Tonight I made a chilli con carne for mine and Nathans tea, I decided to put some mince meat aside to make Thomas a cottage pie. I was a little worried about making him a cottage pie as when I am cooking a cottage pie for us I put oxo in and oxtail soup to give it an extra meaty flavour. Although I am not keen on adding any salt into Thomas’s cooking so I put off making him a cottage pie…Until tonight. I tried out a new way of cooking cottage pie without using any tinned soups or stocks as these often contain salt.

Below I have listed the ingredients and written a step by step account on how I made the Cottage pie. Please note I haven’t gone into detail with measurements for the ingredients as I am not really one for measuring and weighing things, it all depends on how much you want to make. I made a medium sized pan amount tonight which I scooped into individual amounts and froze – Although I will say that I will try to use all the meals within 1 month of freezing them.

Ingredients:

• Mince Meat
• Onion
• Button Mushrooms
• Plum Tinned Tomato
• Tomato Puree
• Potato
• Water
• Red Split Lentils

Cooking Cottage Pie:
Dry fry the mince and onions in a pan, add 2 x plum tomatos from a tin and stir also adding the mushroom and 1 x tablespoon of tomato puree. Wash and peel the potato’s cut them into cubes and add them to the sauce pouring in approx 1 x cup of water. Bring the pan to the boil then cover and allow to simmer for 30 mins.

Wash the lentils in cold water, rinse and cover with boiling water – Cook on the hob for around 15 mins until soft. Drain then add the lentils to the cottage pie.

Allow to cool then blend to the desired consistency using either a hand held or jug blender. If you are refrigerating the pie then use within 24 hours, alternatively you can spoon the mixture into individual containers and freeze for up to 1 month. I find freezing Thomas’s meals really useful, when I put him to bed at the end of the day I usually clean his bottles etc and pull his dinner and tea out of the freezer for the next day and put them in the fridge.

I hope you  find my cottage pie recipe useful, if your worried about salt and using tinned foods in your babies food like I am then this recipe is perfect for you and your little one. The tinned tomatos I do use In Thomas’s cooking are 100% tomato nothing else added, its worth reading the back of the tin as some tinned tomatos include herbs.

This dish is bursting full of vitamins and minerals for your little one, you dont have to add the lentils, although I did to give the cottage pie an extra boost of protein.