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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

Spinach & Mushroom Lasagna

last night's dinner

I decided to make a lasagna last minute and decided to use mince as well as spinach and mushrooms. My son ate it up so quickly and I liked it too but I think next time I will either make a traditional meat lasagna or a spinach, mushroom and ricotta one. Also, I ran out of sauce for the top layer so had to use tomato paste mixed with water which made it taste a bit too tomatoey. I always make too little sauce. Anyway, below is the recipe with the ingredients adjusted. It made 5 adult serves and 7 toddler serves which are perfect for freezing.

Here's what you need:

Always make a lot of sauce

700g minced beef

2 jars Passata tomato sauce 

1 brown onion diced finely

1 garlic clove crushed

1 punnet button mushrooms washed & sliced

2 cups spinach, blanched & sliced finely

1 tbspn sugar

1 tbspn Worcestershire 

olive oil

1 box dry lasagna sheets

Mozzarella & cheese grated - about 4-5 cups

2 bay leaves

Here's what you do:

Preheat oven to 180C. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and cook onion and garlic together until soft, about 3 mins. Add the mince and cook until brown. Add the mushrooms and stir. Pour in the 2 bottles of tomato and sauce and add some water to each bottle. Shake well and then add the water to the pan also. Add the sugar, Worcestershire sauce and bay leaves and stir well. Reduce the stove heat and cover pan with lid. Leave to cook for about 10-15mins, stir occasionally. Add the spinach and stir through.

When the sauce is ready remove from heat and scoop out the bay leaves. Coat the base of a deep oven dish with a layer of sauce which will stop the lasagna sheets from sticking. cover with a layer of dry lasagna sheets. Use a large kitchen spoon and cover sheets with sauce. make sure to cover the sheets well, especially the corners as these will dry out. Sprinkle grated cheese over the sauce generously and if you have any left over spinach you can add now too. Cover with another layer of lasagna sheets and repeat the sauce/cheese process. I managed to get 4 layers.

Cover the top layer with the remaining sauce and top generously with cheese. Cover the oven dish with foil and place in the oven for 25 minutes. When ready, remove the foil and cook for a further 10 minutes. Enjoy!

Ricotta & Spinach Pasta Bake

I think one of the reasons I find the slow cooker so boring is that I like to use my hands when cooking. This pasta bake is perfect because you get to mix the cheese and spinach and fill the pasta shells. If my son wasn't sleeping I would have let him have a go at stuffing the shells. The best part about him being asleep is that I can get dinner ready quickly, ahead of time, and without him clinging to my leg asking for some "cheeeeessse".

This recipe comes from the Women's Weekly Healthy Babies Cookbook. I've made it before and Oscar (and us) loved it. He normally has 4-5 pasta shells for dinner. The original recipe says to use 32 pasta shells but, being a big eater, I always use more and then always have too much left over and the pasta ends up being squashed all on top of each other. I swear next time I will only use 32 shells, but that's what I said last time!

Preparations

Here's what you need:
32 large pasta shells
500g spinach, trimmed
600g low-fat ricotta cheese
2 tbspn finely chopped flat parsley
700g tomato pasta sauce (I use Passatta as it's exactly 700g per bottle)
1/2 cup or 125 ml chicken* stock (I used home made stock today from the freezer)
2 tbspn finely grated parmesan cheese (or you could try with other type)
*use vegetable stock to make recipe vegetarian

Here's what you do:
Preheat the oven to 180C. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to boiling point and then add your pasta shells. Cook for 3 minutes only as you want them to stay firm, When done, drain and let them cool down. Chop the parsley and boil or steam the spinach, drain and squeeze out the excess water.

Ready to be covered with foil

In a bowl, add the ricotta, spinach and parsley and using your hands mix all together. In an oven proof dish, pour the tomato sauce and chicken stock and mix together with a spoon. Use your hands to stuff each pasta shell with the ricotta mix. Fill each shell quite full. Place the shell in the dish and repeat. When done sprinkle the top with parmesan cheese and cover the dish with foil.

Bake in the oven for 50 minutes and then remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes. Leave it to cool for a bit before serving and you can scoop up some of the sauce to pour over the shells. Enjoy!

Ricotta & herb gnocchi with tomato sauce

I adapted this recipe from the Healthy Eating cookbook by Family Circle and even my husband commented while eating that it "tastes healthy." I'm happy with the way it turned out and given how easy it is to make, we'll definitely have it for dinner again. Oscar loved it as much as we did too which is always a plus. The recipe made 3 big serves.

Ingredients

Here's what you need for the gnocchi:

450g ricotta cheese
35g grated parmesan
20g chopped mixed herbs (I used parsley, thyme, chives, basil)
pinch of nutmeg
120g white breadcrumbs (I used white sliced bread & put it through the Magimix)
2 beaten eggs
plain flour for rolling

Place the mixture in the fridge

Here's what you do:

To make the gnocchi combine all the ingredients (except the flour) in a bowl. I used my KitchenAid but it's easy enough with a wooden spoon as well. Once mixed, cover and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours, longer if you wish. I've made it before and left it overnight.

When you're ready to make the pasta use the flour to dust an area on your kitchen bench. Take the mixture out of the fridge and use your hands to knead it gently. Add flour to your hands as needed so the mixture doesn't become too sticky.

Roll the pasta mix into long ropes

Divide the mixture into sixths and roll out each part with your hands on the flour surface. Roll the mix into a long rope shape about the thickness a finger and use a knife to cut the mix into 2cm pieces. Put a piece in the palm of your hand and use a fork to lightly press a ridge on both sides. You want the gnocchi to be a slightly rounded. Place each piece on tray lined with baking paper.

Place on a tray before cooking

Boil salted water in a large saucepan. You need to cook the gnocchi in batches and they only take about 2-3 mins to cook. You know they are ready when they float to the surface of the water. Don't take them out too quickly as they can go soggy. Use a large slotted spoon to collect each piece and make sure to drain it well. Place in a bowl and repeat process until all gnocchi is cooked.

Serving Sauce:
I served my gnocchi with a tomato sauce. I made the sauce while the gnocchi mix was cooling in the fridge.


Here's what you'll need:

Final product - delicious!

1 onion chopped finely
2 garlic cloves crushed
800g or 2 cans of whole tomatoes
2/3 cup of thawed frozen peas (optional)
a pinch of sugar
1 tablespoon shredded basil
1 tablespoon of olive oil

What to do:

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan and add the onion and garlic. Cook over a low heat for about 8mins or until the onion is soft but be careful not to brown the onion. Add the tomatoes and simmer for about 7mins then add the sugar and peas and cook for a further 2 minutes. Stir in the basil and cook for another minute or so.

Take off the heat and let cool for a minute. Place your cooked gnocchi in a bowl, spoon on sauce and shave (using a potato peeler) some pieces of parmesan.

Enjoy!