Kid Snack - Marinara Sauce

To go with homemade meatballs you need to have homemade marinara sauce.  Marinara sauce is so simple!  And once you discover that, you may never buy pre-made again.

Here is my recipe.

1-2 minced garlic cloves (I grow my own)
1 Tbls olive oil (I wish I could grow olives)
4 cups tomato sauce (I can my own)
1/2 cup tomato paste (I can my own)
1 Tbls sugar (this is optional but makes the sauce more kid friendly)
1/2 - 1 tsp baking soda

In a medium sauce pan, over medium-low heat sauté the minced garlic cloves in the olive oil. 

Carefully add the sugar, tomato sauce and tomato paste (carefully so the olive oil doesn't splash up on you).  Mix well.  I use a whisk to combine the sauce and paste together.

Let simmer about five minutes. 

Taste.  If the sauce is too sour, acidic, or tangy (choose your adjective), which is often a problem with home canned tomato sauce and/or paste, add 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.  Do not freak out.  The baking soda will fizz and bubble in the sauce.  The fizzing is from the acid in the tomatoes reacting with the baking soda, making the sauce less tangy.  Mix well until the fizzing stops. 

Note: adding sugar does not reduce the sour, acidic or tanginess of the sauce.  It might mask it a bit but does nothing to change the pH. I add a small amount of sugar to my sauce to actually make it sweeter to suit my daughter's taste.

Taste again.  If still too sour, acidic, or tangy for your liking, add another 1/1 teaspoon of baking soda, mix well and taste. 

Cook for another couple of minutes.  You do not need to cook the sauce all day.  You need less than 10 minutes for a yummy marinara.  Remove from heat and use or freeze for future use.

I like to use ice cube trays to freeze the sauce.


Once frozen, the individual cubes can be put into a ziptop bag for storage.  When ready to use, put the frozen meatballs and two or three cubes of sauce into a small sauce pan over medium-low heat to warm up for a nutritious and yummy snack.

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Kid Snacks - Meatballs

Homemade meatballs and marinara sauce

I know my daughter loves meatballs and marinara sauce.  So I thought I would make up a bunch of both then freeze them for future use.

The meatball recipe is:

2 lbs ground meat (I used 1 lb ground beef and 1 lb ground turkey)
1/2 cup chopped bell pepper
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
2 Tbls olive oil
2 eggs, beaten
2 Tbls milk
1 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Into a heated skillet add the olive oil, bell pepper, onion and mushrooms.  Sautee until soft.

Put sautéed vegetables into a food processor with the milk and process until soupy.

Combine all the remaining ingredients along with the pureed vegetables into a large mixing bowl.  Mix well by hand or with a stand mixer. 

Next line a cookie sheet or rimmed half-sheet pan with parchment paper.  You actually can skip the parchment paper.  But I have found using the paper keeps the meatballs from sticking to the pan.

Using a food portioner like the one pictured below, scoop out the meatballs onto the baking pan or cookie sheet.

I could get 20 meatballs on my half-sheet pan.  After the meatballs were scooped out, I went back and hand rolled each scoop into a ball.


The meatballs when into the 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.  This recipe will give you about 50 meatballs, depending of course on the size you choose to make them.

I put all the cooked meatballs onto one half-sheet pan which was lined with wax paper and put the pan into the freezer.  Once the meatballs are frozen, they will go into a ziptop bag for future snacks.

When needed, place a few meatballs into a small sauce pan along with some of the marinara sauce.  Gently heat until warm.  These are much healthier if you don't microwave them warm, just saying.

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Kid Snacks - Peanut Butter Bananas

So I am always looking for snack ideas for my daughter.  It is way too easy to grab a bag or box of something.  Even when that something is marked "organic", if it is highly packaged, it probably has the nutritional value of paste.

My first attempt was the classic "ants-on-a-log" with peanut butter stuffed celery topped with raisins, craisins, or chocolate chips. My daughter loves peanut butter so I thought it would be a winner.  But I was wrong.  The first thing she said was, "I don't like celery."  And the complete lack of eating pretty much proved that to be a fact.  Too bad I didn't take a picture though, they came out rather lovely I thought.

So my second attempt was peanut butter on banana slices topped with chocolate chips along with some strawberries.  I thought these were super yummy.  My husband thought they were super yummy.  My daughter said, "I don't like bananas."  Sigh.

That is when I remembered that she really never did eat bananas. How does one forget this?  Even as an infant she would not touch baby food with banana in it.  On a rare occasion now she will have a few bites of banana but apparently this was not one of those days.

But if you have a normal child who likes normal kid food, either the ants-on-a-log or these peanut butter bananas should make a yummy and nutritious snack.  As for me, I will keep trying and let you know how it goes.

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