“If you don’t eat your peas you won’t grow up big and strong like Harry Kane”
“Serena Williams eats all her meatballs”
If you show me a mum who hasn’t used a little gentle blackmail featuring a child’s favourite sports star to make him or her scoff all their dinner, I’ll show you a unicorn. And that persuasion has never been more pertinent than now, with children eating worse year on year – a staggering 70 million children worldwide now suffer with obesity. They’re eating less fresh vegetables, fruit and fish and more fat and sugar, and my two are no exception: they’d eat Nutella with added chocolate sprinkles for every meal if I let them. Yep, feeding our kids healthy food is a tough challenge!
That’s why appliances company Beko have launched Eat Like a Pro, a global initiative to help parents around the world feed their kids healthier food.
As a premier partner of world-class football team FC Barcelona, Beko know exactly what the top players in the world need to eat daily to perform at their best, and they’re harnessing the hero power of these top-notch sportsmen to make healthy food seem exciting!
To prove that healthy food can be fun Beko asked me to pick a weeks’ worth of recipes to enjoy with my own kids. We were challenged to pick our favourite meals from their huge selection and see how we enjoyed them. We happily obliged and went shopping for our ingredients for the Delicious Defence Smoothie, Spaghetti Meatball Cups, Vegetable Frittata, Banana Bread and Poached Eggs in Avocado Boat. Here’s how we got on…
Delicious Defence Smoothie
Starting with the Delicious Defence Smoothie, I decided to whip up this lovely juice for the kids’ breakfast one day. Chock full of health and flavour – it features pineapple, apple, cucumber and mint – both children guzzled this down before asking for more (I didn’t give them more, I drank it instead ? ).
Banana Bread
We are a family of Banana Bread lovers and this one in particular was delicious! Different to the recipe we usually use, this one called for an extra banana on top which made it look fab, and tasted delicious when it was caramelised. Top marks from my banana fan family: this whole loaf only lasted a day.
Vegetable Frittata 
I’ve always loved a Frittata for lunch: quick, easy and filling. But this one takes my humble Frittata to a new level, as it requires only oven cooking and is full of my favourite veggies. Loved it, and one batch kept me going for four day’s worth of lunches.
Spaghetti Meatball Cups
This was the children’s favourite and left them thinking that I was some kind of culinary genius (which I am, obvs ;). It was a really wonderful and different way to serve pasta to them in a way they really enjoyed: you simply cook the spaghetti as normal and then oven bake in a muffin-tray with some cheese until crispy. The easy meatballs are then served in each cup with a splash of passata. Simple!
Poached Eggs in an Avocado Boat
Brunch foods are the best foods, and this poached egg and avocado dish was no exception! I served mine sans chees and with basil instead of coriander for more of an Italian feel, and with a generous scattering of sea salt on my lovely oozy poached egg. Healthy, filling, delicious!
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To celebrate Beko’s Eat Like a Pro initiative I’ve joined forces with AO.com to give away a Split & Cook electric oven, worth £370. All you have to do is head over to this post on Instagram to enter, and you can view the Terms and Conditions here. Good luck!
Thank-you to Beko and AO.com for working with More Than Toast