food, from breakfast to packed lunches and dinner ideas and of course plenty of tips and tricks to help your family get their daily vegetables.
I've teamed up with Nairn's to try the challenge for myself, and I'm really enjoying it so far - there is so much great advice and there are plenty of delicious healthy recipes to try. We were sent some Nairn's products to try too - we already love the original oatcakes so it was great to try some of the other products - we're particularly loving the super seeded organic oatcakes, yum!
Last week I received the email for week 3 of the challenge, which focuses on vegetables and how to eat more of them. Included in the email was a delicious recipe for Aubergine, Tomato & Parmesan Oaty Bake, which I tried myself (and thoroughly enjoyed) - you'll find my video of that recipe further down this post.
There were also loads of great tips from Amanda to help you get more vegetables into your family's diet, some of which I've shared below:
10 Ways to get your family eating more vegetables
- Keep things interesting by eating a variety of vegetables - aim to eat a rainbow!
- Eat with the seasons - this is the easiest way to find a great variety throughout the year
- Don't try to get too fancy - locally grown seasonal vegetables are the best way to get maximum nutritional benefit without breaking the bank and you'll get just as much goodness in a good old British cabbage and blackberries as you will in kale and goji berries!
- Encourage an interest in vegetables by growing them at home - even a few herbs in a window box can help engage your children's interest in healthy food and cooking.
- Get sneaky - disguise vegetables in pasta sauces and team them with wholemeal pasta to fill your family with goodness.
- Try swapping potato mash for cauliflower mash or try cauliflower rice
- Get the kids busy in the kitchen - make a homemade pizza and add a selection of vegetables such as sliced peppers, cherry tomatoes, sweetcorn and mushrooms - I know my boys love creating their own designs!
- Make some simple vegetable packed soups and serve with oatcakes on the side - try my carrot and parsnip soup, pea and broccoli soup or sweet root vegetable soup recipes or the delicious protein packed tomato soup recipe you'll find in week 3 of the Naturally Energising Challenge.
- Serve chopped up carrot or cucumber sticks with oatcakes and hummus for a quick and tasty after-school snack.
- Try some new vegetable side dishes - you'll find lots of simple, delicious recipes in the challenge emails, including the aubergine bake below.
We tried the aubergine bake recipe that we found in week 3 of the challenge emails, and oh my word was it good! In the past I've sometimes struggled to enjoy aubergine but once you taste this recipe, you'll never look back! Cooked in this way, the aubergine melts in your mouth, and the combination of the crunchy oatcake topping with parmesan cheese is the perfect finishing touch - you won't be able to stop eating it!
I filmed the recipe while I was at it - check out the quick video recipe below (you can also get the full written copy of the recipe by signing up to the Nairn’s Naturally Energising Challenge):
If you have any trouble loading the video above, click here to watch it on YouTube, and don’t forget to subscribe to the Eats Amazing YouTube channel while you are there for lots more easy recipes, tutorials and fun food ideas!
Would you like more tips and recipes like these to help improve your family's diet? Why not sign up to the Nairn’s Naturally Energising Challenge to receive your free weekly plan, jam-packed with ideas and motivating tips using the Naturally Energising Philosophy. It's the perfect way to start the new year and get those new years resolutions up and running!
Grace
Disclosure: This blog post and recipe video was commissioned by Nairn's to support and promote the Naturally Energising Challenge. I was compensated for my time and the cost of ingredients, however all opinions expressed in this post are my own.
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