The Startwell recipes are designed to be healthy, simple in method and cooked on a budget. They are also very versatile as they can be used in various ways; they can be used with children for cooking activities in setting and at home, they can be sent home for families to try and they can even be used as part of your menus.
The Startwell Family Recipes and Startwell Cooking with Children recipes should be linked to the Startwell Characters to extend children’s learning. Please note that the serving sizes for the Family Recipes are based on adult portion sizes and not children’s portion sizes. If you are cooking with children please reduce the quantity you make so that children will be eating the correct amount in line with our Micky Me Size message.
Here is our spotlight recipe for March and how it can be linked to the Startwell characters and St Patrick’s Day.
Spinach Cornmeal Bread
Celebrate St Patrick’s Day (17th March) by making Soda Bread with the children. Our Spinach Cornmeal Bread is a healthy twist on this traditional bake as it includes vegetables and cottage cheese. Children are more likely to eat what they have helped to make so this is great activity to encourage children to eat vegetables. It can be linked to St Patrick’s Day by using orange peppers in addition to the Spinach and Spring Onions/cottage cheese as these colours represent those on the Irish flag.
For a traditional Soda Bread recipe visit Soda bread recipes – BBC Food
Here is how you can link recipe to the Startwell Characters and some extension activities:
Sammy Skills
Here are the range of skills you can develop with the ingredients used in this recipe:
- Peppers – chopping and deseeding
- Spring onion – chopping
- Flour, cornmeal and margarine – rubbing to form breadcrumbs
- Eggs – cracking
- Cottage cheese – spooning
- All ingredients – mixing and pouring
Fay 5 a Day
- Talk about the different vegetables that will be used in this recipe
- Can the children name them? Have they tasted them before? Which one is their favourite? Which one are they excited to try?
- Talk about the different colours and shapes e.g. spring onions have green tips and white bottoms
- Talk to the children about how the frozen spinach appears different to fresh spinach and show them examples.
- Explain to children that Fay 5 a day wants us to eat vegetables because they protect us from getting poorly
Micky Me Size
- Explain to children that we need to eat the right amount for our tummies.
- Show the children different sized baking trays and that the amount of mixture poured onto the trays should match the size of the tray; e.g add too much mixture to the small tray and it will spill off the edge.
- Explain that it is very similar to our tummies, if we serve too much we are not going to be able to finish our food
Extension Activities
- Ask the children what other fruits and vegetables are the same colours as the Irish flag
- Make up fruit kebabs or salads using fruit and vegetables that are orange, green and white like the Irish flag
- Show the children where Ireland is located in the world using an atlas or globe
- Play the children clips of traditional Irish folk music and dancing and get them (and the practitioners) to dance about to the music
- Talk to the children about how the raw mixture changes textures and form when it is cooked
