Ratatouille

That's quite hard to spell but to be fair, I was planning on eating it not spelling it so apologies if it's wrong ;) I love ratatouille because it's a nice main meal with some pasta if you've forgotten to take some meat out of the freezer, but it also goes really nicely with fish and garlic bread (like we had it), chicken, baguettes- it's just really versatile and pretty easy to do.

Ingredients

• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 large aubergine, cut into chunks
• 1 large courgette, cut into chunks
• 1 red pepper, chopped into chunks
• 1 green pepper, chopped into chunks
• 5/6 large tomatoes, blended (feel free to substitute for a can of chopped tomatoes)
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 2 tsp oregano

Method

1. Fry the onion until lightly browned and add the garlic. Cook for about 3-5 minutes.
2. Add the aubergine and brown, followed by the courgette and then peppers.
3. Add the tomatoes then mix in the tomato puree and season with oregano to taste.
4. Leave to simmer for 15-20 minutes until soft.

You can get boneless, skinless fish fillets that can be microwaved from frozen and they're so handy for some healthy food in under 5 minutes. The amount of fish you actually end up eating makes these better value than buying from the fish counter and it's just as good for you. I don't eat cod so we always get either salmon or haddock but any white fish would be really tasty.

Stuffed Marrow with Pepper

My grandad does the best marrow with shepherd's pie filling inside it, so you could try that too. Here's what I do:

Ingredients:

• 1 large marrow
• 250g mince
• 1tbsp tomato puree
• 1 red pepper, deseeded and chopped

Serves: 2 adults (not on its own), 1 baby (on its own, unless you're Vienna)

Method:

1. Slit the skin of the marrow, pop it on a baking tray and put in a preheated oven on 160C for 50 mins.
2. After the 50 mins, turn the oven off and leave the marrow in the heat for half an hour.
3. Brown the mince in a frying pan (you don't need any oil because mince is really fatty) then drain the fat away and add the tomato puree and pepper until the pepper is nice and soft.
4. Take the marrow out of the oven, scoop out the seeds and stuff with the mince/pepper mixture.
5. Put the whole thing back in the oven (on 160 again) for 20-30 minutes.

It's nice with Worcestershire sauce but I wouldn't recommend giving that to a baby. This recipe takes time, but it's really easy, and if you leave the mince in little clumps it's easier for a baby to pick up (although you need to take extra care to cook it).