Please help! Meal ideas needed that baby can eat too (I am a rubbish cook!)

[BotBotticelli]

DS1 is now 8mo. I started weaning him at 5mo on purees and then started introducing finger food as well at 6mo. Since then I have tried to give him a mixture of food on a spoon and finger food at each meal. He likes both.

So for example for lunch today he had scrambled eggs with melted cheese which i spoon fed him, and then a few toast fingers and watermelon for pudding which he ate himself. I have also used the odd pouch of Ella's (now on stage 3) when we've been out all day and I havent got time to rustle something up.

Now he is fine eating lumps/textures and finger food as well, I want to stop giving him 'baby food' and basically have him just eating what we eat for dinner. I find this easy at lunch (see above), but am struggling with ideas for dinners, especially given that (a) I am a rubbish cook, and don't really enjoy cooking and (b) DS is a very 'spirited' baby which means I don't get much time of an afternoon for preparing a lasagne from scratch for example!

Can anyone suggest any good, easy hot meals which me and DH can eat, but which can be chopped up a bit and fed to DS the following day too? preferably involving some finger food options as well?

NB. we have dinner after DS is in bed at 7pm, and usually eat fresh vegetables but the meat/fish component of our dinner is usually something in a foil tray from the supermarket (like chicken wrapped in bacon with a creamy sauce or something)....i know these sort of supermarket dishes will be too salty for DS but I am not sure what to cook instead never have been much of a domestic goddess

Any ideas gratefully received!

Things that we find easy and all the family like are toad in the hole, spag Bol, carbonara, korma, etc.

I'm not much if a cook either but over the years I've tried to collect a collection of easy recipes. In the winter the slow cooker really helps too

Thanks JJJ...I have been wanting to cook DS sausages so like the toad in the hole idea. But have been worried about the salt content of sausages, especially the horrid chipolata types that children are likely to prefer. Any recommendations on brand?? Or should I not worry too much? Xx

We just try to use good quality ones with a high meat content. Never bothered looking up the salt content but I'm sure it will be on the packet and might even be on the website, if you use a supermarket.

How about pasta and meatballs? You can do things like curries or chilli and just add natural yoghurt to LOs to cool it down.

Mild fajitas are a winner here too

Omelette/frittata?

Macaroni cheese is nice and chompy and recycles well

Spag bol is great although my little one spits out the mince once he has sucked the sauce off

Cottage pie

Stews are also good - I tend to strain most of the liquid off. I never worry about stock cubes as I use a quality one and never add more salt.

Why don't you write down a list of your favourite tray meals and then we can try help you come up with a homemade version?

If you do use stock cubes, most places now sell low salt ones.

Why don't you write down a list of your favourite tray meals and then we can try help you come up with a homemade version?. Great idea pear.

Our favourite go to meal is turkey enchiladas.

Fry chopped onion and peppers in large pan, add 500g turkey mince and cook for 10minutes. Add 3-4 tbsps red or green pesto and mix through. Add some cheese if desired. Stuff into tortilla wraps and roll up then place in 2 baking trays. Top with grated cheese or a tomato based sauce. Freeze one for another day and bake the other for 15 minutes in the oven at 200degrees. We normally blitz Ds's in blender until lumpy and give him some loose tortilla to eat as finger food too.

We also do meatballs with grated apple, pesto, beef mince, garlic and breadcrumbs. Steak pie which has been simmered for hours until the meat crumbles. Chicken as it is with pasta shapes. Filled pasta (e.g ravioli, tortellini). Quesadillas, pitta pizzas, omelette fingers, potato skins.

mine loves chicken risotto with a bit of lemon, creme fraiche and/or cheese. Sometimes throw in peas or sweetcorn after (DP and I don't like it). Look online for an oven baked risotto recipe as saves a lot of hob time

Meatballs

Lasagne chopped up/roughly blended

Thought you might like this thread started by another trainee family cook

Faye Ripleys family recipe book has great, quick and easy meals in it, plus she tells you in a foot note how to make it baby friendly.

We had the risotto cakes from it for tea today and I froze the extras for DSs lunch another day.

I often make 1 dish tray baked stuff which is really easy.

Eg chuck chicken thighs (bone in and skin on) in a roasting dish with a selection of veg cut into baby-manageable pieces (all sorts of things work here, halved new pots / sweet pot sticks/ carrot sticks / fennel strips are among our favourites) plus some whole, unpeeled but bashed cloves of garlic and perhaps some thyme or rosemary. Slosh in some olive oil and mix it all together then roast at 200 ish for about 45mins. Our 7 m/o seems to enjoy the leftovers cold the next day.

