Beef Hot Pot

Another great one to share with everyone, even if baby’s version does look a little like cat food! I promise it doesn’t taste like it, as far as I’m aware! Again, you can substitute ingredients for those in your fridge if you’d like, and change the herbs, flavourings as desired.

Ingredients:

extra lean beef mince

leeks – chopped

sweet potato – half cubed, half sliced

parsnips – cubed

water

flour / cornflour

thyme

grated cheese

Method:

Add a little unsalted butter or low fat oil to the pan and fry off the leeks, sweet potato cubes and parsnips.

Remove from the pan and fry off the mince until browned all over. Pop the thyme, dried or fresh, over the mince.

Add the vegetables back to the pan.  Sprinkle everything with a little flour or cornflour and stir in.

Cover everything with hot water until the vegetables are just submerged, then cover with a lid (a piece of foil will do!) and leave for at least 20 minutes. The vegetables need to be soft. If you’re not sure, stick a knife into one of the biggest pieces to check.

Once cooked, baby’s dinner is now ready.

Baby:

Depending on which stage of weaning you’re at, either use a hand blender to mush baby’s portions until smooth, or simply mash with a fork. You can then freeze in individual portions.

Grown-Ups:

Steam or briefly boil the sweet potato slices. I popped mine in the microwave with a little water for a few minutes.

Crumble a beef stock cube into the meat and vegetables pan and stir through. If you like it spicy, either add some hot smoked paprika or a few chilli flakes.

Transfer the whole mixture to an oven-proof dish and cover with overlapping sweet potato circles. Grate cheese on top if you’d like.

At this point, you can leave to cool and freeze if you’d like or pop into an oven ay 180 degrees for about 25 minutes as everything is already hot and cooked through.

Or you can refrigerate it over night: I made one on Saturday to eat on Monday evening. To reheat, pop into a hot oven (180) covered, for about 30-40 minutes, then uncovered for the cheese to brown for the last 10 minutes.