We have seen how important legumes are in children's nutrition because of their richness of proteins, hydrates, minerals and fiber. This, coupled with the shortage of fats and ease of access make them a pillar for healthy, balanced and cheap food. For children they are especially valuable, as they provide the basis for a good dietary education. But sometimes, to get introduce the Legume in children's diet you need to use some tricks.
However, not all children accept them easily, especially if we have made the mistake of not eating them at home, usually adults or not offering them since childhood. Or simply and simply because they don't like them. Our traditional cuisine has many dishes where legumes are the base, and are usually hot, hot and, on occasion, with too many meat and fatty additives. If the child does not like it, we must never force him, but we can make other equally nutritious preparations.
And there are other attractive preparations that include legumes and that will be our trick for children to eat them. Learning to prepare them will give us possibilities to use the legume in the diet in a habitual way without always making the same winter recipes.
The first thing is to keep in mind that the protein richness of legumes makes them unnecessary and even incorrect to follow them from a plate of animal protein, especially if we have seasoned them with pork products. It is better to complement them with vegetables and cereals and not abuse pork derivatives in their accompaniment or eliminate them completely.
A heavy plate of legume, with bacon and sausage, with hardly any vegetables, is not necessarily the food that best suits children's tastes or their nutritional needs. A girl tells you that she hated legumes in a pot but ate them in many other ways without questioning.
There are several possibilities for include legumes in the children's diet without making them heavy and boring. A bowl of soup with chopped vegetables and some loose legume between them, without being the main component of the dish, is a good way to put them on the table daily without making them a single dish.
Once cooked and washed, they can be used to prepare delicious hamburgers, especially tasty with black or red lentils or beans. I put the same as hamburgers meat steamed in milk, egg, garlic and parsley and I assure you that they are very rich.
I also make them, very fast, with the whole cooked legume mixed with flour and egg to make a dough, seasoning with dried onion, garlic powder and parsley or chives. It does not take anything and they are delicious.
Another way is to make croquettes, in that case I add them whole mixed with the very dense bechamel dough and with fried onions previously. To eat them I prepare a tomato sauce or a side dish.
We can also make falafels, which are made with the raw chickpea soaked, strained and passed through the crusher, adding garlic, cumin, raw onion, parsley and egg until obtaining a compact dough that we can fry or bake in the form of croquettes. It is accompanied with a sauce made with yogurt and cucumber very chopped.
In addition, and especially in summer, we can present them as an ingredient more than a varied salad with tomato, cucumber, lettuce, corn, pepper, carrot and whatever we like to add. The lentil, beans and chickpea enter the conjugate giving it a tasty touch.
As you can see there are many possibilities to introduce the legume in the usual diet of children and of the whole family, with some simple tricks that will give our dishes a colorful and rich touch and can adapt them to all tastes.