Or you could do a more ratatouille type roast veg ( aubergine, peppers, courgettes) perhaps adding some salmon fillets at one end of the roasting tin about 15 mins before the veg are cooked?

There's a Nigel Slater lamb chops recipe in the kitchen diaries which works in a similar way: potatoes garlic tomatoes aubergine rosemary, roast for half an hour, stick oil-rubbed chops on top, cook another half hour, job done!

As you can tell I am a big fan of variations of roast veg!

Thank you so much guys! Some brilliant ideas there :) I think I need to chill out a bit about the whole salt issue....I have been feeling like I need to make everything from scratch and have been scared to give DS shop bought pesto, ravioli etc etc but I think I need to be realistic about what I am prepared/able to make myself!!

That's a good idea about the tray bakes meals, thank you! We tend to eat:

Chicken en croute (in pastry with creamy sauce)
Chicken wrapped in bacon with asparagus
Fish (Cod I think?) with a white wine sauce
Meatballs in a spicy tomato sauce.

Reading that list back now, I guess I could make all of those things....just need to find some recipes and stock my cupboards up. Before DS was born we were one of those couples whose fridge was full of wine and strong cheese and and not much else, so this is all new to me!!

Well if you do fresh veg and potatoes with your tray meal just substitute a piece of fresh meat or fish for the tray. Salmon, cod, chicken will all cook nicely in the oven (wrapped in foil) without any attention from you, perhaps brush with some pesto before cooking or cook with mushrooms or tomatoes in the foil. Easy and tasty - then just add the fresh veg and potatoes you were going to do anyway.

Shop bought pesto and fresh pasta should be fine, well I hope so anyway because I've never made either from fresh

How about just taking things easy and aim to do 2 meals next week? You can buy ready made meatballs and a tomato sauce should be easy enough to do, you could even make double sauce and freeze half.

I am a rubbish cool but have enjoyed making a lot of the recipes in the baby-lead weaning cookbook by Gill Rapley - very simple.

Many of my favourites have been mentioned above. Also like to do chunky chilli can carne and beef and onion stew.

I am a rubbish cool but have enjoyed making a lot of the recipes in the baby-lead weaning cookbook by Gill Rapley - very simple.

Many of my favourites have been mentioned above. Also like to do chunky chilli can carne and beef and onion stew.

I'm a rubbish cool to willow. So uncool you'd hardly believe it

Autocorrect failure

This book has been invaluable to me for the last couple months.
I consider myself an ok cook, but not creative at all. All the meals I've tried out this book are lovely, proper family food, no need to alter anything and perfect acceptable for dinner guests as well.

Think the only problem I'd have with that book is that I can't stand AK Loupee but glad you like it

Bot how about this with some steamed veg and new potatoes?

Forgot to say, bought this book recently from the works for £3.99. We all love the recipes and its good for a trainee family cook as it includes things like mealplans and shopping lists

Haha, not a fan of AK here either. This book was given to me a while ago, and I had ignored it until recently. It is purely a recipe book, no weaning 'advice' or making funny faces out of food etc.

Oh god she just does my head in. Every baby I know who was weaned the AK way is fussy. To be fair dd was a blw baby by her choice, total spoon refuser, so she's not a great advert for that either. But every baby being fussy? Think her methods and her sickly sweet advice just suck. To quote that modern philosopher Bart Simpson "how can something suck and blow at the same time"

Thanks for all your advice ladies. So I tried DS on some leftovers this lunchtime and it was an abject fail!!

Last night DH and I had merguez sausages, couscous, roasted veg and sour cream dip. So I diced up a little bit of the sausage (only a couple of inches of it, cos its quite strong flavoured) and some of the veg, mixed it in with some couscous and put it in the fridge overnight. Came to lunchtime today an tried to feed it to DS with some of the sour cream dip. He hated it! Pushing it all out with his tongue, and crying actual tears! (Which are usually only reserved for times when I leave the room a a strangers house!).

I am not normally one to offer alternatives, but I couldn't have him literally eating no lunch at all ( he was grisly and hungry), so I grabbed the nearest things to hand in the kitchen, a hot cross bun and some cucumber sticks and have him those instead.

He ate the whole hot cross bun by himself, which made me feel stupidly proud!! He looked like such a little boy sat there munching on it and picking the sultanas out with his newfound pincer grip

I guess maybe the spicy sausage and sour cream thing was a step too far for him?! Am going to tesco tomorrow so will try to plan some more plain meals like the ones above, which hopefully he will like!