Chicken Meatballs and Spaghetti

I am always looking for ways to add hidden vegetables to our meals.... Madeleine has been going through a rather long stage of not eating vegetables. It can be stressful, and of course we still offer vegetables at all meals, and suggest that she tastes them... And sometimes she will suprise us, but other times we have no luck at all!

For those nights where you have a little time on your hands to spend in the kitchen, this Spaghetti and Meatballs recipe is perfect! You can hide some extra vegies in the meatballs. (It's funny that Madeleine doesn't consider tomatoes a vegetable!!!) In the batch pictured, I have just added one carrot and no other vegies to the meatballs.

It's quite simple to make, actually, and it's even something that the kids can help cook - Get them in the kitchen with clean hands to roll the little meatballs for you. They will have fun!

To make the tomato sauce you will need:

1 onion
1 stick of celery
2 tablespoons of oil
1 teaspoon of dried thyme (or a sprig of fresh)
2 x 400g cans of chopped tomatoes plus 800ml of water (just fill the cans with water once you've emptied them)
1 teaspoon of sugar
salt and pepper to taste

and to make the meatballs:

500g Chicken mince
1 egg
3 tablespoons of breadcrumbs
3 tablespoons of parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons of onion and garlic
1 teaspoon of worcestershire
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
For the vegies - I like to add half a carrot and half a zucchini but you can add whatever you like




To start the sauce, finely chop your onion and celery. Put 2 tablespoons of this aside to add to the meatballs.

Warm the oil in a saucepan and add the onion, celery and thyme and cook over a medium heat, stiring every now and then for about 10 minutes.

Then add the cans of tomatoes and the water to the pan. Season with the sugar, salt and pepper and then bring it to a simmer while you make the meatballs.




To make the meatballs, place all the ingredients in a bowl and mix. It's best to use your hands to combine everything. Then take small amounts of the mixture (about a teaspoon worth) and shape in to balls. If you wet your hands slightly, they will be easy to roll. You will need to put these aside as you want to add them all in to the sauce at the same time, so place them on a tray that you have lined with some baking paper.





Once you have made all the meatballs, you can add these carefully in to the sauce. They will need about half an hour or so to simmer.

We cook a 500g pack of pasta for this quantity of sauce, and it feeds us (two adults and a 3 year old who usually goes back for seconds) for two meals! It freezes well and you can just defrost when you need and reheat.

Don't forget some Parmesan cheese on the top!

Spinach and Cheese Scones

You will need:

250g packet of frozen spinach, that has been thawed and all the excess moisture removed. Chop finely.

2.5 cups SR flour

1 tbs caster sugar

50g butter, chopped

1/2 cup cheddar cheese, grated

3/4 cup milk

Preheat your oven to 240 degrees or 220 degrees for fan forced.

Oil a cake pan. This recipe calls for a deep 20cm square cake pan. I used a slice tin, and it worked fine, so use whatever is easiest for you.

Sift the flour into a bowl with the caster sugar, then rub in the butter. Stir in the cheese, spinach and milk. Mix to form a soft, sticky dough. Turn the dough out on to a floured bench top and knead until lightly. Press the dough out to about 2cm thick and cut into 16 rounds. Place the scones (they should just be touching each other) into the pan and bake for 20 mins.

These are nicest warm from the oven.

Cheap and Easy Biscuits

I found this recipe over here and thought I might give it try.

I had thought that with the condensed milk and the sugar, these might be sickly sweet, but they are not at all... in fact, my basic biscuit recipe is sickly sweet in comparison!

All you need is

500g of butter
1 can of condensed milk
1/2 cup of caster sugar
5 cups SR flour

To make the biscuits, its as easy as preheating the oven to 180 degrees and lining some biscuit trays with baking paper.

Cream the butter, condensed milk and sugar in your mixer, and then add the flour.

Then you can get creative by adding whatever you like.

We made half the batch as choc chip and the other half as 'polka dot' biscuits with smarties.



We had a fun afternoon, and now the biscuit jars are full again!

Easy Peasy Playdough

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With the weather being so cold in Adelaide, we are having to spend more time indoors. A few weeks ago I made up a batch of this play dough to keep in the fridge for those rainy, cold days. It is so easy to make and will keep for about 6 months if you refrigerate it.



2 cups Plain Flour
4 tbs Cream of Tartar
2 tbs of cooking Oil
1 cup of salt
2 cups of boiling water
Food colouring

Place all dry ingedients in a mixing bowl. I add the food colouring to the boiled water and oil and then mix in to the dry ingredients. Then Stir together. It may take a bit of mixing to come together, but it will eventually form a beautiful dough. I knead it a bit on the bench (it will be quite warm, though, so be careful).

This makes a substantial amount of dough, so if you want to make more than one colour, you can leave out the food colouring and divide the dough up and knead it in to the dough once you've made it.

We've had lots of fun with this in our house!