Sunday Meatballs

Having in mind my last post there is almost room here for a Dexys themed pun but for the moment I'll leave it. We have a greenhouse filled with tomatoes most of which are green so on Saturday it was back to the grocers to get some plum tomatoes to make a good sauce. I then cut along Whetstone Lane to New Ferry and Edges for a couple of pounds of minced pork. The big advantage of a trip to Edges on Saturday morning to get your fresh meat is the opportunity to pick up some of their bacon for breakfast on Sunday.

Sunday didn't blow quite as hard as was threatened but it was still a day for being inside and getting jobs done. In my case standing at the top of a tall ladder in the bedroom to paint around the wardrobe. Periodically I broke off to make myself another cup of coffee and move onto another stage in the slow making of our late lunch.

I started with the tomato sauce - chopped onions and garlic in olive oil and left to cook gently for half an hour. 

 I threw in a few sage leaves from the bush outside the back door.

It was then back upstairs for another half hour of painting before adding the tomatoes. I had bought a bag of English Toms for 69p and and handful of Plum tomatoes. 

These were duly quartered and thrown in the pan and left to stew for quarter of an hour. The pan was then seasoned with a few slices of dried red chilli, salt and pepper.

I added a couple of tins of chopped tomatoes and a pinch of sugar and then left it for an hour.

Whilst all that was cooking down I made the meatballs. The minced pork went into a bowl together with a good couple of handfuls of fine breadcrumbs, more chopped red chilli, some roasted and ground fennel seeds and a good seasoning of salt and pepper. The hands then went in squeezing the mixture between my fingers until all the seasonings were well amalgamated.

A couple of eggs were then added to the mix and I did some more squeezing and then shaped the mixture in twenty golf ball sized lumps which were placed onto a greased baking tray. The tomato sauce still needed some cooking so I went back upstairs and finished painting around the wardrobe.

The tomato sauce was put through a fine sieve and I added some basil and left it to keep bubbling away. The sheet of meatballs went into a hot oven for twenty five minutes. I turned them once about halfway through.

The meatballs then went into a shallow pan into which I poured about half of the tomato sauce. They poached in that whilst I made a pan of spaghetti.

There was one small lettuce left in the veg patch so we had that as well together with the two red tomatoes I had been able to find in the greenhouse dressed with olive oil, salt and balsamic vinegar. 

The recipe for the meatballs came from the Polpo cookbook. There will be enough left tomorrow night although I won't be here. The kids will finish them off.

Mid Sunday night now - listening to The Unthanks.