IKEA-Style Meatballs and Sauce

If you like to visit a certain Swedish flatpack store once a month, or even once every six months, then it is really worth a visit to their restaurant. They do meatballs with a delicious gravy and lingoberry sauce.

Here is my version of the same thing.

It is easy to make your own meatballs. You will need:

500g lamb or beef mince (to feed a family of four - add more or less asccording to the numbers)

onion

garlic

1 beaten egg

chopped fresh or dried herbs such as parsley or thyme depending on what your family like.

For the gravy:

onion

1/4 pint beef stock (stock cubes or even gravy mix is fine)

small amount of double cream

1 tablespoon Light Soy Sauce

1 teaspoon flour to thicken

1 tablespoon water

To serve: Mashed potatoes and peas

Method

Using a food processor, blitz the mince, onion, garlic, egg and herbs until well-blended. Use the mixture to form small round balls and place on a baking tray.

Put them in the oven at 190 degrees C, Gas Mark 5-6 for about 20-30 minutes until cooked through.

Peel and cook the potatoes for 15 minutes in boiling, lightly salted water. Bring water to the boil for the frozen peas and add them when it is ready.

Soften the onion for the gravy in a frying pan in some olive oil. Add the flour and stir for a moment, coating the onion, then add the beef stock and soy sauce. Stir the sauce while it thickens. To make the sauce thicker, add more flour, to make it more runny then add a little water. Adding a little at a time will enable you to get it right for your family.

Once the sauce is bubbling, take it off the heat and stir in a little cream. It is then ready to serve.

You can choose to add herbs as well as butter and milk to your mashed potato. Often I add onion, but there is already plenty in this dish!

Serve your mash, peas and meatballs and pour the sauce over the top for a delicious supper.

Photo Credit: Photo of lamb meatballs and link to another recipe on Flickr by sweet mustache

A Tasty Pasta Supper Dish

Here is a really simple way to make a tasty pasta dish. You start with ready-prepared ingredients and add your own fresh ingredients to make an enjoyable supper.

Serves 4 generous portions. Use pasta according to the size of supper you want.

Ingredients:

Pack of fresh pasta tubes or twirls (if you use dried, start cooking it!)

Pot of Neapolitan pasta sauce

fresh basil (comes in packs or a pot)

onion (Peeled and chopped)

1/2 green pepper (deseed, washed and chopped)

mushrooms (2 or 3)

Cheddar cheese, grated

Parmesan cheese to grate

Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

Stir fry the onion and pepper lightly in a frying pan using a little oil (Olive oil tastes good with pasta)

Add the mushrooms when the onion and pepper is soft

Boil the kettle and add the water to the fresh pasta in the pan. Bring to the boil, and add a little olive oil to help prevent the pasta sticking together.

Cook the pasta for five minutes if fresh, and about 20 minutes if dried.

Add the Neapolitan sauce to the frying pan with the onions, peppers and mushrooms and stir in.

When the pasta is soft but with a slight 'bite' to it, drain it out and add it to the frying pan.

Stir gently and pour into an ovenproof dish.

Stir in two handfuls of fresh basil, torn up by hand.

Grate Cheddar cheese and light sprinkles of Parmesan cheese over the pasta.

Place in the oven for about ten minutes. You can cook a garlic bread to go alongside if you wish.

Serve with salad or on its own for a delicious supper.

I hope you like it. I did!

Photo Credit: Basil Leaves on Flickr by bluekdesign

Cooking with Your Own Produce

Tonight's meal was a real mish-mash but hugely enjoyable for all that.

We had shop-bought Scottish mince burgers (good quality) with cheese on buns, home-grown new potatoes and shop-bought salad. We finished with home-grown rhubarb crumble.

Growing our own produce has become something we experiment with every year. I normally try growing tomatoes and watch in despair as the plants wither, but the tomatoes remain! This year we have grown them hanging upside down and it has been a great success, but they are still green at the moment.

Potatoes were a first for us and they have been very successful. We grew them in bags which had flaps near the bottom to harvest the potatoes. They are delicious when eaten so fresh.

Finally we bought two rhubarb plants and have put them in far too hot a place. They are surviving and providing us with rhubarb. It needs quite a bit of sugar but was very nice to be eating our own rhubarb. We will also look forward to blueberries from our own blueberry bush in a pot later on in the year.

What have you tried growing this year?

Ice Cube Maker

Photo on Flickr by Castaway in Scotland Now

It's hot and the sun is shining. The kids have got the paddling pool out and your thoughts turn to ice cold drinks. Here's a cheap tip to enable you to have enough ice cubes this summer.

Our last fridge freezer had an ice cube maker (may it rest in peace!). This was a wonderful gadget, a bit like a shelf similar to two ice cube trays. Once the ice cubes were frozen, they could be tipped into a tray underneath to be stored until needed. It was such a great idea and it was with a heavy heart I had to consign my fridge freezer to the tip last year as it kept breaking down.

Sadly that model was no longer in production! The closest I could find was a big side-by-side fridge freezer which couldn't hold a candle to my dear departed fridge in terms of size and space. These models did come with ice dispensers, but they took a whole shelf out of the freezer, which, given the amount of space to start with was not such a great thing.

DH reckoned we could do without it, so we bought the side-by-side fridge freezer, but he loves his ice, especially in the summer.

