Linguine and Homemade Meatballs

Linguine with homemade meatballs

Last night for tea we made homemade meatballs with linguine and a tomato sauce.  When it comes to following recipes, I’m not very good at sticking to them unless requires precision – things like pastry I’m not yet confident at “adding a little bit of this ” and a “little bit of that.”  Instead I often use recipes as a guide, or more often than not just the title or photo of a recipe to make my own version. 

So last night I created my own spaghetti and meatballs after seeing a delicious photo in Jamie at Home (one of my all time favourite recipe books, and probably my most used).  Most of the time I don’t have all the ingredients a recipe calls for, and I’m not very good at planning ahead and going out to stock up on the right ingredients.  So instead I substitute with ingredients I have hanging around in my fridge or cupboards, or just work my way around them.

We made our meatballs from mince beef (from Little Heath Farm) rather than sausagemeat.  We mixed the raw meat with breadcrumbs (I blitzed up a few slices of a Sweet Poppy Seed loaf from Barbakan), some dried herbs that my mom had brought me back from France, and some salt and pepper.  N shaped them into small balls and we cooked them in a good glug of olive oil under brown and crispy. 

No spaghetti in the house, just angel hair or linguine – I opted for linguine I felt as the angel hair was too thin for a thick tomatoey sauce and meatballs.  The tomato sauce consisted of chopped garlic, parsley stalks finely chopped, a tin of cherry tomatoes, and a glug of balsamic vinegar – plus seasoning.  This was blitzed up, spooned over the cooked linguine, and the meatballs piled on top, finished with a handful of chopped parsley.  The recipe called for peas.  I wanted peas, planned on having peas, but forgot the peas.  Oh well.  Maybe next time.

Yum