5-a-day meatballs

Ingredients

• 1 pack of 12 meatballs (or make your own)
• 2 red onions
• 2 garlic cloves - more if you love garlic!
• 2 courgettes
• 2 yellow, or red, peppers
• 1 butternut squash
• 1 pack of cherry tomatoes
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Few sprigs of rosemary
• Good pinch of sea salt

Method

Sometimes the best simple and delicious recipes are the ones you've forgotten about.

David, who normally looks after Saga's social media accounts, is living proof you don't need to be a celebrity chef to cook great nutritious food for your family.

This classic Mediterranean bake-style meatballs dish ensures you get your recommended five a day portion of fruit and vegetables, and for an extra special treat you can also add a dash of balsamic vinegar - not that you'd need it as this 5-a-day meatballs recipe is already bursting with flavour.

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6.

Empty the meatballs into a roasting dish and give them a little shake to spread them out a bit.

Roughly chop two red onions and drop them into the dish.

Finely chop (or crush, if you prefer) the garlic (Ainsley Harriott-style move to sprinkle the garlic over the top is optional).

Cube the courgettes and a yellow pepper and a red pepper - just for the colour contrast.

Peel and cube the butternut squash. You can do this by cutting the bottom off, turned it up and then sliced down each side. 

Add the rosemary sprigs, sea salt and olive oil to the dish and put in the oven on the middle shelf for 20 minutes.

Add the cherry tomatoes and put back in the oven for another 10 minutes, until the meat and vegetables are tender. If you prefer a bit more crunch to your vegetables then take them out a little earlier.

Variation

For an extra bit of zing you could add a splash of balsamic vinegar or a few slices of fresh red chilli.

Thrifty tip

It's cheaper to buy peppers in packs of three, but don't use green peppers for this dish as they are not ripe, so not as sweet. Keep the green peppers for something else, such as this Greek salad.

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