Chicken Meatballs – Homemade Recipe

by Sharon Fitzpatrick | Sep 24, 2023 | Main Courses, Uncategorized

Chicken Meatball Recipe:

Learn how to make these delicious and amazing Chicken Meatballs. This chicken meatball recipe is easy to follow and you will be glad you tried it.

Making a classic meatball dinner with chicken instead of beef might seem a bit unconventional but once you try it, you will understand why it makes a nice tasty alternative.

The texture of chicken meatballs is moist and tender, owing to the ground chicken used in their preparation.

Health Benefits of Chicken Meatballs

Chicken is a lean protein source, making chicken meatballs a healthier option compared to beef or pork meatballs.

They are lower in saturated fat and calories, making them suitable for those looking to reduce their fat intake while still enjoying meaty flavours.

Serves:
4 people

Great For:
lunch OR dinner

Cooking Time:
45 – 60 minutes

Watch on YouTube: Click Here.

Ingredients for Sauce

1 Onion
3 tbsp Oilve Oil
4 Cloves of Garlic
1 tsp Oregano
1/2 tsp Tumeric
4 Fresh Tomatoes
1 Tin of Chopped Tomatoes
1 Small Carrot
100g Water
2 Large Handfulls of Fresh Basil
1/4 Tube Tomato Puree
4 Cells of Celery

Ingredients for Meatballs

2 Chicken Breast
1 – 2 Cloves of Garlic
1/2 Spring Onion
Parsley
Salt & pepper
Breadcrumbs
Paprika
2 Eggs
Parmesan Cheese for topping
3 tbsp Olive Oil

Chicken Meatballs -Method – Instructions

Preparing the Tomato Sauce

Peel and dice your onion.

Roughly chop or crush the peeled garlic.

Cut up four cells of cellery to about 1/2 cm chuncks.

Chop up the fresh tomatoes into small chunks.

Grate your carrot.

Gather your fresh basil leaves and roughly chop.

Cooking the Tomato Sauce

Into a saucepan add your olive oil.

Turn the heat on to medium.

Add your onions, garlic, celery and grated carrots.

Mix the ingredients together.

Put a lid on and sauté for 5 – 10 minutes.

After 5 – 10 minutes add some salt & pepper.

Then add your fresh tomatoes and your tin of chopped tomtoes.

To the empty tin of tomatoes, add your water and swirl it around before adding the water to the saucepan, ensuring to not waste any of that lovely tomato flavour.

Place your tomato puree into the saucepan.

Now add your tumeric and oregano and fresh basil.

Give all the ingredients a mix around.

Time now to put the lid on and let the flavours infuse together while letting it cook on a slow heat for 45 minutes, occassionally giving it a stir.

In the meantime while your tomato sauce is cooking lets prepare the Chicken Meatballs

The easiest way to have ground chicken is to ask your local butcher to mince the chicken breasts for you.

Alternatively you can cut your chicken breasts into very small pieces yourself. It is easier to work with when cut up nice and small.

Finely dice your spring onion.

Into a large mixing bowl add your finely ground minced chicken and your finely diced spring onion.

Season with salt and pepper. If you wanted a bit of a spicy chicken meatball, then add 1/2 tsp of chill powder or chilli flakes.

Whisk your eggs and then add to the bowl with your chicken.

Add your garlic and your breadcrumbs to the bowl.

Put in your paprika and parsley.

Grate a bit of your Parmesan cheese into the bowl. Any rich and distinctive strong cheese would be good like Parmigiano Reggiano Dop or something like it.

Intially mix ingredients with a fork.

Then the best way to combine the ingredients for chicken meatballs, is to get your hands into that mixing bowl and really bind the ingredients into a firmer mixture, where the mixture will come away from the edge of the bowl.

Now pull small pieces of the mixture and make little ball shaped meatballs.

From this amount of ingredients, you need to aim to make about 16 meatballs.

You are ready to cook your chicken meatballs.

Check on your Tomato Sauce

After about 45 minutes your tomato sauce will have changed colour and smell amazing.

At this stage you want to place your sauce into a tall jug and liquidise with a hand blender, or you can put the sauce into a liquidiser.

Once the tomato sauce is nice and smooth, empty it back into the saucepan and put the lid on. You can cook it on a very low heat while you cook your chicken meatballs.

