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With me still being a bit poorly and house bound, I’m starting to feel like a modern day Miss Havisham! …well, Mrs Havisham and  Big J has been doing all the shopping. Which is lovely of him. Only trouble is it can be a rather slap dash affair.  He doesn’t really think in terms of “meals” as such, more in the terms of “meat” and then the odd vegetable and when I say odd I do mean odd, we have two giant bags of onions ( in thinking of making onion soup ) and no potatoes. Two huge bags of apples, but no other fruit.  Oh except Mars bars, and Mars milk … Which according to Big J are as good as fruit…. Well, they  did used to say a Mars a day helps you work rest and play. But I do feel they may have been a little over optimistic!

Anyhow the upshot of all this is that I’ve become very inventive with my dinner menus. And so the Greek meatballs were born. And in so glad they were, they have a yummy warm sunnyshiny flavour of holidays and happy days. Perfect for a rainy October girl stuck at home please try them and let me know what you think. I’m making them a weekly thing in my house now,  forever!

A slightly grumpy Miss Havisham approved !

For tomato sauce …
*cooks notes, this slow cooked tomato sauce would be great on it’s own with some pasta and nice bread, it also keeps really well in the fridge or freezer #just a thought *

1 onion
4 fat cloves of garlic ( 5 if cloves are small)
Two teaspoons of dried oregano
I small green chilli ( seeds removed)
Half a teaspoon if cumin
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon of butter
1 bottle of passata
Quarter teapoon of sugar
Teaspoon of sea salt ( maldon is my fave)
Teaspoon of black pepper

For the Meatballs …

450g pack of miced beef

1 slice of slightly stale bread

1 clove of garlic

3/4 of a pack of feta

dried chilli

black pepper

1 egg, beaten

To start the sauce put the oil and butter in a big pan over a medium heat. While the oil is heating put the onion, garlic, green chilli and  cumin in a food processor ( I have a really useful baby sized one great for doing stuff like this ) and blitz until you have a purée. ( if you don’t have a mixer, you could just chop everything up really fine, you will get a slightly different end result because your sauce won’t be smooth, but all the flavours will still be there. )

Once your oils just starting to bubble add your paste. Cook this off gentle for ten minutes over a low heat. Dont wander off and leave it at this stage as it can catch easily, and keep stiring ocashinally as  you don’t want the mixture to go brown. Just soften and release all those gorgeous flavours into the buttery oil.
Milly stirs my pan at this point ( with me very close by ) I have discovered she eats lots more dinner if she has helped cook it !
Anyway… So after the 10 mins slow cooking you add the passata. Pour the entire bottle in and then half fill the bottle with water and add that too, along with sugar, salt and pepper. Cook this ( pan lid off) for another ten mins.
It will look waterery at this stage but do not worry, it won’t look like this for long.
Now to make the meatballs…
This is great fun, and if you have them, you can get the kids to do it
First your gonna make a paste in the food processor again.

This time you want to add 1 garlic clove, a hand full of fresh lemon thyme, *or a teaspoon of dried* a pinch of chilli flakes and three quarters of a pack of feta cheese ( even if your not used to, or don’t like this cheese, you won’t taste it as it melts into the sauce. Just leaving a lovely rich, salty, mediterranean flavour)
So blitz these ingredients together in the food processor ( or very finely chop ) . Then put the mince in a bowl with a tiny pinch of salt ( the feta is salty) and lots of black pepper ) break the egg add the breadcrumbs and then your fetta paste. Mix well, but gently and then form into balls. I try and aim for about a rounded teaspoon for each ball. But the most important thing is to make sure they are all roughly the same size, so they all are cooked at the same time.
Place your balls on a plate ( cough , don’t be rude )
And get back to your pasta sauce, after about fifteen mins your sauce should be thickening up and looking rather lovely . Now we add about a cup of full fat milk and stir.
Now pop in the meatballs and cook with a lid partially covering,  for around 25 – 30 mins . ( *cooks notes*  Once there in, do not try and stir , as you’ll break up the lovely meatballs. )
Leave them to do there thing , while you cook the pasta.
Serve with a little scattered fresh basil for the kids, and maybe and extra crumbling of feta and a pinch
of smoked paprika for the “grown ups”.

{*cooks notes*} if, like me your trying to de-carb a bit, swap the pasta and serve the meatballs and sauce over a nice big bowl of seasoned spinach, with some of the feta crumbled over the top . The spinach will wilt slightly under the hot sauce and just be scrummy , promise! X