Sausage Meatball Traybake

So this recipe had moving goalposts as I was cooking as I had seconds thoughts about the addition of the tinned tomatoes! Turns out my gut was right..luckily i made two versions one with tomato and one without…you can guess the version my kids preferred! But prefer they did – they gobbled this all down…BOTH OF THEM!! including the parsnips by Alfie which i didn’t even realise he liked! Goes to show if you keep offering them things on their plate maybe, just maybe one day they’ll not only pick it up to try but they’ll also enjoy it!?!

So for this blog I’ll stick to the plain version but if you do want to add tomatoes then just simply add this towards the end and allow to cook for 10 minutes or so and you can also add some kale as well! Which personally i thought was delicious!!…but for now we’ll go for the kids preferred option so omit the tinned tomatoes here!

First up you need to grab yourself a mixing bowl and place your sausage meat into it. This is based on 350g sausage meat.

Next you need to add: 1 grated apple (I use a golden delicious apple, but granny smith or gala would also work) 1 small grated carrot and half a red onion, finely sliced. Season and then mix together. My sausage meat already had sage in it, if yours doesn’t then i suggest also adding some finely sliced fresh sage leaves into this, around 1 – 2 tsp.

You can make this part ahead of time and leave covered in the fridge until you need it, however if you’ don’t have much time just cover and pop it into the fridge while you’re doing this next part…

So now you need to grab yourself a baking tray and add all your veg to it. The remaining carrots, parsnips, some sage leaves, the remaining red onion cut in half, new potatoes and sweet potato. All cut into similar size chunks and also add a couple of whole garlic cloves. Season and then add a big glug of olive oil.

Now it’s time to add your sausage meat and make the meatballs. Simply grab a small handful, roughly make them into balls and then place onto the tray with the veg.

Once you’ve used up all the sausage meat simply place into the oven for around 40 minutes, turning the meatballs and the veg over half way. Be careful with the sausage meatballs as they may fall apart if you’re too vigourous with them!!

This pic was taken after 20 mins cooking time.

Then all you need to do is serve with some broccoli and peas! I like having some green on the plate, it makes it look prettier and the more veg on the plate the more likely that they’ll actually eat some of it!!

What you need:

• 350g – Sausage meat
• 3 carrot – 1 grated, the rest peeled and chopped
• 1 apple – grated
• Garlic – 3 -4 whole cloves
• 3 parsnips – chopped
• Fresh sage
• 1 red onion – 1/2 finely diced
• New potatoes – halved
• Sweet potato – peeled and cut into chunks
• Olive oil

What you need to do:

• Preheat your oven to 180C.
• Pour a generous glug of olive oil onto your baking tray and place this into the oven whilst it’s heating up.
• Now grab youself a mixing bowl and add your sausage meat.
• Next grate a small carrot and an apple into the bowl and add half  finely choppped red onion.
• Add some black pepper and some fresh chopped sage, if your sausage meat doesn’t already have it, and then mix well. Cover this and place into the fridge.
• Now chop all of your remaining veg up, then take your baking tray out of the oven and add the veg to the tray.
• Now it’s time to make the meatballs: so take out the sauasge meat from the fridge and then take a small handful of the sausage meat and loosely mould into balls.
• Place each ball onto the tray with the veg. Do the same for the rest of the sausage meat.
• Pop into the oven for 40-45 minutes turning carefully half way through cooking.
• Serve with some green veg!