Pasta Salad with Tomatoes, Olives, Ham

I love onions, tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, olives. If I can combine them all, I just will :)

I pull this from various recipes so I can't really reference anywhere. Let's just say this is my first creation 

I made a large quantity as it was for a dinner party.

Ingredients:

1. 750g fusilli pasta

2. 200g diced ham

3. Tomatoes, a huge bowl, cut into small pieces 

4. Sun dried tomato- 1 cup

5. 1/2 cup sliced olives

6. 1 large red onion, thinly slice

7. 6-7 cloves of minced garlic

8. 1/2 cup red wine vinegar

9. Salt and pepper to taste

1tablespoon of dried oregano

10. 1 cup olive oil or use oil from the sun dried tomato

1. In a large bowl, mix tomatoes, olives, oregano, onions together with olive oil and the red wine vinegar. Season with salt and pepper as well

Let it sit for around 30 minutes and keep tossing in between

2. Cooked pasta till al dente

3. Let it cool then mix together with the mixture in step 1. Add in ham and sun dried tomatoes. Keep tasting and adjust accordingly to suit.

4. Chill in fridge until ready to serve

Meat Balls and Pasta

Another one of my experiments with minced and pasta.

The last time i made spinach meat balls, it tasted quite dry. This time i tried with different ingredients and cooking method. The outcome is moist meatballs but need to cut down on the amount of bread crumbs next time.

Ingredients (meatballs):
- 500gms on minced. I used pork this time
- Half a zuchinni
- 1 onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- Salt and Pepper for seasoning
- 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs soaked in milk
- 2 eggs (lightly beaten)

Ingredients (pasta sauce)
- 4 large ripen fresh tomatoes
- 1 can of diced tomatoes
- 1 bottle of Domios Pasta sauce (optional, i only added this cause i cooked in large batches and needed more sauce)
- 1 carrot
- half zucchini ( leftover from meatballs ingredient)
- 1 Onion
- 4-5 cloves of garlic
- handful of fresh herbs ( i used basil)
- handful of dried herbs( i used oregano)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- Olive oil to cook

Pasta
- 700gms of elbows
- pot of water (add olive oil and salt)

Method:
1. Prepare the meatballs first
2. I used the Thermomix to blend the vegetables and mix all the ingredients. Speed 5 and check for desired consistency. A food processor will work just fine for this.
3. Minced the zucchinni, onion and garlic. Add the minced meat, egg, soaked breadcrumbs and seasoning
4. Roll the balls and placed them on a lined baking tray
5. Baked them on 175C for 20 minutes. You don't need them cooked as they will cook again in the pasta sauce

6. While the meatballs are baking, continue with the pasta sauce.
7. Heat a large saucepan with olive oil
8. Placed all minced ingredients and cook till they are tender
9. Pour in diced tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, herbs seasoning, sugar and just cook till sauce thickens
10. I cooked this for a good 20-30 minutes and kept on adding seasoning till the right taste is achieved.

11. While the sauce is cooking, start with cooking the pasta. I used elbows. Follow packet instructions to cook.

The final dish. Meatballs had way too much breadcrumbs cause i accidentally pour more than a cupful of them. A reminder to not repeat that.

There a more steps in preparing this dish but it provides a good balance for the family and it is also an enjoyable meal. I have freeze some meatballs and plenty of leftovers for everyone the next day.

Tomato Chicken with Basil and Zuchinni

Adapted from :
http://menumusings.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/tomato-basil-chicken.html

Ingredients: (4 servings)

• 2 chicken breasts
• kosher salt and black pepper
• 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
• 2 tsp minced fresh garlic
• 4 Tbsp cold butter
• 1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
• freshly grated Parmigiano reggiano cheese, for garnish

Written Directions :

Season chicken breasts with kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper. Add a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil to your skillet. This may seem like quite a bit, but it will form the base for the sauce. While waiting for the oil to heat up, go ahead and get your water going for the pasta. When the oil is HOT, add the chicken breasts. After about 4-5 minutes, the chicken breasts should be ready to turn. 

After the second side has been cooking for about 4 minutes, go ahead and add in the fresh tomatoes that you have chopped up. Next, add the fresh basil that you have chopped into ribbons, the cold butter, the minced garlic, and you will probably want to add some more kosher salt and black pepper to season the sauce. Now give it all a good stir so all those flavors will marry together.
When your chicken is "done," turn the sauce down on the lowest setting to keep it all warm until the pasta is cooked, which should be any minute now. At this point, if still waiting for the pasta, you can remove the cooked chicken to a cutting board, and after resting just a couple of minutes, cut the chicken into slices on the bias. Divide the pasta among individual bowls, and top each with half of a chicken breast, sliced into pieces, and equal portions of the tomato basil sauce. Top with more fresh basil and freshly grated Parmigiana reggiano cheese.
 

I tried this recipe yesterday. The flavour is really great and tasty.

I tweaked it alot. I used 3 chicken breast with skin on. It took longer to cook as the chicken breast were massive.

I also used white wine to enhance the flavour and create more sauce. I also added zucchini in this dish and added 3 teaspoon of garlic instead of 2 from the recipe.

 Verdict: super yummy. I love the garlicky taste and the basil from our garden. Truly a keeper.

I also use macaroni instead of spagetti. As requested from the kids. Mix of wholemeal and normal elbows.

Macaroni Pasta and Vegetable sauce

Macaroni Pasta with veggie sauce


no recipe for this. Adapted from the Thermomix one. But i added my own veggies and whatever i have leftover in the pantry.
Veggies used - blitz up Kale, Celery, Onion, Garlic, Carrot, Basil Leaves
Sauce - Mushrooms, Tomato paste, Tomato Puree, lots of red wine for the sauce and myself, water, salt, oregano, nutmeg, sugar, fresh tomatoes
Meat - angus minced beef- 500gms.
I used Thermomix to cook this. Added a bit of everything, tasting as i go along.
Cooked the Macaroni last and kids manage to finish up one bowl. They are not a fan of pasta anymore but this is one of the best way to hide the veggies in and i absolutely love it. 

I finished up the whole bunch of kale this week. Next week i will be trying out some other veggies like beets and celeriac.

Spinach Meatballs with Tomato Sauce

Spinach and Carrot Pork balls with tomato sauce

This is just a simply whack it in dinner. No recipe to follow. I just tried to mince as much vegies into the smallest possible size in the Thermomix. Mixed it with the minced pork. Added seasoning and my vegie stock. Yes my kids are deprived of vegetables. It is just so hard to get any form of vegetables in their diet. if they see it, they won't consume it.



i patiently rolled all the balls and place them on a baking tray before getting it ready to fry in batches. Another wonder invention is the Phillips Air Fryer. With only a drop of oil, i manage to fry this whole tray of meat balls

The first batch was obviously in for too long. i cut it down to 15 mins after that instead of 20 and they were all fine after that.






 While the meatballs were frying, i worked on the sauce. This is just tomato can soup and adding bits of tomato paste, bits of sweet mustard pickles (oh my!! this thing is soooo good), bits of sugar, vinegar. Just simmer and keep tasting to get the desired taste. My sauce was abit too tart due to the amount of tomato paste used but still OK once the meatballs goes in.

Also juggling cooking the macaronis in between frying the meatballs. It would have been nicer if spaghetti were used instead of the elbows.