James and Paul's Mediterranean Halloumi Traybake

James and Paul’s Mediterranean Halloumi Traybake

James and Paul (Two Chubby Cubs)

Featuring:

Beans & pulses

Courgette

Tomato

Effort:

Complexity:

Cost:

In season now

Serves: 4

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 45 mins

Ingredients:

8 vegetarian sausages

1 onion, diced

2 courgettes, diced

4 tomatoes, diced

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp ground turmeric

1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 × 400g (14oz) tin of chickpeas, drained

200g (7oz) halloumi cheese, sliced

1 tbsp chopped fresh basil

Veg Portions / Serving: 3

TwoChubbyCubs Fast and Filing: 100 Delicious Slimming Recipes by James and Paul Anderson, published by Yellow Kite

Method:

Heat the grill to medium-high.
Brown the sausages under the grill, turning regularly, then set aside to cool and slice (don’t worry if they’re not cooked all the way through).
Heat an ovenproof pan over a medium-high heat and spray it with a little oil.
Add the onion to the pan and cook for a few minutes, then add the sliced sausages and cook for a few minutes more.
Add the courgettes and tomatoes to the pan, along with the salt, turmeric, cumin, cayenne pepper and chickpeas.
Simmer over a medium-high heat for 20 minutes. Meanwhile heat the grill to medium-high again. Lay the sliced halloumi on top of the mix and place under the grill for a few minutes until golden. Sprinkle with the chopped basil and serve.

Smart swap

If you’re partial to a meatier sausage, pork ones work well instead of veggie ones.

Engaging Kids

Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.

Kids in the kitchen

Let the kids help you carefully add items to the pan and lay the halloumi on top. Get them sprinkling the basil over at the end.

Find more ideas, safety tips, videos and even a free chart in our Kids in the Kitchen section here.

Master these skills:

Washing hands, Tasting, Mixing

More about Kitchen Ninja Skills

Activities

Why not try making a 3D courgette piece of art? Keep a real courgette in front of you for inspiration. Scrunch up some newspaper into a courgette shape then cover with a piece of green paper, adding a little glue to hold it together around the newspaper courgette shape. Add a little more detail by using lighter green strips of paper or a pen to add some “stripes” and/or cutting a little top from green paper or painting a bottle lid green to be the little “cap” on the top!

Find loads more free veg-themed crafts here and games here.

Sensory

Explore courgettes using sight by getting a whole courgette (if you can, get a green and a yellow one to compare colours) and having a few slices, too. What does the whole courgette look like or remind you of? What does the slice look like? Use your imagination and descriptive language to explore.

Find more sensory ideas, tips and videos here. If you get stuck and need a little help with describing words, we have a selection for you here, too!

Serving

Why not suggest to your child helping lay the table and even create a fun centrepiece, maybe with all green objects to reflect the courgette?

Find the best ways of involving your own child and their skills and interests on our Roles for Kids page.

James and Paul (Two Chubby Cubs)

James and Paul Anderson are the duo behind the enormously successful slimming blog @twochubbycubs, which has over half a million online fans. They lost 18 stone between them and went on to share their journey with the world. Their tasty, easy recipes prove that it is possible to lose weight without sacrificing your soul and you can actually have a laugh whilst you're at it. Their first cookbook became an instant Sunday Times bestseller, an Irish bestseller and one of the most popular cookbooks of 2020, with over 3500 5* reviews.

twochubbycubs.com/

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