hidden veg

Lasagne

~ Kate ~ 1 Comment


Finally a lasagne recipe that Bert likes (the squash and beef lasagne was a dark day). Here he is eating it in our new camper van – in the drive, where else?

At bedtime, with great excitement, he counted on his fingers all the things he’d done in it – climb ladder, play [with] Dad, eat sweet, have wee. Why bother leaving the drive? All of life is here.

Serves 4-6 (half for the freezer)

For the meat sauce:
1 small onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Dessert spoon butter

Splash olive oil

1 large or 2 small carrots, grated

2 sticks of celery, finely chopped

500g minced beef

500g minced pork

1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes, then half the can of water

350g passata

1 beef stock cube

1/2 teaspoon mixed spice

Salt and pepper to taste

For the cheese sauce:

1 smallish leek, finely sliced

2 dessert spoons butter

2 dessert spoons flour

500ml whole milk

Salt and pepper to taste

180g strong cheddar, grated

For the lasagne:

About 9 sheets dried lasagne

Fry the onion and garlic gently in the butter and oil, adding the grated carrot and chopped celery and cooking slowly till soft – 10-15 minutes. Add the meat and cook till it’s browned, then stir through the tomatoes, water, stock cube, spice and seasoning. Bring to a rapid simmer, turn down and cook gently for 2 hours.

Meanwhile, melt the butter for the cheese sauce and fry the leek on a low heat till very soft and silky – about 15-20 minutes. Then blend with a stick blender. (If you don’t have a toddler you could leave it as it is, but there’s nothing that invokes Bert’s deep suspicion more than a strand of unexpected green.) Add the flour and cook gently for a couple of minutes, then gradually add the milk, stiring well, till you have a thickened sauce. Stir in half the cheese till it’s melted. Taste and season. The addition of leeks is a Jamie Oliver thing and it does give the sauce a bit of extra sweetness, as well as giving you an extra veg in there. 

To construct the lasagne, start with a quarter of the meat sauce, then a quarter of the cheese sauce, then three of the lasagne sheets (depending on the size and shape of your dish). Repeat two more times and make sure, at each stage, that the pasta’s completely covered with sauce. Finish with meat sauce then cheese sauce then top with the rest of the grated cheese. Cook at gas mark 5/ 190 degrees for 45 minutes, cooling for about 10 minutes out of the oven before serving. Add salad or veg sticks and you’re at 6 or 7 of your 10 a day!

 

 

Chickpea and tomato macaroni

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Bert breakfasted as a fireman, shopped as an astronaut and dined as a builder.

If I’d ever wondered what it was like to be famous, walking down a shopping street with a tiny astronaut would have given me a clue. Nearly everyone stared, smiled or stopped to talk. Bert was muttering to himself under his helmet ‘look me! I spaceman!’ 

Not every man can carry off a silver jump suit.

Serves 2-3

1 small onion, chopped

A little olive oil

3 cloves garlic, peeled but left whole

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

2 sticks celery, chopped

400ml passata

1 x 380g can chickpeas

Salt and pepper

2 tablespoons single cream

Macaroni to appetite

This is based on a Nigel Slater recipe but I rarely make a tomato sauce without adding extra veg. I had mine with green salad (Bert mimed being sick) and we both had grated cheese on top.

Gently sauté the onion in a little olive oil. Add the garlic, carrots and celery and cook till the onion’s transparent, then tip in the passata (or tinned tomatoes, if you prefer). Bring to a fast simmer then turn right down and cook on a gentle heat for an hour to an hour and a half.

At the end of the cooking time put the pasta on to boil. Puree the sauce and add the drained chickpeas and cream, seasoning to your taste. Heat through for five minutes then stir through the drained pasta.

If you don’t have a blender, you could finely chop the onion, crush the garlic and grate the veg.

Serve with grated cheese and green leaves (bleurgh).

