Zucchini pasta with turkey meatballs

I love the idea of pasta, and I love the sauces that go with pasta, what I do not love is pasta.  Don't get me wrong if you put a plate of pasta with a nice sauce on it I will happily eat it, I just would not cook it for myself.  Because of this I am always looking for substitutes for the pasta. In the past I have used shredded cabbage quickly cooked and spaghetti squash, but I have been wanting to try zucchini as a substitute.  My husband currently is in Europe waiting for me to join him, so I am on my own for dinner, it was time to experiment.

I am trying to lose that last couple of pounds before leaving for my vacation so a light meal was in order and as I was on my own a one dish meal was also the order of the day.

Turkey meat balls

Feeds 4

1lb of ground turkey
1/2 onion finely chopped
1 clove of garlic finely chopped
2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon of chopped mint.
2 tablespoons of fine breadcrumbs.
1/4 cup of finely grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

Mix all the ingredients together then form in to balls about the size of small walnuts.  Place on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper.

Place in a preheated 400 oven for between 15 and 20 minutes until they are just cooked through, you do not want to overcook and dry them out.

I used a 1/4 of these for my dinner for one and will use the remainder this week for dinners and lunch.

Almost ratatouille

We came home from a hard day's shopping in Watford looking forward to moules marinier and french fries, a quick easy dinner to make, especially as Jacky's husband was making the fries.  So we did not really start thinking about cooking until very close to dinner time.  The fries were cut and soaking in water time to prepare the mussels.  Horrors the mussels were past their due date and not looking as healthy as they should and none of us wanted to take a chance, so plan b it was.

Jacky produced some chicken breasts and assorted vegetables from the cellar, we perused the ingredients and we came up with roasted ratatouille (substituting the eggplant with mushroom) chicken in home made barbecue sauce, green salad with warm balsamic dressing and of course french fries.

Jacky took on the chicken and salad, Howard the fries and I was responsible for the roasted vegetables.  I had

• 2 portabello mushrooms, 
• 2 red peppers, 
• 2 zucchini (courgettes), 
• 2 small red onions 
• a box of cherry tomatoes

I quickly chopped all the vegetables up through them in a roasting tin added the tomatoes and drizzled on some olive oil, and threw them in a 400 oven.  These cooked for just over half an hour which was the time it took to prepare the remainder of the meal. The vegetables were soft and just turning black on the edges, absolutely perfect.