Tasty, gourmet cooking isn’t just for grown-ups and doesn’t need to be complicated, with two Invercargill children proving their cooking smarts.
Brother and sister duo Charlie, 12 and Eden Selman, 14, are on a mission to show Southland families that playing around with food in the kitchen – specifically the humble carrot and parsnip – doesn’t require too much effort and the results are delicious.
A Southland carrot and parsnip grower, So Sweet have introduced So Sweet Kids recipes as a way to get children and families interested in cooking by teaching them how to prepare carrots and parsnips in more ways than just steaming or roasting.
As the face of the campaign, Charlie and Eden were featured in the first So Sweet Kids video recipe, teaching others how to make a carrot and coriander salad.
“If two kids can do it, then any family out there can too,” Charlie said.
In the coming months, So Sweet Kids will produce an index of family-friendly recipes featuring So Sweet produce.
“It’s nice to be a part of the process of getting dinner onto the table,” Eden said.
“Even though the recipes are easy to make, they’re not things you’d usually think of preparing for dinner – and they’re super yummy.”
“It makes for a nice change to the way we usually eat vegetables,” Charlie said.
So Sweet managing director Matthew Malcolm said it was great to partner with Eden and Charlie.
“As a company we are very much family and value driven and getting great heathy food onto family tables is important to us,” he said.
“Having it done by children shows how easy and fun it can be.”
In addition to sharing the kid-friendly recipes, the company was also keen to demonstrate its commitment to sustainability through its practises and organic principals.
“The demand for organically grown produce is really growing, and we’re definitely part of the movement to make the whole industry more sustainable by not only our operating practices but by producing organic vegetables, ” Malcolm said.
“Organic parsnips and carrots are something we’ve always done but we want to up the ante in our sustainability efforts, so we’ve put more time into developing our organic crops to make sure everyone in the community has access to organic produce.”