  

 

Five-veg bolognaise

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Today after nursery me and Bert made elaborate train tracks, played ‘Mum is going to sleep’, a game of Bert’s devising where I was tucked up with a blanket, had a story read to me (‘oh! Poor fox. Lost socks. Found hat!’) and was left to read to myself with the light off. (Oh, if I must!) We then snuggled up to watch Tom Hardy cuddle his dog and read the CBeebies bedtime story.

There is such a thing as a perfect day.

He filled his new Fireman Sam boots with wee though.

Serves 4-6

400g minced beef

200g chestnut mushrooms, finely diced to match the size of the mince

1 onion

1 red pepper

1 courgette 

1 stick celery

1 tin tomatoes 

2 dessert spoons tomato paste

1 teaspoon marmite

1 beef stock cube

1 teaspoon chopped rosemary 

Salt

Pepper

Pinch cinnamon 

Good grating nutmeg

This is 5:2 diet recipe, but it’s got loads of veg in, and with Peppa Pig pasta shapes (the creators of Peppa Pig must be richer than J.K. Rowling) and grated cheese it’s ideal for small firemen who’ve lived off chocolate coins and sausages for the last month.

The original recipe (in Mimi Spencer’s book) dices the veg, but I couldn’t face Bert querying each individual piece and asking ‘what’s that mum?’ a hundred times, so I puréed it and the whole thing just looked like a regular Bol. On a non-fasting day you could fry the meat in a knob of butter or add crisply fried chunks of pancetta. Minus the meat it’d make a good veggie bolognaise for veg-averse toddlers too.

Fry the meat and mushrooms in a spray of oil (or knob of butter) till the meat’s well-browned and starting to crisp and caramelise in places. Meanwhile, blitz the veg in a blender (or finely dice them). Add to the browned meat with the tinned tomatoes, tomato purée, marmite, stock cube, seasoning and herbs and spices. Bring to a good boil, turn down to a simmer and cook for at least half an hour, ideally an hour and a half. 

Serve with pasta and cheese, or, if you’re 5:2ing, a small portion of pasta and some corgetti. If you are a fellow 5:2-er, a quarter of this, 50g (uncooked weight) brown pasta and half a bag of courgetti is about 350 cals.

Easy and cheap leftover lamb and lentil ragu

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img_6799

Today Bert had a play and a picnic lunch with Fearne, one of his nursery gang and his general partner in crime/ muse. When she picked up a green frisbee that he wanted to wear like a hat he threw a wooden toy at her head. He sobbed, refusing to say sorry, even though she was kissing his hand and offering him the frisbee back. Half an hour later he was wrestling her to the floor and trying to opportunistically convert the situation into a kiss.

In the car he cheerfully claimed that it was ‘nice seeing Fearne.’

That’s the hidden dynamic of most romantic relationships for you, right there.

Serves 4-6 generously

200g leftover roast lamb

75g dried red lentils

200g roast veg – either frozen and ready to cook, or leftover

1 can of tomatoes

1/2 can of water

Salt and pepper to taste

Finely grated zest of half a small lemon (so a G&T later!)

A spring of rosemary, leaves removed and finely chopped (for me this is a balance between how small I can be arsed to chop it and the knowledge that if it’s visible, the whole meal will be rejected).

Chop the lamb fairly small and add it to a casserole dish with the lentils, roast veg, tomatoes and water. Don’t season it yet. Bring it to a boil then put the dish in a slow oven (gas mark 1-2) for around four hours.

When you’re nearly ready to serve it, bring it to the hob while you cook some pasta, mushing the veg into the sauce, adding the lemon zest and rosemary and checking the seasoning and liquid. (It may not need any salt if the lamb and veg were already seasoned, it may need a little more water or to reduce further.)  I did it with the grated zest of a whole lemon and it was too citrussy, so I’d not go too large on the zest.

Serve with pasta and grated parmesan cheese.

Baked pork, courgette and pecorino meatballs

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meatballs

I’m no longer a ‘hidden veg’ believer – I’d rather Bert learned to enjoy them than have to sneak them in. It seems to be the texture that babies and toddlers object to anyway, not the taste – anything crunchy, slimy or containing strands is spurned. Anyway, the veg in this appear to be hidden but that’s because the recipe works out that way, not because I’m hiding them, honestly.