Cooking your Chicken Meatballs

Into a frying pan, pour in some olive oil.

Place your chicken meatballs into the frying pan on a low to medium heat.

You can turn your chicken meatballs in the pan by flicking them in the pan or you can turn the meatballs with some tongs.

Moving and jerking your frying pan to move the chicken meatballs ensures the shape of the balls will stay nice and round.

However when you use tongs, it may squash the meatballs a little, slighly altering the shape.

If the shape is altered slightly it doesn’t matter. They still taste amazing.

Ensure the chicken meatballs are nice and brown, so you know they are cooked well. This process will vary depending on your heat, but will take roughly about 10 minutes.

While the chicken meatballs are cooking nicely, this is the perfect time to cook your spaghetti.

Place your speghetti pasta into a pot of boiling water and cook to the packets instructions.

Chicken Meatballs & Tomato Sauce & Spaghetti

Add those gorgeous chicken meatballs to that wonderful homemade tomato sauce.

Gently mix the meatballs into the sauce.

Once your spaghetti is cooked, drain in a seive and pour over some boiling water from the kettle onto your spaghetti.

Spread your spghetti onto the plate.

Place your wonderful flavoursome chicken meatballs and homemade tomato sauce in the centre of your spaghetti pasta.

Grate some parmesan cheese over the top of your meatballs and sprinkle some parsley over the cheese.

Serve and enjoy.

Happy Cooking

Sharon

Do you want that brilliant Tomato Knife?

Greenway supplies sell the most wonderful kitchen products to either the residential home as well as for commercial use.

For to make this really tasty homemade tomato sauce, I used some fresh tomatoes.

I used their tomato knife.

This knife sliced through the fresh tomatoes with ease.

Tomato skins can be quite tough to cut through but not with this special tomato knife.

Click here to order your tomato knife, like the one I showed you on the video.

I highly recommend this tomato knife.

Happy Cooking

Sharon

LifeStyle With Sharon

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Chocolate Caramel Slice Recipe

by Sharon Fitzpatrick | Sep 7, 2022 | Desserts, Uncategorized

Chocolate Caramel Slice Recipe – Homemade:

Chocolate Caramel Slice Oh WOW, this delicious biscuit base with homemade caramel covered in chocolate is just amazing.

You can’t beat the flavour of homemade caramel made from condensed milk.

One of my favourite condensed milk recipes and I am glad to be sharing it with you all.

In this blog, I show you how simple it is to make this chocolate caramel biscuit into a caramel cake too and no baking is involved.

Chocolate Caramel Fudge Cake

OR

Chocolate Caramel Slice

Just imagine a No-Bake chocolate caramel fudge cake MMmmmm.

It is a very impressive dessert to make for your family or guests.

The biscuit base caramel slice looks a bit like millionaire shortbread but of course the base is made with a yummy digestive biscuit base, giving this caramel slice a beautiful crunch.

Shortbread is nice but so is this easy to make digestive biscuit base.

MMMmmmm

Biscuit & Caramel Combination topped with Chocolate

Wow the combination of the biscuit and caramel, then topped with chocolate is just wonderful.

You can make your chocolate caramel biscuit slice into any shape.

I chose to make these caramel biscuits into triangles but you can make them into a traditional caramel square if you prefer.

What-ever way you make yours be it a chocolate caramel biscuit or a caramel biscuit cake, it will be delicious.

Enjoy this fabulous tasty dessert recipe for a chocolate caramel slice.

For other recipe ideas click HERE.

Serves:
8 – 10 slices

Great For:
snack or dessert

Cooking Time:
45 minutes

Watch on YouTube: Click Here.

Ingredients

100g digestive biscuits
70g butter
2 tbsp of syrup
1 tin condensed milk
Double if doing 2 layers for cake

For Cake Topping

Cream
Flake
Smarties

Chocolate Caramel Slice – Method & Instructions

Chocolate Caramel Slice – Digestive Biscuits Base

Place a bit of parchment paper at the bottom of your tin.

Into a plastic bag you need to lay out flat some digestive biscuits.

With the top of the rolling pin just hit each digestive biscuit once or twice to break them.

Once you have the biscuits broken, it makes it easier to roll over them with your rolling pin, to squash the biscuits into crumbs.

Gather all the crumbs up in the bag and pour them into a mixing bowl.

