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Spaghetti meatballs

With the rain keeping us in indoors we have been cooking toddler friendly food more often as it gives us something to do during the day! Oscar loves to help cut and mix but his favourite job is taste tester. This week we made the old favourite 'Spaghetti Meatballs' and some home made pizza using pita bread.

I've provided photos of the pizza making but have not listed a recipe as pizza is really a choose your own adventure. I love very plain pizzas but we added some yellow capsicum, mushrooms, ham, cheese and fresh tomato. Oscar had lots of fun making his pizza and the way he made it is the way we left it.

As for spaghetti meatballs, I make the meatballs different every time as it depends on what I have in the fridge. Below is the recipe I used for this time. It made about 35 small meatballs which I freeze.

Here's what you need:
400-500g beef mince (or chicken)
1 carrot grated
1/2 grated onion
1 tablespoon chopped basil
1/2 cup frozen corn, thawed
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup breadcrumbs (or flour if too runny)
*other times I have added: grated zucchini, mashed potato, crushed garlic, mashed broccoli

All ready to go

Here's what you do:
If baking meatballs, preheat your oven to 200C and grease an oven tray with a little olive oil. You will need to bake the meatballs for about 20 minutes. I pan fried mine in some olive oil over a hot plate over medium heat.

This recipe is great because almost all ingredients just need to be grated into a bowl. Mix all ingredients together with your hands and add more flour or breadcrumbs if too runny. Scoop teaspoon sized portions of the mix and roll into small balls. Repeat till all mixture is used. Once cooked, you can freeze what you don't eat but wait till they cool down first. I freeze them in batches of 4.

I cooked 3/4 packet of spaghetti which gave us 2 adult, 1 toddler & 2 lunch portions. To make the tomato sauce I lightly fried the remaining 1/2 of the onion used in the meatballs, added 2 cloves of crushed garlic, a tablespoon of chopped basil, a 700g bottle of Passata and a can of chopped tomatoes. I also had a heaped teaspoon of sugar and a little bit of worcestershire sauce. When the sauce is ready mix the pasta and meatballs all together.

Pizza Making 

Our pizza toppings

Fun pizza making

Chicken Parmigiana & Jamie Oliver Potatoes/Carrots

Nothing fancy but tasty just the same

I haven't cooked dinner for nearly a week. Finishing off a university assignment and enjoying Mother's Day weekend seemed to zap all my time and energy. Lucky I have a stock of meals for Oscar in the freezer and for us, well take away pizza, cheese on toast, and whatever we can eat standing at the fridge door has been our dinner! So tonight I am making amends. Nothing fancy, probably not blog-worthy but here it is anyway.

I love Jamie Oliver's cookbooks and enjoy watching his 30 minute meal shows. On the weekend (while eating cheese & crackers for dinner) I decided to give his herb 'roasted' potatoes and glazed carrots a try. We're having them with a chicken parmigiana and whatever vegetables are in the fridge to steam, cauliflower and broccoli.

Prepare it earlier to save time

Here's what you need - Chicken Parmigiana
chicken breast (I needed 3)
flour to coat chicken (about 1/2 cup)
1 lightly beaten egg
1 cup flour
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1 tbspn chopped parsley (if you like)
1 bottle pasta sauce or whole tomatoes in can
grated mozzarella cheese
olive oil

Vegetables cooking away

Here's what you need - Potatoes & Carrots
500g potatoes (I used 2 large brushed potatoes)
1 lemon (use a potato peeler to shave off the zest)
4 sprigs of fresh thyme & rosemary
1 bulb of garlic, unpeeled
1 large carrot, wash, peeled, cut into stalks
small knob of butter
2-3 bay leaves
2 tspn sugar

Chicken in the oven

Here's what you do - Chicken
Heat the oven to 180C. Press down the chicken breast with your hands to flatten it out. Combine the parmesan and breadcrumbs with the parsley in a bowl. Coat the chicken in flour, dip and coat in egg and then cover with the cheesy breadcrumbs. For my son's chicken I cut the breast in half horizontally so it is not as thick. Heat the olive oil in a fry pan and lightly fry each side of the chicken until it is golden. Drain on kitchen paper. (I prepared the chicken during the day and kept it in the fridge to save time).

When you're ready to cook the chicken, place the cooked chicken on a baking try lined with foil. Pour over your pasta sauce generously and top with grated mozzarella. I probably put too much cheese put better too much than too little in my opinion. Bake in the oven for about 10-15mins.

Vegetables
During the day when I prepared the chicken I also steamed some cauliflower and broccoli and kept it in the fridge. It's just one less thing to think about at dinner time and I reheated them when I was ready to serve. I followed Jamie's recipe and instructions to the letter and the results were pretty good.

Boil the kettle and heat a fry pan on high. Put the cut potatoes in the pan and cover with boiling water from the kettle. I didn't cover mine with a lid. Cook on high for about 10mins or until the potato breaks apart with a knife easily.

Boil the kettle again and put the carrots in a sauce pan. Pour the boiling water over, add a few twigs of thyme, sugar, pinch of salt, bay leaves and a lug of olive oil. Leave cooking on high.

Seasonings

Once the potatoes are ready, drain them, return the pan to the heat and warm up some olive oil. Let the potatoes steam in colander for a few minutes. Add the potatoes to the olive oil and lay them out flat. Add your unpeeled bulb of garlic a clove at a time and grate in your lemon zest. Add a knob of butter and toss on high heat for a few minutes. Turn the heat low and continue tossing for a few minutes more. Tear in some rosemary and toss a few more times. They should go golden in colour.

Drain the carrots then pour a little olive oil and sprinkle some salt over them. Take the chicken out of the oven and serve up with all the vegetables. I needed to add a bit of salt to my dinner. Enjoy!