Lamb couscous for the whole family

This is a great recipe if you have leftovers from a roast dinner. You can use chicken or lamb - our Easter lamb roast was reinvented as this yummy lamb couscous that fed the whole family. You can leave the pieces of meat large if you are doing baby-led weaning, or else chop them finely if you are spoon feeding. The lamb will be really tender when cooked in liquid for 15 minutes.

I used a normal vegetable stock cube because the Little Man is 12 months old now, but you can get low-salt baby stock cubes that work well too, although the grown-ups might want to add a little salt to their own plates.

Lamb couscous

Leftover lamb or chicken, diced
1 onion, finely chopped
1 can of chopped tomatoes
100g dried apricots, diced
2 cloves of crushed garlic
1 red pepper, chopped
1/2 litre vegetable stock
Pinch of ground ginger
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp paprika (optional)
Ground black pepper
1/2 cup couscous per person
1 tbsp chopped fresh mint

Add the meat, vegetables, tomatoes, stock, spices and seasoning into a large saucepan and stir gently until it comes to the boil. Turn the heat down and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Add the couscous and cook on a low heat for 5 minutes, until the couscous has absorbed all the liquid. Add the chopped mint and stir.
Serve to the whole family!

Wednesday Tip

Keep a supply of tinned chopped tomatoes in your cupboard. They are virtually salt-free (0.01g per 100g), healthy, inexpensive, and they make a fantastic base when you only have a few bits and bobs in your fridge. You can add pasta, vegetables, cheese, or anything you like and either puree it or leave it lumpy for older babies.

Image by Flickr user: Stefan Alforn

Mum's multi-coloured beans

I was standing in the supermarket recently, holding a can of Heinz low salt, low sugar beans when I thought, "Beans should be more interesting than this." I have a policy with the food I feed to my baby that if I wouldn't eat it, neither should he.
So I had a little look around the tinned beans isle and found a tin of mixed bean salad in water. It cost less than a pound and had a mix of about five different beans, along with sweetcorn, green beans and chickpeas. "Let's make our own baked beans!" I said to the Little Man, as he chewed on the trolley handle.

This was the result:

Mum's multi-coloured beans

1 can mixed bean salad
1 can chopped tomatoes
Grated cheese
Finely chopped ham

Simply mix, spoon out a portion, heat and serve with some fingers of toast!

For younger babies you could miss out the cheese and ham and blend up the mixture, or else fork mash it.

For variation try spreading some hummus on the toast, or else add in some fingers of cucumber for crunchy freshness.

What was the Little Man's verdict? All gone! (Although the toast fingers mostly went overboard). The yoghurt, pear and banana pieces went down well too. I've got five more portions saved in the freezer and it only took a couple of minutes to make. It tastes so good the Grownups had some as a side salad later on!

[Added] Look out for low-salt ham and cheese at the supermarket as some brands can have a very high salt content. For more information about how much salt babies and toddlers need, check out the NHS guidance.