Butter & Syrup

Melt the butter in a pot or the microwave.

Add the syrup to the melted butter and mix the syrup in with a spoon.

Adding the syrup helps to bind the biscuit base together as well as giving it a lovely flavour.

Now simply add the butter and syrup mixture to the bowl of crushed digestive biscuits and mix well with a metal spoon.

As you mix, it will get darker in colour and the consistency will be firmer.

Biscuit Mixture Into The Tin

Put the biscuit mixture into the tin and spread it around so it covers the whole base of the tin.

Squash the biscuit base down with the back of the metal spoon.

A little tip to make the biscuit base even firmer is to get a glass with a flat bottom and push it down firmly all over the chocolate caramel biscuit base.

Place the chocolate caramel biscuit base into the fridge for half an hour while you get on and make the caramel.

Now for the Caramel made from Condensed Milk

I find the best thing to use for to make the caramel is a non stick frying pan. Cleaning afterwards is so easy.

Pour the contents of the condensed milk into your frying pan and cook on a medium heat for 20 – 30 minutes.

Keep stirring with a wooden spoon so it doesn’t burn.

Stirring doesn’t have to be vigorous but continuous.

After a while you will see the colour get darker and may look more yellow or orange or light brown. The caramel will become thicker.

Take the tin with the biscuit-base out of the fridge.

Gather all the caramel to one side of the frying pan and then pour onto the biscuit base and spread over with the back of a metal spoon.

Do this procedure as quick as you can because the caramel can start to set quite quickly as it is going onto the cold biscuits.

Time for the Chocolate

Boil some water in a pot and place a bowl over the water and add chocolate to the bowl and after a few minutes the chocolate will melt.

Mix the chocolate occasionaly with a metal spoon.

Pour that delightful chocolate onto the amazing caramel.

Wait ten minutes.

Then put in the fridge to let the chocolate harden. Usually this process takes around 30 – 60 minutes.

When the chocolate has hardened, take it out of the fridge.

It is now ready to cut into triangles or squares.

A tip for cutting this caramel slice is to turn it all upside down and then cut it.

Adapt to a Cake

Of course you can enjoy this amazingly tasty biscuit base caramel slice as it is or you can adapt it to make a wonderful cake.

To adapt it to a cake simply whip up some cream and decorate the cream with smarties and other decorative goodies and crumble some chocolate flake on top.

For more of a wow factor, you can double the height by making two layers.

A layer of biscuits, then a layer of caramel, then a layer of chocolate, then repeat a layer of biscuit, then caramel, then chocolate, and then finally top it with cream and decorative sweets.

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Plain Scone Recipe – Homemade

by Sharon Fitzpatrick | May 13, 2022 | Baking, Desserts

Plain Scone Recipe – Homemade:

Plain Scone Recipe is a nice recipe to know.

Who doesn’t love a good scone.

You can make these homemade scones so easily and quickly.

And they taste and smell amazing.

I love the smell of a homemade scone in the oven.

When you take it out and put butter or cream on that lovely warm scone MMMmmmm, WOW!!

This plain scone recipe makes beautiful soft and fluffy scones inside and the perfect crispy texture on the outside.

Of course (if there is any left!!!) you can freeze them.

Enjoy your homemade plain scones.

For other recipe ideas click HERE.

Serves:
8 – 12 scones

Great For:
snack or dessert

Cooking Time:
20 minutes

Watch on YouTube: Click Here.

Ingredients

500g self raising flour
125g butter
1 egg
Vanilla extract – 1 tsp

250ml full milk
½ tsp salt
15g baking powder
40g sugar

Plain Scone Recipe – Method – Instructions

Pre-heat oven to Gas 7/220°C

To make your plain scone, start with sieving the flour into a bowl.

Chop up cold butter into little squares and then add the butter squares into the flour.

Cover the butter with the flour.

Rub the butter into the flour with cool hands, using your finger tips and not the palm of your hand.

After rubbing the butter and flour together for about 5 minutes, the mixture should look like breadcrumbs. They should be small little lumps.

Shake the bowl and any big lumps will rise to the top.

This is a good way of checking if you have rubbed the butter into the flour well enough.

It is ok to have a few big lumps of butter, but just not loads.

To the breadcrumb mixture you need to add your sugar, baking powder and salt and mix with your hands or a spoon.

Now into a jug, crack open one egg and whisk it with a fork.

