It is sometimes hard to find recipes for delicious and healthy meals for toddlers and children. One of the meals here on our rotating menu that our children love is Mexican Pinto Beans. We serve it on millet with carrot sticks and grated cheese on the side. The beans themselves can be served however you want - for example on nacho chips, tortillas, or rice. Sometimes we top with coriander and herbs from the garden or in a home setting you may like to add chilli. This recipe is fairly forgiving - you can switch the potatoes with kumara or play with other flavours.
Ingredients
6-7 medium potatoes, boiled
1kg pinto beans (4 1/2 cups)
1-2 bottles of tomato passata
1 jar of tomato puree
1 tsp of cinnamon
2 tsp of ground coriander
Handful of fresh coriander
2 tsp of paprika
2 onions
4 cloves of garlic
2 tsp of vegetable bouillon
1c lentils
Salt to taste
Method
Serves: Makes enough lunch for 50 children in our centre. In a home setting you can halve the amounts and pop some in the freezer.
We get our organic beans dried in bulk, so make sure that we get them soaking the night before so that they're ready to cook the next morning.
Cook soaked beans for 1/2 an hour.
Fry onions, garlic and spices.
Blend potatoes, onion mix with one cup of the tomato passata
Add mixture to pinto beans in a large stock pot
Add all other ingredients
Simmer on low for 20 minutes
Serve with cooked millet
We have a special chopping board just for our onions and garlic. The Oma Rāpeti lounge always smells amazing when these are frying.
Millet cooks like you would cook rice.
From the bottom right going clockwise; cinnamon, coriander and paprika
