Chicken meatballs with pasta and vegetables

I really like making meatballs. It's really quick and easy to make. I usually make it using ground chicken and make large batch, that way I have at least few portions to freeze for the "lazy day".

What we need:

- about 1lb ground meat

- 1 small or 1/2 large yellow, onion grated

- 1 white roll soaked in milk, milk squeezed out (can use bread crumbs but the meatballs will not be as soft)

- 1 egg

- salt and pepper

Mix it all together with hands or a fork. Form small balls and put, using a spoon, one by one right after it's done into a pan of boiling water. If they stick too much to your hands, wet your hands every couple meatballs in cold water. It is important to put it in boiling water, otherwise the meatballs will fall apart.  I use quite  a lot of water almost, as much as I would use to make meatball soup, after it's cooked that water becomes a mild broth, a basis for a sauce. It's also a good idea to add finely grated carrot to water. I leave it too cook for a bout 30 minutes. After done I take out the portion for "today" and add to it frozen green peas with carrots and corn, cook until vegetables are done, about 7 minutes and add a spoon or 2 of sour cream or cream cheese, adjust seasoning and serve with pasta, I like orzo, it's great with rice too. It's easy to manage by a beginner eater, it sticks pretty well to the spoon.

The remaining amount of meatballs in broth I divide into portions and freeze. Portions size depends if it's to be used for the whole family or just a child. They freeze well in that broth and when I am ready to use it next time, I thaw it overnight in the fridge and boil in it's broth adding the same ingredients as above to make creamy vegetable sauce. Our other favorite version is in simple tomato sauce - just add some canned tomato sauce (to taste, add more if you like stronger tomato taste, or just a little if you like it very mild) and some cream cheese.When adding cream cheese or sour cream, add it at the last minute, and mix it in but don't boil, otherwise it will crumble.

Sweet potato and other stuff

No day with the toddler is fully predictable, that's almost a given. So on the days that something just came up again or I just don't feel like cooking or the weather is so nice that we just want to be outside, I use one of my  "healthy shortcuts".

Pour some water into the main dish of a rice cooker and put on rice cooker's steamer basket:

- sweet potato cut into about 1 inch cubes (can cut in advance, or buy already cut up)
- a handful frozen petite peas

- chicken rissoles (straight from the freezer, I don't thaw it in advance), I will post my recipe for chicken rissoles in separate post, but any meat rissoles or meatballs will do.

Turn steam cooking function in rice cooker on for 25 minutes and leave the kitchen.
Come back when you are hungry, rice cooker will turn to keep warm after 25 minutes and can keep it for quite some time, depending on rice cooker.

Sometimes I just use sweet potato and rissoles and nothing else, but if I have it at home (and the child does not have allergy to green color) , I add to that a little bit of all or some of the following:

- butternut squash cut into about 1 inch cubes

- few baby carrots

- a handful of frozen petite peas or frozen corn

- a handful of fresh baby spinach leaves

After it's cooked I take it out from the rice cooker straight to the plate,  add a spoon of cream cheese (optional), mash together (right on the plate using a fork) sweet potatoes, butternut squash and carrots, takes just a minute. After it's mashed I steer in petite peas (unless decided to serve them separately), corn and spinach if using (I guess you can just mash it all together but I like to mix it after potatoes are mashed). Add the rissoles and ready. I don't season anything here. Rissoles are already done and seasoned before. The rest doesn't require anything. My rice cooker steam basket is big enough to fit the amount for 3 kids or 1 kid and 1 adult portion.

My rice cooker has function that allows steam cooking with timer, I pour about 1-1.5 inch of water then place the food on a basket, close it and turn on steam cooking for 25 minutes. The amount of water is not too much to start boiling quickly and steam the food but it's not too little either so when it's done after 25 minutes turns into keep warm and it can stay on for more than an hour or longer. It's also enough time to thaw and cook rissoles (they are actually really nice and soft after being steamed). I often just throw everything in, turn it on and go out to play outside, an hour later we are back hungry, the food is ready and warm. You can only leave it like that though, if you can trust your rice cooker not to use water too quickly and burn.