some meatballs

Buried in the back of the freezer, I found 2lbs of sausagemeat, clearly left over from the festering season, and never used. I’m diabetic, and shouldn’t really eat sausage rolls, so I poddled up to the butcher and bought 300g of lean minced beef, and on Sunday we had a meatball cook-in.

Italian: Pete manfully combined the meats, then divided the combination into two equal parts. The first part had garlic, herbs and season added and was divided into walnut sized pieces. I chopped onions, carrots and courgettes, and more garlic. I made a sauce with half of  a 99p (huge) tin of tomato paste, and a good splash of red wine. Bunged the lot in the slow cooker, left for four hours. Gorgeous – made 9 portions.

Moroccan: The other half of the meats was seasoned with some Ras el Hanout, while I chopped red peppers and onions into thin slices, and cubed three yellow courgettes. I sautéd these down very slowly, with a teaspoon of honey, some olive oil, lots more garlicm and some sesame seeds. Then added the meatballs, a tiny bit of red wine (as it was too hand), and some seasoning. Left on a slow simmer for about an hour. Also made 9 portions.

The empty shelf space in the freezer is disappearing!

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

a mini slow cooker

We do a lot of batch cooking for the freezer, as regular readers will know. I have a big (6.5l, I think it is) slow cooker, which is great for cooking huge amounts, but useless for a meal for both of us.

Fuel prices are becoming ever more ridiculous, so for ages I’ve been thinking about a very small slow cooker, that I could dump a tub in from the freezer and leave for the afternoon. And we are lucky enough (or unlucky, depending on our wallet’s point of view :) to live within spitting distance of a Lakeland store (the one in Beverley, should you be interested). I phoned them this morning to see if they had one of these little chaps in stock, and they kindly set one aside for me, and this afternoon we trundled over there (via the car part shop and Screwfix. And the library). It seems perfectly adequate for the purpose, and we also bought some Parameswaran’s peppercorns, which is our black pepper of choice.

It cost £19.99, which is far more than a big one costs, paradoxically, but I think we will get a lot of use out of it. It currently has a tub of frozen chilli con carne in it, as an evaluation :)

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.