Baby Bites Steak and Lentil Cottage Pie

This is an absolute family favourite at our house and particularly with our little weaning one.

Whilst she does love her finger food, this is a great chance to encourage her how to use a spoon too - and serving with some vegetable spears such as asparagus and baby corn, mean she can dip them in and still have a selection of fun finger foods too.

I only use 200g lean steak mince and 150g red lentils plus all of the vegetables and this makes enough for two cottage pies plus two small ones so this is a very economical meal too as well as being a bit healthier than a traditional cottage pie.

Also with the gravy - if you have all the time in the world to make one from scratch - perfect. Personally I use Bisto, and find no shame in this.

 

Here's how:

• 200g lean steak mince
• 150g red lentils
• 1 onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 carrots
• 3 sticks celery
• 3 tbsp frozen peas
• 500ml gravy - made to your preference
• 200g white potatoes (I use Desiree) 
• Black pepper
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 30g hard cheese (I use Cheddar)
• 3 tbsp olive oil

Firstly peel and wash the potatoes and put them on to boil and pre-heat the oven to about 180 degrees.

Now finely dice the onion and crush the garlic add to a pan on a low heat with a spritz of cooking spray.

Now peel and chop the carrot and slice the celery and set aside.

Once the onion has begun to soften, add the meat to the pan and move around using a spatula or wooden spoon until it has browned all over.

Once brown, add the carrot, celery and lentils and cook in the juices from the meat for three or four minutes whilst you make up the gravy.

Now pour over half of the gravy and add the frozen peas, dried thyme and a pinch of black pepper at this point too. Try not to be tempted to add salt at this point if possible - the gravy will have a salt content and you and your partner or any other adults sharing the meal can always add salt when eating.

Give a good stir and leave to bubble away for twenty minutes, adding more gravy if it becomes too dry.

Test to see if the potatoes are soft enough to mash with a fork and if so, drain, shake away excess water then return to the pan and place back on the heat for ten seconds giving the pot a good shake to remove any leftover moisture.

Now add the olive oil and mash. Add a pinch of salt here too for seasoning. Once nicely mashed set aside for the moment.

Once the meat has been cooking for twenty minutes, remove from the heat and spoon half into an ovenproof dish. I like to do Bridget's in a separate dish so also use a ramekin for her which is the perfect size and two tablespoons of the meat mixture is sufficient. The remaining meat I put into a plastic dish ready for freezing. (Obviously allow this to completely cool before placing into the freezer to avoid it ruining the rest of the food in the freezer!)

Now spoon on the mashed potato onto both dishes use the back of a spoon to press it down slightly. Once evenly distributed all over, grate over the cheese onto both dishes, and use a fork to crimp to give it that classic look once cooked.

Now leave to stand until you're ready to cook or place into the oven and cook for 35-40 minutes or until nicely golden brown. 

Serve with your choice of vegetables.

Baby Bites - Cheesy Sweet Potato Mash

From six months old in the weaning game, almost anything is fair game with a few exceptions. Part of the fun here is introducing new tastes, flavours and then eventually textures, so to start with, we had simply mashed individual root vegetables. The sweeter varieties such as parsnip and sweet potatoes were particular favourites, but I've read that in order to not give your little one too much of a sweet tooth, it's vital to introduce more savoury tastes around this time too.

You can mash together almost any root vegetables but Bridget really loved the combination of swede and parsnip and carrot with parsnip. Also I started the weaning process a little earlier than six months so at this point we may have been a little more adventurous than if you're just starting out.

One of the first foods I gave to Bridget with protein in, was this Cheesy Sweet Potato and it has since become a firm favourite.

For ease and organisation now I’m back at work, I make up a batch and pop into little pots in the freezer so this makes up 3-4 portions.

2 smallish sweet potatoes or 1 big one
30g cheese, we use Cheddar or Red Leicester

This is the easiest thing to make - simply bake the sweet potatoes in the oven for 30 minutes or until the inside flesh is soft and yielding.

Remove from the oven and then remove the inside flesh and pop into a bowl, using a fork or a masher to fully mash. Sweet potato is such a lovely soft and smooth texture when baked which makes it perfect for little ones even before the arrival of teeth.

Grate in the cheese and fully mix and then divide between 3-4 pots and if serving a portion right away, allow the potato to cool enough first.

When using a ‘frozen’ portion, I remove from the freezer in the morning and allow to defrost first, then simply pop the pot into a bowl of boiled water to warm.

The 10 Cases

I went for a last minute Saturday night dinner a few weeks back with my parents and my brother Daniel, and avoiding the huge queues everywhere, we stumbled upon The 10 Cases on Endell Street, somewhere I’d never been to, or even heard of.

It’s a small space and was packed to the rafters, with just one tiny table left at the back that the four of us crowded around. We were greeted by a friendly waiter who took our drinks order and left us to ponder the menu.

It’s very dark in The 10 Cases and there’s certainly a buzz in the air from the many people, the excitable Saturday night chatter from the varying groups of friends and couples who were the predominant diners on this occasion.

We had all selected what we fancied from a small, elegant sounding menu, but it was to be another fifteen minutes before our drinks were brought to our table, despite being within touching distance to the bar – not a great start.

We chose some bread, pork belly carpaccio and some olives to start; all simple but all executed well. The pork belly slivers were greasy, but packed full of porky flavour and were lovely with the fresh, crusty white bread and butter. The olives were tasty – not my favourite Kalamata, but instead, plump green and juicy little fruits of deliciousness. Please do excuse my photography as it was incredibly dark and lit by candle only – hopefully you can get the gist of things though!

We’ll start with the positives. My dad, Les had opted for a special of Pollack on a bed of vegetables. Whilst this was taking simple to a new level, it was a perfectly cooked piece of fish, with very little added flavour wise. Not something to set the world on fire, but perfectly edible.

Daniel and I both opted for the crisp pork belly option. I have to say the pork belly was cooked well, the skin was beautifully crisp and crunchy, as it should be, and the meat was cooked well, if a little lukewarm. The accompanying red cabbage was lovely too, it had an almost pickle-like taste to it with the perfect balance of acidity with sugary sweetness and was lovely. The bad point of these plates (aside from not-hot meat) was the mashed potato. It was bad. Aside from being almost cold, which is frankly a sin; the mash was overly salty and had lumps throughout, really not pleasant at all.

The final dish of our four, was the worst of the bunch- a crab linguini. I simply don’t know where to start on this, my mum, Vicky, has a reputation amongst our family as being a little fussy when eating out, so when the plates arrived it was a collective inward gasp of horror around the table. Unfortunately due to the lighting my photography really doesn’t show what a dismal looking plate of food this dish was. Aside from swimming in grease, which upon tasting, appeared to be butter, there was very little other flavour to this dish. Lacking in crab, lacking in seasoning and lacking in any kind of oomph – oh dear.

We had some Chenin Blanc between my mum, Daniel and I, and my dad chose a couple of beers and all of this came in around the £130 mark, which, given the standard of food, I was seriously unimpressed with.  

The 10 Cases brags to be ‘unpretentious with wine as its main focus’, I can certainly see this. I would certainly return for a glass of wine here, as I have said the staff were friendly, the atmosphere was lively, however would I return for something to eat? I think not.