Need ideas for meals to freeze for 13 month old & lunch ideas

[babycat]

Getting stuck for ideas on what to give dd to eat. I keep relying on jars which I'm not keen on and work out expensive. Feel I need to spend some time cooking up a batch of stuff to put in freezer as standbys when she can't eat the same as us, e.g. if it's too spicy or salty. Also need ideas for lunches.

Soup - usually add chunks of bread to mine once its heated to make it easier to feed/more filling
Shepherds Pie - just ad a drop of gravy once its defrosted/cooked
Chicken/beef stew
Boil in the bag cod in butter/parsley sauce

Cant think of anymore at the moment - sorry

pasta sauce - tomato, onions, garlic - you can either puree or leave as is if lo can tolerate texture. then just freeze in batches and add some fresh pasta the night before nursery.

risotto - my dd1 loved this at that age, until unfortunately her nursery banned hot rice dishes on the basis of bacteria or something

lasagna - freezes ok, cut little portions up and store in tubs or bags etc.

also, i use greaseproof paper (good freezable stuff from Lakeland) to freeze small portions of food, wrap them up and put them in a container. mainly as i don't trust nasty plastic.

lentil soup, and any soup really, as geordie suggests.

for desserts - apple puree frozen in small batches, then thaw out and add to natural yoghurt. even little homemade cakes/muffins etc seem to freeze ok and just wheel one out and let it defrost when needed.

Thanks geordiemacminx.I do make soups occassionally and give her Shepherd's pie and stews when we have them. Do you make your own boil in the bag cod in sauce or buy them? I'm really paranoid about salt content of a lot of bought stuff.

Generally, just cook extra of whatever you are having, and freeze baby-portions.
I cooked a sunday lunch today, and froze it in little batches - roast potatoes, sweet potatoes, veg, stuffing, chicken and gravy.
currently we have in the freezer:
spag bol
minestrone soup
fish in sauce
lamb casserole (look at the baa-lambs!)
curry with rice
If you get into the habit of making extra, it makes lunchtime so much easier..

Thanks lilipup. x-post. You've got some good ideas there. What's your lasagne recipe, I usually buy bought sauces .

Good idea to make extra ratbunny, only thing is when I do that dh usually just eats more!

we get around that by me doing the serving p, and popping the extra into little freezer bags before dh can get to them
Or else saying, are you stealing food from your son?!?!

My dd loves "red lentil savoury"

Red lentils, potatoes, carrots, parsnips - boiled in veg stock and then mashed down with some grated cheese. She loves it

Ratbunny, just noticed curry was one of your ideas. Dd will eat some spicy stuff and I never shied away from spicy stuff when pg and bfeeding but what do you put in it? Is it quite mild? Does it have a bad effect on ds nappies?

the curry was so mild that I could hardly taste it - just, literally, a pinch of cumin, coriander and turmeric. he loved it, and no effect on nappies at all - in fact, I think we could do 2 pinches next time
We love spicy things too - we are slowly working ds up to the jalapenos

TillyScoutsmum, red lentil savoury sounds nice, similar to one of the Plum baby pot recipes we sometimes have so I think she would like that and looks easy to make.

Ratbunny, I've given her spicy lentil soup before and that has a pinch of cumin, coriander, tumeric and ginger in so might try a curry made similarly with some chicken and that would freeze ok.

I have a good book - finger food for toddlers and babies by jennie maizels. I dont actually cook anything from it, but it's good for ideas.

You can do fish in milk- takes minutes in the microwave. Get your fishmonger to make sure it is well-filleted. Then you can add cheese, or there is a recipe I used to use which has crushed cornflakes with fish- sounds horrid, I know, but actually tastes good!

Pasta is always good for lunch in this house- you can make various sauces and freeze them- good way to get veg into them! Unfortunately, mine won't eat pasta sauce now!

Have to admit that we use boil in the bag fish as a quick tea for ds - usually with mashed potato, pasta or some bread chunks - I'm not 100% certain on the salt content but I'm not overly concerned about salt in things - I dont add salt to anything, and anything that he has that is processed - gravy, fish etc he only has a small amouth once or twice a week.

You can add a pinch of cumin, corainder etc to the red lentil savoury as well, if you like

A nice easy (a.k.a. lazy ) one for us is to boil/steam a bag of frozen veg (broccoli, carrot and cauli is good) and add a cheese sauce and then mash/puree as needed. Its the peeling and chopping veg which drives me mad so this one appeals

or you can microwave a potato, take out the insides and mash it up.
lazy mash!

Thanks everyone. TillyScoutsmum I could make some cheese sauce up to freeze and then use that on veg, pasta or fish I s'pose.

For some reason she's not too keen on potato unless its mixed up with other stuff. Don't think she likes the texture very much.

lasagna recipe really simple - use either meat mince or quorn mince (my lo likes either), and just make a pasta sauce - fry onion and garlic, add mince, can of toms, tom puree if you want, basil, and some other veg like peppers, carrots. then make a white sauce - melt butter, add some flour, stir for a minute, then add milk gradually to make a thickish white sauce (can put in a bay leaf and some nutmeg to flavour if you want). then layer your lasagna - pasta sauce, lasagna sheets, white sauce etc, topping with grated cheese. dead easy, and all together really doesn't take very long.

also, my lo loves red lentil soup - just fry onions, garlic, add red lentils, can of toms, some stock or just plan water, carrots and some sweet potato if you want, herb like basil, cook for half an hour or so. serve with grated cheese and bread.

Will try your lasagne recipe lilipup. Think I can manage that and could make extra tomato sauce to freeze and use with other dishes.