Baby: 0-3 months: Cooking

By now you might be starting to get sick of takeaways and microwave food. I hope this isn't presumptuous, but I would like to share with you a few easy recipes with your babies. You can prepare these when your baby is sleeping, and bung it in the oven half an hour before you need them, or, once your baby is a bit older and interested, you can put her in her high chair so that (s)he can watch you doing it all.

You need a good brand of packet sauce mix. I always use Coleman's but they seem to be dying out in supermarkets. Packet mixes are better than jars because they take up less space in your cupboards. You can make your own sauces of course, but that takes valuable time. You can also add anything extra you might want to your sauce, I often use gravy or tomato puree to thicken or sometimes garlic salt.

Good things to make include: -

• Lasagne
• Cottage pie (BEEF MINCE)
• Shepherds pie (LAMB MINCE)
• Tuna pasta bake

You can prepare all of these whenever you want, during your baby's mid afternoon nap, if you can't sleep, etc., and then you put it in the oven later, half an hour before you want it. 

The BEST place to get mince? Iceland. They sell 500g beef mince, or lamb mince, for £2.50. The beef mince is LEAN and you can COOK FROM FROZEN, so no pesky defrosting and forward planning.

How to make mashed potatoes.

Not to be vain, but I think I make pretty good mash. I think this is by doing it this way:
peel and cut up potatoes small, so that they cook quicker. Cook until flaky (also if you now put them in the oven it makes good roast)
Mash potatoes BEFORE you add milk and/or butter. It is more effort, but it is less lumpy this way!
Add things to it, splash of milk, butter, marg, garlic salt, cinnamon, basil, dill, whatever you want.

Invest in a slow cooker, or crock pot. Stews are wonderful, hearty and can use up all the spare bits and bobs you have lying around. You can put ANYTHING in your stew. Any meat you like (chunks) even mix meats, and potatoes and carrots, maybe broccoli, peas, or sweetcorn (these cook quickly, add later) Chop it all up when baby is sleeping, and put it on LOW for 4-5hrs, OR on HIGH for an hour and a half...You can add a nice thick gravy, or a nice soupy stock.

Soup!
Soup is great. It can stay in the pan for a couple of days, or in portions in the fridge for a week. I have tried freezing this recipe, but it didn't defrost well. This is MY soup recipe, you can add all sorts of different things to it, or make completely different soup, my point is, it's easy to do.
2x chicken stock cubes (standard for soup, if you're veggie, you can use veg stock.)
1x lamb stock cube (you can't tell it's lamb, but it makes a difference)

1L water (instead of the 1.5 that 3 stock cubes would suggest)
Dollop butter

Any herbs and spices you'll want, garlic salt, cinnamon, basil, sage....
(you can add onion, and/or 1 garlic clove per person, but we don't like onion, and I always use garlic salt instead of garlic)

(if your baby is weaning, DO NOT add salt or garlic salt, and they can have some)

1 large carrot

3 extra trimmed leeks

2 large potatoes, or 4 or 5 small potatoes

Leave on low heat for a couple of hours. You can't really overcook soup.
Blend
~*optional: cut a couple of chicken breasts into large chunks, and boil in a separate pan. Cut up 4 rashers of bacon and boil with chicken [this takes much less time to cook than the chicken] drain, and add to soup. Boiling the chicken instead of any other way keeps it moist and juicy. Keep the meat chunky, don't blend it*~
Serve with bread and/or a splash of single cream.

Nice and easy any anyone can do it! Hearty meals made nice and simple!