Toddlertastic Crunchy Pasta Bakes

Flexible recipe suitable for all ages – dial down the salt for babies. Just blend!

Pasta bakes are great dishes for fussy eaters as you can blend in a myriad of unattractive vegetables in the sauce, and put the pretty ones on show! You can make lots of different versions of this recipe using a vegetable sauce, or white sauce (below).

Save time by making double quantities and freezing one (pre-baked) for next time. Use aluminum foil cooking dishes from the supermarket for your frozen future dinner – just remember to defrost in your fridge and not your microwave!

If doing the vegetable sauce, you make up a very thick blended veggie soup for the sauce. I use 1/2 leek, 1 parsnip, 1 potato, 1 handful of cauliflower florets, and 100 ml  cream. Start by gently frying veggies in saucepan, add boiling water, some herbs, simmer, then blend and add cream. You can also use my Secret Seven Soup if you like tomato sauces.

The Coup D’etat according to my kids is the crunchy topping. Which is….drumroll…. blitzed breadcrumbs, dash olive oil, Italian herbs and grated cheese sprinkled on top and crunchified in the oven. The crunchy topping shown above is yellow as it uses home-baked corn bread, get me!

As this is a “guess-ecipe” all measures are approximates.

For the white cheese sauce:
large knob of butter (approx 50g)
75g flour
900ml milk
1 bay leaf
tsp wholegrain mustard
seasoning (easy on salt)
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
100g grated medium cheddar cheese (save tbsp for crunchy top)

Melt butter in saucepan, add flour, stir vigorously for 1 minute. Stirring with a whisk continuously so it doesn’t go lumpy, gradually add rest of the milk. Add herbs, mustard and seasoning. Stir regularly and gently bring to boil. When sauce has thickened to yoghurt like thickness, turn off heat, remove bay leaf and stir in most of the cheese. Use the rest of the cheese for the crunchy topping mix (described above).

Pasta – your choice of shape, we have macaroni and Animaletti! Boil up enough for 4 people. Add handful of frozen peas and corn 2 minutes from end.

Combine pasta, sauce, peas and corn (and any other cooked ‘visible’ chopped vegetables you’d like to) and put in oven dish. Sprinkle with my much-sought-after crunchy topping, and pop in top of hot oven (180-200 degrees celsius) for 10 minutes and serve.

Secret Seven Tomato Soup

Eat together – suitable for whole family.

This is a great way to get everyone to eat their veggies. Make the soup as thick as you like by blending more or less of the stock with the vegetables. Extra-thick for babies, or medium/thick for toddlers and adults. I made this soup extra-thick as a pasta sauce and tested it on my “discerning” niece and nephew (8 and 10 years) who ate it all up. A vegetable triumph!

Serve with buttered bread triangles for dipping, and grated cheese which kids can sprinkle on top and watch melt. Want to posh it up for adults? Easy, serve with blob of soft cheese like mascarpone or cream in the middle, and or pesto, with extra black pepper seasoning.  For a spice kick add cayenne pepper – for adults only!!

1 carrot peeled
1 onion
1 medium potato peeled
1 large stick celery
250g  tin of tomatoes
1 small courgette peeled
small handful cauliflower florets
Bay leaf
2 tbsp Tomato puree
salt and pepper (add to adults individual bowls when serving if preparing for baby)
generous knob of butter
Recently boiled water (approx 900ml)

Equipment – medium/large saucepan, blender

Wash and roughly chop all the veggies into . Melt butter in saucepan over low-medium heat. Gently fry onion and celery for 5 minutes. Add carrot, potato, courgette and cauliflower, stir fry for additional minute. Add tinned tomatoes, bay leaf, water and seasoning. Don’t add more than 1/4 tsp of salt if soup is for babies. Simmer for 15 minutes. Remove bay leaf and blitz with your blender and serve.

Get a blender! Hide veggies in soups and sauces

Don’t forget to include some un-blended veggies for kids. The more familiar they are with colour, shape and texture – the less of a big deal eating them becomes. You can pretend you are being good cop by agreeing to them just trying a little bit of the visible veggies as long as they eat their sauce!