Space, Stars and Meatball 'Meateors' #Hungry2Happy Challenge!

 

Space, Stars and 'Meateors'

Bloggers have been challenged to create a delicious easy-to-prepare meal for our kids using Richmond Mini Meatballs in the Britmums' #Hungry2Happy Challenge. We popped to the supermarket to buy our meatballs and as I put the pack into the basket one of my sons groaned - 'yuck meatballs'. That's when I knew I had to come up with something really good to get him to eat his meal of meatballs.



Not too sure about having meatballs for dinner - I needed to come up with a plan!

I decided that not only would it have to taste good, but contain a balance of carbs, protein and veggies as we try to do in every meal to keep healthy, as well as look really appealing so that the kids would love eating it. I put my thinking cap on and this is what I came up with - Space, Stars and Meatball 'Meateors'!

It was really quick and simple to put together taking a total of around 20 minutes including preparation and cooking time (the meatballs themselves only take a speedy 8 minutes in the oven!).

Ingredients (to serve 4):
1 pack of Richmond mini meatballs (contains 20 meatballs)
2-3 large potatoes
4 carrots
Frozen sweetcorn
Frozen peas
A little ready-made puff pastry (optional)
A little rapeseed oil for oiling the baking tray

Here's how to do it:

• Peel and cut carrot batons and steam or boil for around 10-15 minutes.

• Cut potato into thin slices. Then using a star shaped cookie-cutter, cut out some star shapes. You can make these as thick and big or as small as you wish. If you make the small stars and cut the potatoes relatively thinly, then they will cook in the oven quickly in around 10 minutes. Just place them on a lightly oiled baking tray and brush with a little oil.

Cookie-cutters can be used to cut the potato

• If you wish to, you can make a little triangular rocket shape from a piece of ready-rolled puff pastry. You can also make little rings to go around a few of the meatballs to look like planets. (This stage is optional as I had some pastry in the fridge that I needed to use up but it makes a great meal without it too). The pastry will take around 10-12 minutes to cook as it is in small pieces.

• Cook the frozen sweetcorn and frozen peas on the hob. This should only take a few minutes.

• When everything is cooked, simply arrange on the plate to look like the sun (sweetcorn and carrots), stars (potatoes), planets and meteors (meatballs), and other little stars (peas).

• If you have made a puff pastry rocket, simply add a few peas and a little of anything red as flames coming out the bottom. I used tiny pieces of red pepper but you could use a bit of ketchup, some tomato or even some of the carrot pieces.

My little aliens went from #Hungry2Happy very quickly and really enjoyed their Space, Stars and Meatball Meateors Meal.

This post is an entry for Britmums' Hungry to Happy Challenge Sponsored by Richmond Mini Meatballs.

Disclaimer: We were sent £4 of Richmond Vouchers for the purpose of buying  mini meatballs for this post. We were able to purchase two packets of mini meatballs at £2 per pack of 20.