His solution has been simple. He has invested in cheap ice cube trays and when they have been set, he has tipped them into a clean, empty ice cream tub with lid and kept it frozen. Then he has made some more. They do have to be used fairly quickly, but when you want ice cubes in quantity without paying for them, or losing space in your freezer, then it is a great idea.

Until we had an ice cube maker, I never realised just how useful it was. Now, I couldn't do without it and I'm glad I don't have to!

Lazy Sundays

No such thing in my house! I like to do a full roast whenever possible, including sauces, stuffing and yorkshire pudding where appropriate. Is it healthy home cooking? It can be.

This week, I roasted a silverside of beef, and added roast potatoes, carrot and swede mash, cauliflower, peas, yorkshire pudding and gravy.

I use spray cooking oil to roast my potatoes and it greatly reduces the fat you use. I use the whole potatoes to work out how many I need and then peel and chop them. I then put them in boiling water and bring it back up to the boil for two or three minutes.

I use olive oil cooking spray and squirt a few times into a pyrex dish. Then I tip in the hot potatoes and spray some more. Then they go in the oven. For me the temperature of the oven depends on what else is cooking. Usually the meat is still in there so the temperature of the oven is at about 190 degrees C. Having said that, if the meat is cooked and you want the potatoes sooner, then put it up to 220 for faster cooking.

Finally you can also use spray oil for parsnips although I don't usually parboil them first.

Happy home cooking!

Holiday Home Cooking

I've just been on holiday this week in Kent in the UK. We packed a whole lot of cooking stuff to take with us, but one of the best things we took was our slow cooker.

You go out for the day and come back to a home cooked meal. We used ours twice to do a casserole and a roast chicken. Yes, you heard that right - a roast chicken!

To roast a chicken you need to brown it in a frying pan first. This is the tricky bit and involves a bit of spitting fat (not something my husband likes) and juggling the bird with two spatulas.

When you are happy with the colour of the bird, add it to the pot along with some onion and carrot and seasoning. Some recipes add water, not not all. Then leave to cook.

We left ours with water and seven hours later, the meat fell from the bone. We had enough stock for chicken soup and enough meat for two meals. (We made a curry later in the week.)

Absolutely delicious and highly recommended.

Wraps rather than sandwiches

Hi,
Today's Healthy Home Cooking Tip.

A tasty alternative to sandwiches can be to use a tortilla wrap instead of the bread. Wraps come in plain, wholemeal or even seeded, so there are plenty of varieties to choose from.

You can spread half the wrap with salad cream or mayonnaise, then add a slice or two of cooked meat. Add some iceberg lettuce and sliced tomatoes and you have a very tasty lunch. You can substitute cheese for the sandwich meat. Children often enjoy wraps - no dry crusts to munch!

Or make a hot wrap. Cook some breaded chicken fillets or goujons in the oven. Spread the wrap with relish (tomato and red pepper is really nice!) and add the hot chicken and some softened onions and peppers before wrapping and eating.

Mmmm scrummy and still healthyy home cooking!

Slow Cooking

Hi,
Welcome to the Healthy Home Cooking Blog.

Using a slow cooker is one of the best tips I can give. They come in family-sized these days and are not too expensive. Mine is an oval 6.5 litre slow cooker and it can fit a medium chicken!

We took ours on holiday this year and it was great to come home after a day out to a ready-cooked meal. You use the ingredients from scratch, and can use cheaper cuts of meat as the soaking for four to eight hours really makes it tender. There are plenty of slow cooker recipe books out there to choose from, but many recipes can be adapted that you already do. The chilli recipe mentioned on the last post for example.

A slow cooker recipe
Try this:

Sweet and Sour pork

Lean boneless pork (enough for your family)
Plain flour
onion
celery
2 or 3 carrots
4 table spoons wine vinegar
4 tablespoons soy sauce
4 tablespoons tomato puree
pineapple juice (from tin of pineapple rings)
pineapple rings (add about half hour from end, chopped up)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
water (just enough to cover about 3/4 of ingredients in the slow cooker)

Coat the pork in the flour and then brown the meat in a frying pan. Soften the vegetables next, then add everything to the pot. Some slow cookers recommend heating the pot first - so check instructions.

The meal should take about four hours on high and about six hours on medium.

Either bring home some nice Chinese microwave rice or put it with some easy cook rice boiled for about 15 minutes (or whatever it says on the packet).

Mmmm. Just off to get some pork...!

Do leave your favourite recipe ideas on the Healthy Home Cooking blog.

Tasty chilli

Hi,
Welcome to my healthy home cooking blog.

My husband made dinner last night. He's pretty good at it too. He made a chilli with a recipe he found on the web.

When I do chilli, I use minced beef, onions, peppers, a tin of chopped tomatoes, some powdered chilli, maybe some real chilli (if the kids aren't sharing it!) and paprika and garlic.

He added cumin and some real tomatoes into the mix!

I have to say it was absolutely gorgeous! So that's the tip of the day - add cumin to your chilli!


Have you got any tips for the Healthy Home Cooking blog? Do write a comment and let me know.

Pass it on!
Love Sassie x

Welcome to Healthy Home Cooking Blog

Hi,
Welcome to my healthy home cooking blog. I hope to share tips, ideas and recipes to help you cook delicious meals for your family.

Please feel free to comment on this blog and share your own thoughts and ideas. I look forward to hearing from you on the Healthy Home Cooking Blog.

Best wishes,
Sassie C x