Then pour your milk into the jug with your egg and also add the vanilla extract to the jug.

Mix the egg, milk and vanilla extract with a fork.

Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture with a fork.

Pour the liquid mixture into the well.

With two forks, start putting some flour into the well with the liquid and it will start to bind together.

Sprinkle some flour onto a worktop area.

Keep bringing together with the forks and when the scone mixture is becoming more solid and firm, then tip the bowl upside down and empty the contents onto the floured work top.

Squeeze the scone mixture together with your hands and it will combine together nicely, so it will be one big solid dough mixture.

Time to Roll out Your Plain Scone

Spread a little flour on your rolling pin and then roll out your scone dough until it is about 1 ½ inch thick.

Be gentle with the rolling, don’t press down to hard.

Get a cutter and cut out your scone. Any size is fine. Some people like a big scone and some like a medium size.

A tip when cutting your scone is to dip the cutter into some flour as this stops the dough getting stuck to the cutter and the cut scone will come out of the cutter nice and easily.

Let the scones rest for 5 minutes before putting them in the oven.

With excess dough mixture, just pick it up and squeeze it together and roll it out again and cut some more scones out.

Mix some egg in a cup and then glaze each scone on the top, (not the sides) with the egg. This can be done using a pastry brush or your fingers.

Time to Bake Your Plain Scone

Place the plain scones onto a baking tin and bake in the oven for 12 – 15 minutes at Gas Mark 7.

When you take the scones out of the oven, place them on a cooling rack and let them cool for a few minutes. A warm plain scone is wonderful but you don’t want them piping hot as you don’t want to burn your hands when you open them.

Good scones don’t need to be cut when they are warm. You should be able to just pull them apart to reveal a nice soft and fluffy scone inside.

Time to Enjoy Eating Your Plain Scone – Homemade MMMmmmm

Now it is time to enjoy your plain scone with some butter or cream and perhaps some jam.

My mouth is watering as I am writing this!!!!!

Enjoy your delicious homemade plain scone.

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Cannelloni – Homemade Recipe

by Sharon Fitzpatrick | May 7, 2022 | Main Courses

Cannelloni – Homemade Recipe:

Cannelloni is a wonderful tasty dinner idea. A fabulous recipe to try out.

There are so many variations when cooking with pasta. This cannelloni is one of my favourites and I am so happy to be sharing it with you.

It is so worth the effort because the results are wonderful and amazing.

Perfect for a dinner party to impress your guests.

If you are living alone or there are two or three people at home then it is ideal too, as the cannelloni can be frozen and taken out as and when you fancy it for dinner one evening.

Cannelloni is a real hearty, warming, and comforting tasty meal.

This particular cannelloni recipe is made with beef mince but you can make it with pork mince or chicken mince or quorn mince.

Depending on the dish you use to make this cannelloni, depends on the quantities of the ingredients needed. I have based this recipe on using 19 cannelloni pasta tubes.

Make sure you use a deep dish, allowing two layers of pasta tubes and allow room for the sauce to completly cover the pasta tubes.

Of course if you make too much mince or sauce, you can use them the following day for something else or you can freeze them for a future date.

Enjoy this tasty cannelloni.

And then enjoy browsing through this site for more fabulous recipes.

Serves:
4 – 6 portions

Great For:
dinner

Cooking Time:
1 hour and 10 minutes

Watch on YouTube: Click Here.

Ingredients for Mince

2 onions
3 medium carrots
20g fresh basil
19 cannelloni tubes
Olive oil
750 – 800g mince
turmeric

oregano
¼ tsp pepper
½ tsp salt
¾ tube tomato puree
½ beef stock cube
3 – 4 tsp water
eggs x 3

Ingredients for Tomato Sauce

2 tins of chopped tomatoes
1 tsp dries oregano
3 tsp dried basil
2 cloves garlic
1 onion

Ingredients for White Sauce

60g butter
60g flour (any type)
600 ml warm milk
1 tsp nutmeg

Cannelloni – Method – Instructions

Pre-heat oven to Gas 6/200° C

Peel and dice your two onions.

Finley dice the carrots. Some people like to peel their carrots and some don’t, it is up to you what you prefer. Personally I keep the skins on.

Chop up some fresh basil.

In a large saucepan or deep frying pan add some olive oil.