Served 3

300g minced pork

1/2 courette, coarsely grated

A good grating of pecorino – maybe about 30-50g

Salt and pepper to taste

A lot of olive oil – a good 2-3 glugs

1 small onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 carrot, grated

1 stick celery, grated

1 tin of tomatoes

1 dessert spoon tomato puree

A splash of water from the pasta you cook to go with the meatballs

Salt and pepper to taste

1 bunch parsley, chopped

Pasta and grated parmesan to serve

Combine the meat, courgette, percorino and salt and pepper. Form into little balls (walnut sized seems to be the generally accepted measurement), put on a lined baking sheet and cook in a hot oven (about 200 degrees, or the second rung up in the Aga roasting oven) for 12-15 minutes, till they’re starting to brown.

Meanwhile, fry the onion and garlic in the olive oil and add the grated carrot and celery. Fry it gently for a good 5-10 minutes – you want it to be melting into the oil. Then add the tomatoes, tomato puree, seasoning (Bert seasoned ours – perfectly actually, thanks Bert) and another splash of oil. Cook for 5-10 minutes, then blend to a puree. Add the cooked meat balls to the sauce and simmer while you cook the pasta.

When the pasta’s done, stir a little of the pasta water through the meatball sauce (this gives it a creamy texture) and add the chopped parsley to the sauce. Serve with your pasta (the sort of pasta shape that holds sauce well) and grated parmesan.

I think Bert has molars coming through at the moment so I don’t anticipate getting much sleep, but at least everyone’s belly is heavy with carbs.

Pulled pork, tomato and sage ragu

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I was a bit stuck on what to do with our glut of sage and my sister suggested the sage and tomato combination. This was lovely.

porkragu

Served 1.5 of us for three meals

500g diced pork (a slow cooking cut like leg or shoulder)

1/2 tin of tomatoes

2 grated carrots

A bit of olive oil

300ml passata

Good handful of sage leaves, chopped

1 onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

Fry the onion and garlic till soft, add the grated carrots and cook for another couple of minutes then add the pork to the pan and brown. Stir the tomatoes, passata and sage through. Bring to a fast simmer then put in a low oven (140 degrees) or the bottom of an Aga simmering oven with a lid on for 4 to 5 hours. After its long, slow cook the pork will just pull apart into the sauce. This is great if you’re lucky enough to be at home with your baby rather than at work, as it needs so little prep – you just bung it on at lunchtime. Or you could do it on the Sunday and have easy meals for three nights in the week.

The first night we had this with pasta, parmesan and salad (because everyone knows how much babies love salad). Tonight we had it with four-veg mash* and peas. Bert rejects cooked peas. He eats them frozen from a small bowl on the kitchen floor. Don’t ask me. Babies are eccentric, lawless creatures.

I’ve topped the ragu with the mash in an ovenproof dish for a Shepherd’s (Pigkeeper’s?) Pie tomorrow. I’ll grate a bit of cheese on top and put it in the oven (180 degrees or the middle of an Aga roasting oven) for 30 minutes.

* 1 sweet potato, 4 carrots and 1 potato, cut into chunks and boiled till tender, 1 sliced onion sauted in butter till brown and caramelised, an extra knob of butter. Mash the veg with the butter then stir through the buttery caramelised onions and season.

Shepherd’s pie

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sheppie

This shepherd really likes to hide veg in his pies.

Serves 3.5 – 4.5

400 diced lamb

200g minced lamb

3 carrots, 1 sweet potato and 2 sticks celery, all coarsely grated

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Glug of olive oil

1 dessert spoon tomato puree

1 dessert spoon Worcester sauce

1 dessert spoon plain flour

1 beef stock cube

300ml hot water

400g potatoes

Knob of butter

1 leek, sliced

100g Cheshire cheese, grated

1 dessert spoon butter

Fry the onions and garlic in the oil till soft, then add the meat to brown. Stir through the grated veg and cook for five minutes, then add the flour and cook for another minute or two. Pour in the boiled water and add the Worcester sauce, tomato puree and crumbled stock cube. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer on a low heat or in a low oven for 2-3 hours.

