Hienz cook at home sauces, are they any good?

[DustyTV]

Saw them in Asda yesterday and wondered if anyone had used them. DD is BLW and I thought about giving her some pasta with either the cheese sauce or tom and basil sauce.

I've given them to dd a couple of times, they are a little bland, but stuff could be added.

Dd liked the tomato one with grated cheese on top with her baby pasta.
Also used the gravy ones with her dinner cos I'm shit at making gravy.

but cheese sauce is dead easy to make, ditto tom sauce. Both freeze too, or you and dh can eat the rest.

I the same with cheese sauce I am crap at making it and DD loves cheese.

Thanks, I think I will pick a couple up next time I am shopping just to have in the store cupboard.

X post MrsBadger, how do you make cheese sauce? I can make tom sauce but I'm a bit wary about what to put in it.

Make your own instead?

It's piss easy. And the good thing about babies is that they don't care about the lumps

cheese sauce
melt a spoonful of butter in a saucepan
add a spoonful of plain flour
stir till it forms a smooth non-sticky paste (a 'roux') that looks like soggy marzipan
cook for a couple of minutes
measure 3/4pint milk into a jug
add milk to pan a little at a time, stirring madly each time.
add as much grated cheese as it takes to taste cheesey
done
keeps in the fridge for a week, or freezes well

What are you wary about in the tom sauce?
onion, garlic, celery, carrots, tomatoes, tomato puree, teaspoon of sugar (if needed), balsamic vinegar, oregano, basil, black pepper all fine for babies.

Thanks MrsBadger, I'll give that a go.

Most of that is what I usually put in a tom sauce, well apart from the sugar, but I wasn't sure if DD could have all those bits and bobs. Thanks for letting me know.

no worries

after 6m it's easier to list what they can't have (honey, added salt, choky things like whole grapes, allergicky stuff if you are allergicky) that what they can.

My DD LOVES garlic so we put quite a bit in her tom sauces...

MRS B - can you tell me how to cook that Tom sause pls.

I already make the cheese sauce for cauliflower cheese and my dd loves it

Do you have any other easy recipes for babies?

I add in peppers, courgettes etc to the tom sauce, the children don't even detect them and it gets loads more veggies into them

I stick mushrooms in too

And stir in some cream cheese sometimes.

Molly, it's not a 'baby' recipe at all, it's our normal no-meat pasta sauce.

You finely chop the onion, garlic, celery and carrot and fry gently till soft in a little olive oil (this is a good place to sneak in other veg as CoV suggests - grated courgette it nice).
Add tinned tomatoes and some tomato puree, and dried oregano and/or basil if you like.
Cook for at least 10min or till reduced to the texture you want.
Taste and add black pepper, sugar and/or balsamic as required. You can blend it if you like but the veg should be pretty soft already.

It goes v well with meatballs made out of good sausages squeezed out of their skins, rolled into balls and fried - just add them to the sauce at the end.

Thanks mrs B, will be cooking that for the family later!

Sounds easy enough for me to master, I'm only just starting to cook homemade food since dd was born and I'm finding I'm really enjoying creating things from scatch, which I never thought I would.

So I'm always on the look out for simple, tasty recipes.

My dp loves the new way of cooking, he's really into casseroles etc.

Sorry to gatecrash about something completely irrelevant, but Edie I've left a message for you on the other thread!!!