I love making this dish, as I find I can sneak lots of veggies into my eldest without him realising. I sometimes top it with cheese too and put in the oven for a 20 minutes for a yummy pasta bake. My youngest seems to love the whole wheat macaroni tubes too.

Beef and Tomato Macaroni

Serves 4 (2 adults and 2 children)

Ingredients

• 450g of lean ground beef
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 sticks of celery
• 1 large carrot
• 1 cup of passata (no salt varieties)
• 1 cup of no salt beef stock
• 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
• splash of balsamic vinegar
• 2 teaspoons of Italian mixed herbs
• olive oil
• 3/4 cup of frozen peas
• 250g of whole wheat macaroni

Directions

Add the onion, garlic, celery and carrot to a mini food processor and do a couple of spins of the blade, until finely chopped.

Add some olive oil to a large frying pan over a medium high heat. Add the onion, garlic, celery, carrot and ground beef to the pan and fry until browned.

Stir in the tomato paste and herbs and mix until evenly coated.

Add your passata, stock and a splash of balsamic vinegar, bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer until sauce has reduced down and thickened.

While the sauce is simmering you can add cook pasta as per packet instructions.

Stir in the frozens peas to your meat mixture and then mix in the cooked pasta.

Serve as is, or top with some cheese and bake in the oven until cheese is melted for a yummy pasta bake.