Boil the potatoes for 15-20 minutes till soft. Meanwhile saute the sliced leeks in butter. Mash the potatoes with another spoon full of butter then add the cheese and the leeks. Pour the meat sauce into an ovenproof dish, top with the potato mixture and cook at 180 degrees (or the middle of an Aga roasting oven) for about half an hour, till the little peaks of potato are brown and crunchy.

Potato topping and sweet potato in the sauce – we’re really going in carb-heavy at the moment. Anything to avoid sitting up in bed at 3am while a baby repeatedly slaps you round the face and laughs his head off. The grated sweet potato does make the gravy thick and tasty, too.

Spag bol

~ Kate ~ 1 Comment

bol

My standard bol recipe used to include red wine, salty bacon, milk and sometimes chopped chicken liver. Sounds a little voodoo when it’s all written down and it was a bit too intensely savoury for a baby. It also involved finely cutting up loads of stewing steak. When you’ve just got a small amount of free time in a day, spending most of it cutting up meat is less appealing.

Serves 6 (we had 3.5 for dinner and leftovers for lasagne)

500g minced beef

300g minced pork

1 onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves chopped

1 carrot, diced

1 stick celery diced

leaves from a spring of rosemary, finely chopped

glug olive oil

500g passata

200ml boiling water

Low salt beef stock cube

Grinding of pepper, grinding of nutmeg

2 bay leaves

Fry (or ‘sweat’) the onions, rosemary and garlic in the olive oil, adding the other veg and cooking for around another 5 minutes. Transfer to a large saucepan or casserole and brown the meat in batches. Add to the veg and then pour over the passata and water, crumble in the stock cube and season, tucking in the bay leaves. Bring to a steady boil and then cook in a very low oven (140 degrees or an Aga simmering oven) for around 3-4 hours. You might need to bring it onto the hob at the end to reduce it a bit.

Half moon chicken pasties

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pastie

A bit more sun-like when they’re coated in egg wash, in fact.

There’s something very satisfying about this; using up leftovers and doing the sort of cooking that you watched your mum do when you were little – rolling out pastry, sealing pies, brushing on egg wash.

This is one of those dishes that is far greater than the sum of its parts.

Makes 16 bite sized pasties

1 sheet puff pastry

Leftover chicken stew

1 egg, beaten

Flour for rolling

Roll the puff pastry out thinly and cut into small circles – I used a tea cup. Place on a lined baking sheet, floury side up (otherwise when you egg wash you get into a claggy mess of flour and egg), and put around a teaspoon of stew into the middle of each. You need to be relatively stingy with the stew to keep them neat. Brush egg in a circle round the outside rim and seal them into half moon shaped pasties. Brush the top with egg wash and pop them in a hot oven (200 degrees) for 15 minutes, till puffed up and golden.

I had mine with a leafy green salad. I showed Bert what a salad leaf looked like for future reference.

Cheesey greens pasta

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cheeseygreens

Serves 1.5

Enough pasta for 1.5 – we had about 140g

1 dessert spoon plain flour

1 dessert spoon butter

250ml whole milk

100g parmesan, grated

Handful fresh mint, finely chopped

Black pepper

Mixture of greens  – we had half a head of broccoli, a handful of baby spinach and a few leaves of bok choi

100g cubed pancetta, fried in olive oil till crisp (optional)

Put the pasta on to boil, adding the florets of broccoli when there’s around 7 minutes to go and the finely chopped leafy greens with just one or two minutes to go. Shred them both ways, as long strands will be treated with disdain.

Melt the butter and stir in the flour, then gradually add the milk till you have a thick white sauce. Stir in the mint, cheese and black pepper.

Combine the sauce and pasta, adding the pancetta for any die-hard meat eaters. Salt yours, particularly if you’re not adding salty pancetta.

There’s a rumour going round that babies love over-cooked broccoli. Not this one. I ate all ours, but the green and cheesey sauce was eaten with relish.