Weekend Recipe: Hawaiian Meatball Kebabs

We love Hawaiian meatballs - the sweet/sour flavour of the sauce, and fresh pineapple is really popular with my kiddos! I tried making these into kebabs the other day when it was hot enough that I wanted to turn off my oven and turn on the bbq! I made the meatballs ahead of time in the morning when it was cooler, and put the kebabs together later. You could probably cook the meatballs on the bbq too if you had a good pan!

Hawaiian Meatball Kebabs

Meatballs:

1lb ground meat (we used lamb) 1 egg 1/2 cup bread crumbs 1/2 tsp minced fresh garlic (more if you like your meatballs garlicky!) 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp pepper

Mix all ingredients together in a big bowl (squishing with a fork works well). Form into 1-inch balls and place on a cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees F for 15-20 minutes, turning them over halfway through baking.

Kebabs:

1 pepper cut into large chunks (we used red and yellow) 1 fresh pineapple, cut into large chunks Batch of cooked meatballs (see above)

Grab your kebab skewers and alternate a cooked meatball, piece of pepper and piece of pineapple until the skewer is full. Place on a pre-heated grill, and grill just until peppers are soft (I left them on for about 10 minutes - you want to make sure the meatballs don't get dried out!)

Hawaiian Sauce:

Most Hawaiian sauces are really high in sugar. This is because canned pineapple and the juice is used. I've used stock here instead to cut back on the sugar a bit. It's slightly more sour than sweet, but I liked it a lot better!

1.5 cups veggie or beef stock 2 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce 3 tbsp vinegar 1/4 cup brown sugar or honey 1/2 ground ginger 2 tbsp cornstarch

Whisk all ingredients in a saucepan. Heat until the sauce thickens, usually about 20 minutes.

Take the kebabs off the bbq, and serve with rice. Pour a spoonful of the sauce over the whole place! Bon Appetit!

The Swedish touch

by Amy A little while ago I posted on my own blog about the dos and don'ts for servers in family restaurants and Lara asked me about doing reviews of how kid friendly restaurants around Ottawa are.

Now, I have my own criteria, but I've discovered that one of my favourite places to take the kid for a meal right now is Ikea. Yes, Ikea.

There are a number of complaints about shopping at the actual store, but the Ikea restaurants is great for kids. There are a lot of reasons we've eaten at Ikea twice in the past two weeks. One is cost - who can resist a dollar breakfast when you're buying a $600 piece of furniture? But the other things that I liked surprised me.

Variety: The restaurant has a pretty good number of choices for on the children's menu and it all seems fairly good. Some places your choice is between something fried or white pasta, but my daughter had meatballs with mashed potatoes and a milk to drink. She was a big fan of the lingonberry jam, which is a bit weird.

Serving size: The servings are absolutely reasonable for a child.

Utensils: Ikea uses their own stuff to stock the restaurant and for the children's meals that means plastic plates, kid sized utensils, plastic cups. This is the only place I remember eating that a fork she looked comfortable using.

And the best part? After spending more than two hours walking around the store, kid actually napped.

Amy is mom to two year old Maggie and a 6 year old schnauzer named Henry. You can read her blog at amyboughner.ca where she writes about motherhood and anything else that’s on her mind. She also shares a blog with her husband at boughner.ca where they talk together about parenting a daughter.