Spaghetti and Meatballs

The group chose this classic Italian dish because they wanted to find out how to make it all from scratch.

We started with the meatballs:

We used lean beef mince, grated onion, crushed garlic, Italian seasoning, cinnamon, breadcrumbs, an egg, salt and pepper....

.... After all this it was time to get our hands dirty and mix all the ingredients together: 

We then made individual meatballs by rolling out small portions if the mixture between the palms of our hands. It was important to make them all a similar size so they cooked evenly.

These meatballs can be fried but we chose to oven cook them to reduce our fat intake.

Whilst the meatballs were cooking away in the oven we got on with making a tomato sauce.

We finely chopped onion, red pepper and garlic and cooked them, until soft, in a drizzle of olive oil.

We added 4 tins of chopped tomatoes, salt, pepper, Mixed herbs and a teaspoon of sugar to balance the flavour. 

We let this simmer for half an hour before blending the sauce for a smooth consistency. We had to be very careful as the sauce was hot.

 

By this time the meatballs were cooked so we added them to our sauce.

The only thing we didn't make from scratch was the pasta!

With a little Parmesan on top this made for a filling and authentic Italian dinner. The sauce was rich yet fresh and the meatballs were tender and full of flavour.

Everyone really loved this recipe and are keen to try it and home.