Little Balls of Heaven

I love meatballs and have experimented with many different recipes to finally achieve what I believe are the best ever.



I use a 50:50 beef and pork. I find the beef needs to be lean and the pork less so.  Preferably mince your own and use the best quality you can afford.





250g each minced beef and pork
1 medium red onion finely chopped with 1 clove garlic softened in some butter
A good handful of chopped herbs (I used sage, oregano and mint)
1 egg to bind if required
Salt and pepper
1 pack of fresh Mozzarella

Mix all the ingredients together when the onion and garlic mix have cooled.  Make a well in the centre of the meat ball and place a piece of mozzarella in it. Form the meat until it encloses the cheese.
                                                                   
                                                                 
Seal the meatballs on a hot pan.  If you are serving with a tomato sauce and pasta, they can be cooked through when transferred into the sauce.  If not then they must be cooked through on the pan but not overcooked or they will become like dry bullets.  Some of the mozzarella may ooze out but it becomes browned and it is delicious. 

This recipe makes enough for 3-4 depending on appetite.  Serve with a tomato sauce made from either fresh tomatoes or a tin of good quality peeled plum tomatoes cooked down with some onion, garlic and fresh herbs, a teaspoon of sugar and a splash of red wine.  Serve with tagliatelle or new potatoes and vegetables if preferred.






Tags: Meatballs  Pork and Beef Recipes  Food  

Seven Week Odyssey to Skinny

Week one has started of my seven week odyssey - which is defined as "an intellectual or spiritual quest".  Actually, odyssey is maybe the wrong word but I have to make it seem like an adventure and not a miserable experience.  I want to diet to lose a stone in the next seven weeks or 49 days or at least an average of 2lbs a week.  Then if I get to that target I hope to go on and lose a bit more; but one step at a time.  Why I am doing this is, because I have prevaricated and messed about with it for too long now - starting and stopping after a couple of weeks with no target to aim for.  Plus by posting this on my blog I hope it will shame me into keeping it up and not giving up heart if I don't reach my target on time.

I am following the Weight Watchers Pro-Points Programme.  I have joined Weight Watchers a few times and have always given up in frustration at the nutritional advice they dole out.  The final straw last time was telling dieters to use an oil-concoction-replacement-chemical spray instead of a healthy teaspoon of an olive or rape seed oil.  Plus advising buying fake bacon and promoting bars with hefty doses of hydrogenated fats and other nasties.  I wanted to scream several times at the meetings at the level of nutritional ignorance by the leaders.

So this is day 3 of week 1 and I am aiming for a 22 point daily intake plus a very vigorous walk for 50 minutes minimum which gives me another 3 points to play around with.

So far for breakfast I have had organic Kilbeggan porridge approx 50g cooked in water with low fat milk and muscovado sugar and a freshly squeezed orange for breakfast.  I have as much tea, coffee and water as I feel like.

For lunch I have variations on a salad theme with no bread and I use my own homemade dressing with olive oil and measure it out by teaspoon instead of the usual big dollop!

Snacks are seeds, nuts and fruit.

Dinner consists of meat or fish, lots of veg usually up to 5 or 6 different portions and maybe a medium potato or some rice.  I am trying to avoid pasta and other refined carbohydrates.

At the weekend I am going to splash out on a really good red wine and allow myself a bottle spread out over Friday, Saturday and maybe Sunday, depending on my restraint! 

I hope to devise some nice meal recipes and post them as I go along, but here's a quickie.

Spicy Bean Stew
1 400g can of mixed beans
1 small onion
1 stick celery
1 carrot
1 clove garlic
Thyme, sage and parsley chopped
Salt and pepper
4 thick good quality sausages (i.e. low fat and 80%+ lean e.g. Oldfarm)
100ml chicken stock
1/2 tin tomatoes
1 tsp of spicy sauce (Holy Fuck)

Sauté all vegetables in a teaspoon of rapeseed/olive oil.  Dry fry sausages, dab in kitchen paper and slice.  Add to vegetables.  Add beans drained and rinsed, stock and tomatoes.  Season and simmer for 30 minutes.  By my calculations this should serve 2-3 people and will not be more than 7 pro-points/serving.  Serve with a mash of root vegetables or extra green veg rather than potatoes or bread.

Tags:
Spicy Bean Stew,Sausage, Diet Weight Watchers, Low Calorie Kilbeggan, Holy Fuck

A Measure of Cups

Not all cups are the same

It came to me suddenly; late one Friday night - cups?  Why do Americans use cups to measure? It's daft if you think about it.  A cup is a cup - is a cup - if it's not a mug right?

A cup, anything from a tiny espresso cup to a big clunky mug - the type my mother refuses to drink out of....

Tea tastes nicer drunk from a china cup.  Espresso must be drunk from a pfaffy little cup that invariably you can't lift without burning your hand.  Builders favour mugs.

How can you bake using a cup?

But then if you really think about it - it's all proportional - except when you want to make a cake for 10 and end up with one for 2.  Should the recipe not include a definition of a cup?  I mean are you to use an espresso cup or a big, ignorant mug?  Is there some covert definition of a cup that us Europeans are not privy to?  I immediately come out in a cold sweat when I try to follow an American recipe.  Even the ingredients have strange names - cornstarch and Graham crackers for heaven sake. 

We also measure bust size in cups.  Do big cups mean more milk?  Who thought of cups as a measurement and why?  Had to be men though because let's face it babies not the best at articulation.

So cups for butter, flour and sugar.  Cups for tea and coffee.  Cups for when you have no glasses and cups for boobs.

Next I am going to write a recipe for making a cake using a bra cup.  And It will be left to the imagination which cup to use, depending on how greedy you are...........

Cup Measures   American Measures  Imperial Measurement  Metric Measurement