Food for Thought; Meatball and Pesto Pasta

And so today is the recipe sharing of the last of the meals we had when DinnerTime delivered their weekly box to me, as I posted about in Meal Plan #3.

Each week DinnerTime follows the same theme, a meat recipe (Pan Grilled Chicken with Basil Cream), a fish recipe (Grilled Lime Fish Kebabs), a vegetarian recipe (Carrot and Ginger Soup with Cheesy Pull Apart Bread) and a pasta recipe.  Which is this one...

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 Egg, beaten

1 handful porridge oats

Salt and Pepper

1 Spring Onion, chopped

30g Parmesan, grated

1 tbsp tomato paste

250g Beef Mince

Olive oil

1 tomato, chopped

2 servings spaghetti

1 pack mushrooms, sliced

1 bunch fresh Spinach, roughly chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

40g Walnuts

1 handful fresh Basil leaves

1/2 lemon, juiced

30ml Olive oil

nb all bolded items were provided in the DinnerTime weekly box

How to do it:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees
2. Beat the egg in a largebowl, add the oats and seaon with salt and pepper
3. Chop the spring onion and grate the Parmesan
4. Add spring onions, Parmesan, tomato paste and beef to the bowl.  Mix thoroughly.
   
5. Shape mix into medium sized balls
   
6. Grease a baking tray with oil and place meatballs on top. Spray with oil
7. Chop the tomatoes into chunks, add the tomatoes in a separate flat dish, drizzle with olive oil and season
8. Bake both in the oven for 15 minutes until the meatballs are golden brown and the tomatoes are soft
   
9. Cook the pasta
10. Slice the mushrooms and add them to the pasta pan for the last minute of cooking
11. Make the pesto by destalking and roughly chopping the spinach.  Chopping the garlic.  And adding all to the blender with the walnuts, basil leaves, lemon juice and olive oil.  
    
12. Blend to a paste.
    
13. Mix the pasta with the pesto.
14. Carefully fold in the meatballs and tomatoes.

Our Verdict

We loved it.  The pesto was fresh and I loved the thought that you can make it with added spinach.  From DinnerTime I have discovered a love of walnuts that I never knew I had, be them whole or mixed in the pesto.  The toddler ate it all up, no complaints, and the fact that it was fresh and a variety of tastes for him to try is only a good thing in my book.

And meatballs in 15 minutes, thank you very much!  Every other meatball recipe I have takes over an hour and creates a lot more mess than this one.

Thumbs up from us, and to DinnerTime, we thank you for the chance to try everything out.