Veg-Packed Tomato Sauce, served in my Halloween Quesadillas

Halloween is a great time to have some fun with food, which is important if your child is anxious around meal times and a fussy eater, it can distract them and they might try something new and enjoy it.

We are advised to eat 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day. I prefer to look at the whole week for my family and clients. I recommend 20 different plant-based foods, all different colours, raw or cooked, during the week. This means there is a better chance of them getting all their vitamins, minerals, polyphenols and fibre to keep them healthy. Plant foods include fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, lentils, beans, grains and spices.

 This can be overwhelming for some families, to make it easier most of my recipes I share include a variety of plant foods so please follow me on social media or message me and I can guide you with recipes and meal plans.

 Children have good days and bad days, they are super unpredictable with food choices. So if we focus on the whole week we don’t beat ourselves up if they have a couple of bad days eating very little veg or the day ends up packed full of treats. It’s normal, they are children and you have the rest of the week to top up with plant food.

 When I work with parents I never want them to feel pressured and certainly not aim for perfection. I am helping your child to slowly build healthy habits that hopefully will be maintained throughout their life.

 I recommend parents take each day at a time, never aim to high and celebrate the little wins.

 Some children struggle with vegetables in their natural form. Please keep trying to introduce vegetables, always have a plate in the middle of the table that the whole family can help themselves to. At the same time you can grate some carrot or courgette into your child’s favourite bolognaise or shepherd’s pie recipe.

 I have created this tomato sauce recipe for you packed with lots of vegetables, for the whole family. You can make a big batch to freeze, depending on your child’s age this sauce is yummy for:-

 ⭐Weaning

When your baby is ready to introduce more complex combinations, this makes a great puree for them to dip vegetables in or coat around some wholemeal pasta.

 ⭐Toddlers

Would love this as a dip or coated around pasta too, or why not also add it to mince beef to make a Bolognese or add it to a pizza base.

 ⭐Family meals and older children

It makes a yummy soup, pizza or pasta sauce, add to a favourite curry or beef/bean chilli recipe, it also goes nicely with meatballs.

As it is Halloween this week, I used the sauce when the kids made these fun Halloween Quesadillas, they got to create some scary faces🎃

Sauce Ingredients

 1 Leek, sliced

1 Carrot, small dice

1 Red Pepper, de-seeded, diced

1 Courgette, diced

3-4 Mushrooms, sliced

75g Cherry tomatoes, halved

70g Frozen sweetcorn

50g Frozen diced butternut squash,

170g Cauliflower florets

2-3 Garlic cloves

1tbsp Tomato puree

1x 400g Pasata

500ml vegetable stock or just water

Olive oil

Optional you can add a pinch of fresh or frozen chopped herbs (basil or oregano)

Ingredients for quesadillas: wholemeal tortilla, grated cheese of your choice, veg packed tomato sauce

Method

Start with your veg preparation, you can either do this by hand or a food processor.

Wash and trim the leeks, carrots, mushroom, cherry tomatoes and courgettes, deseed the peppers (there’s no need to peel them), then chop it all. Peel the garlic and finely chop by hand.

Put a large pan on a medium heat with 2 tablespoons of oil. Add the leek and garlic, fry for 1 minute, then add all the prepped veg.

Cook with the lid on for 25 minutes, or until the veg are soft but not coloured, stirring regularly.

Pour in the tomato passata and stock, and stir.

Simmer for 25 minutes, or until the sauce has reduced. Add any chopped herbs at the end.

Leave to cool a little, then blitz until smooth and allow to fully cool before you freeze.

For the Quesadillas, turn the oven on, set to 180oC. Grab 2 wholemeal tortillas, on one tortilla, you or your children can cut out a Spooky Halloween face 🎃.

On the second tortilla spread over 1 tbsp of the sauce and sprinkle over lots of grated cheese.   

Place the Halloween tortilla face over the top, make as many as you like.

Place the Quesadillas in the oven and cook for 5-8 minutes until the cheese is melted and tortilla is a little crispy.

Serve cut up into smaller portions, enjoy!