Add the carrots and onion to the pot with the olive oil and put a lid on it and let it sweat for 5 minutes.

After they have sweated for 5 minutes, place your mince into the pot with your carrots and onions.

Mix the mince well with the vegetables, put the lid on and cook for a further ten minutes.

Once it has been cooking for 10 minutes take the lid off and season with turmeric, oregano, pepper and salt.

To your mince mixture add the tomato puree.

Put in the half a stock cube and add the3 – 4 teaspoons of water.

Not a lot of water is added because you don’t want a runny liquid mixture.

Cook the mince mixture with the lid off until any juice has evaporated.

Now you need to let your mince mixture in a bowl and let it cool and add your fresh basil in at this point.

In the meantime you can make the white sauce and the tomato sauce.

How To Make The Tomato Sauce for your Cannelloni

Tip your cans of chopped tomatoes in a pot.

Season the tomato sauce with oregano and dry basil.

Add in the onion and garlic.

Cook with a lid on for 20 minutes and then if you want you can liquidise after that 20 minutes of cooking the sauce.

How To Make The White Sauce for your Cannelloni

Melt the butter in a pot.

Add the flour and mix continuously for 1 minute. The mixture will be very thick, this is normal.

Slowly add small bits of warm milk and keep stirring.

The mixture will stay thick for a while but eventually it will get thinner until it gets to the consistency you want.

Then add some nutmeg to the white sauce.

Putting the Cannelloni Together

Into the bowl of cold mince mixture, add your 3 eggs.

Put a layer of tomato sauce in your dish.

Fill the cannelloni tubes with the mince mixture.

One way to fill the tubes is to use piping bag and squeeze the mince into the tubes. Alternatively you can use a spoon or your fingers.

Place the filled tubes on top of the tomato sauce layer.

On top of the filled tubes, you put some tomato sauce.

Then on that tomato sauce you put a second layer of filled tubes.

Pour the white sauce over the second layer of filled tubes.

Bake in the oven for 40 minutes.

Test with a knife to make sure patsa is cooked properly.

Happy Cooking.

Sharon

LifeStyle With Sharon

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Banana Bread – Homemade Recipe

by Sharon Fitzpatrick | Apr 2, 2022 | Baking, Desserts

Banana Bread – Homemade Recipe:

Homemade banana bread is an easy and delicious recipe.

Banana bread is lovely moist and sweet.

It can be eaten as a snack with a nice cup of tea or as a dessert.

If you have guests coming over, why not make some homemade banana bread.

They will really appreciate your homemade banana bread, much more than some biscuits from the shop, especially the lovely aroma as they walk in the door.

And the beauty of banana bread is you can make a batch of it and freeze it, then take a few slices out when you fancy it.

For other delicious desserts check out the desset blogs.

Serves:
6-10 people

Great For:
Dessert Or Snack

Cooking Time:
60 mins

Watch on YouTube: Click Here.

Ingredients

2 bananas
650g self raising flour
100 g chocolate chip
65g white caster sugar sugar

50g soft brown sugar
85g butter
vanilla xxtract
2 eggs
1 tbsp milk

Banana Bread – Method & Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to Gas 5/190°C/375°F

Melt the butter in a pot.

Squash the banana with a fork on a plate.

Put the squashed banana into a mixing bowl.

Pour the melted butter into the mixing bowl along with the squashed banana.

Add both the sugars to the mixing bowl. If you don’t have soft brown sugar then you can use all caster sugar instead.

Now put your eggs into the mixing bowl.

To the mixing bowl add your vanilla extract or vanilla essence.

Slowly add the flour into the banana bread mixture. Start by adding a third of the flour and fold the flour in with a spatula. When the flour has been folded in, then add another third and fold that in gently. Then add the remaining third of your flour and fold in.

Make sure you have mixed all the flour in well, making sure to scrape the edge of the bowl of any flour that might be lingering.

When you have added the final part of the flour, the banana bread mixture can get very thick.

At this point you would add your milk and mix it in.

Pour in the chocolate chips and stir in gently.

Line your bread tin with grease proof paper or you can buy a case to fit in your tin.

Pour in the banana bread mixture into your bread tin.

Smooth over the mixture with your spatula.

Place some chocolate chips on the top.

Bake in the oven for 50 minutes.

Happy Cooking

Sharon

LifeStyle With Sharon