Suitable from 6 months.

If you have a baby or toddler in your household, a simple beef or lamb and vegetable soup is a handy meal. Keep flavours basic, then when the soup is cooked you can scoop out cooked meat and purée it with some of the vegetables through a mouli for baby. The well-cooked meat is easy to purée and of course there's plenty of tasty liquid to moisten it so it's just the right consistency for the baby. For adults you can season the soup to suit.

Ingredients

• About 180g Quality Mark lean lamb leg steak (or lean shoulder lamb)
• 2 celery stalks
• 1 small onion, peeled
• 340g wedge of buttercup squash or pumpkin
• 350g parsnips
• 8 to 10 cups water

Method

Remove any fat from lamb then cut meat into tiny dice. Finely chop celery and onion. Peel pumpkin, remove seeds and cut flesh into dice (about 2 cups). Peel and chop parsnips.

Put lamb, vegetables and eight cups of water into a big pot and bring to the boil slowly. Simmer for two hours, adding extra water if necessary.

Remove some soup including lamb pieces for baby, season the remaining soup for adults with chopped fresh herbs.

6-7 months

Purée soup and lamb pieces to a smooth, moist consistency.

8-9 months

Serve as adult soup, but without salt.

Cook's Tip

It's practical to freeze meat and vegetable purées in an ice cube tray. When solid, transfer to a plastic bag, seal and return to the freezer.