Beef casserole for babies - recipe

Henry's very favourite food for dinner is Mummy's beef casserole. When he has it for dinner I literally can't get it in his mouth fast enough! While I'm filling up the spoon he's usually crying for the next mouthful, he loves it. Beef is really good for babies because of its iron content and my casserole also contains 9 different vegetables which are obviously great for vitamins too. I wouldn't even call this a recipe as such, I just put in whatever I have in my fridge at the time. I think this is the first recipe I've shared on my blog, hopefully it'll be of some use to other mummies. We get our meat from the butchers at our local farm shop and it is just amazing, it melts in the mouth. Our veg is also from the farm shop so it is organic and usually local too. If you want to make this for adults, the only thing I do differently is add a large glass of red wine before the stock and passata.

You will need:

150g Aberdeen Angus stewing steak 

Half a parsnip

Half a carrot 

A small piece of swede

1 clove of garlic

Half a red onion

Half a sweet potato

Half a medium potato

5cm piece of leek

A handful of green beans

300ml tomato passata

Half a litre of fresh stock or baby stock

1 sprig of fresh rosemary

2 bay leaves, fresh or dried

Black pepper 

1 tablespoon olive oil

Method

Dice the vegetables and meat into small pieces suitable for your baby's age. If you're going to totally purée this, don't worry too much about the pieces being too small. Finely slice the green beans, leek and garlic and chop the rosemary.

Heat the olive oil in a pan and add the beef. Cook until the meat is nicely coloured and then turn down the heat a little. Next add the onion, garlic, leek and rosemary.

After a minute or so, add the rest of the vegetables along with the passata, stock, bay leaves and pepper. Give it a good stir and leave to simmer gently for around an hour or until your meat and vegetables are well cooked and tender.

Remove the bay leaves and give it a good stir. Blend with a hand blender according to the age of your baby or not at all. Leave to cool and then serve or freeze for future meals.

This makes 8 portions for Henry but obviously it'll make more or less depending on the age and appetite of your baby. Keep an eye on the casserole while it's cooking and add extra water if you think it looks a little dry. I freeze individual portions in a silicone muffin tray and then once they're thoroughly frozen, pop them out into a ziplock bag to save space in the freezer.