Fussy Food: Swedish Meatballs and New Potatoes with Fizzy Raspberry Trifle

No Visit to IKEA is complete without a visit to their Swedish Food Market. They stock lots of delicious Swedish delicacies and drinks. With this in mind I went to IKEA at Ashton-Under-Lyne on Friday after school to pick up a few bits from IKEA and some Swedish food. 

When we got home we tucked into a very Swedish meal of meatballs, boiled baby new potatoes and peas with lashings of Gräddsås and Sylt Lingon!

You can buy frozen meatballs, Gräddsås in packets that you just add water and cream, and also Sylt Lingon. 

Gräddsås is not only delicious with meatballs but it also works with beef and pork. We had it at Christmas with our Turkey and it was a very nice change from the normal Bisto blend. 

Sylt Lingon is actually a jam made from Lingonberries. These berries grow wild throughout the forests of Sweden and taste scrummy with meatballs or crispbread with cheese. The girls like it on pancakes with vanilla ice cream. 

Unfortunately the food market is not available to purchase online so you would have to visit your nearest store to buy these. 

For pudding I made some cute and healthy mini trifles. I made 'fizzy' raspberry jelly in the little pots then just before serving I spooned on fat free natural yoghurt then topped with slices of strawberry and banana. 

Tonight's dinner was a big hit! DD3 and DD5 both said they could eat it all again :) 

Enjoy, Angie x

Fussy Food: Sausages with Orzo Pasta and Easy Homemade Tomato Sauce

My kidlets, as I imagine most kidlets, are notoriously fussy eaters. Food they adore one week will inevitably by despised the next! So I try to find something they all like and try to get them all to eat a little bit of everything. Occasionally I get it right and they practically inhale everything on their plates before I've sat down to eat mine. 

Grandma and Granddad arrive home from work about 6.30pm so its too long to make the girls wait just so they can eat with them. 

Tonight I made sausages with Orzo Pasta and easy home made tomato sauce. I served peas, carrots and sweetcorn and the kids favourite - baby new potatoes on the side.

The Orzo Pasta looks like really big rice flakes. It says 8 mins on the packet for cooking time and they really do need 8 minutes and not a minute longer or it sticks together with starch just like over cooked rice!

The tomato sauce is simple to make and almost cooks itself. 

Ingredients for 4 kidlets or 2 adults:

2 tbsp of olive oil

1 can of chopped tomatoes

2 bay leaves

1 small finely chopped onion

2 finely chopped or crushed garlic cloves

Method:

Take a saucepan and add 2 tbsp olive oil

Add chopped onions and garlic cloves and gently heat on a low heat for a couple of minutes to soften the mix.

Add the chopped tomatoes and bay leaves. 

Bring to the boil and as soon as it does turn the heat right down and simmer, stirring occasionally - don't let it stick, for approx 20-30mins until the excess water has evaporated and leaves a thick tomato sauce.

Remove bay leaves before serving.

This is also a lovely basic pizza topping!

So how did it go? Well thankfully they inhaled the lot. Really. I'm not even kidding. DD5 finished hers before I had finished serving the older girls meals. Glad she liked it though.

Pudding was coconut macaroons and a slice of Victoria sponge with yummy custard. My camera decided it didn't want to take any more photos and stopped working in protest so have no pics for this so you will have to  use your imagination!

What meals do your kidlets love? What can they eat no matter how often you make it? 

Love, Angie x