Chilli Meatballs with a Tomato & Basil Sauce - Gourmet Garden's Blog Off Cook Off

Gourmet Garden are the the producer of fresh herbs and spices easy for weekday cooking.  Their passion is organically-grown herbs and spices packaged in a convenient squeezable tube that lasts for up to 3 months in your fridge.  They are currently running a Blog Off Cook Off competition where one lucky blogger can win a trip to Australia and a whopping £3000!

Using some of their great range of fresh herbs and spices, I have to develop and make a recipe to be judged by the great Rosemary Shrager.

So here we go - here's one of my entries to the fantastic Gourmet Garden's Blog Off Cook Off competition.
Chilli Meatballs with a Basil & Tomato Sauce - serves 1-2
For the meatballs
150g minced beef or lamb
1 tbsp Gourmet Garden garlic
1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp plain flour
1 tbsp Gourmet Garden chilli
2 tbsp olive oil

For the tomato and basil sauce
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 small carton of passata (250g)
1/2 onion, very finely chopped
1 tbsp Gourmet Garden basil
1 tsp Gourmet Garden garlic
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

To serve
Freshly cooked spaghetti
Green side salad

1. Add all the meatball ingredients (except the olive oil) to a large bowl, mix with your hands and shape into small meatballs (about 6-8).
2. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and fry the meatballs for 5-6 minutes.  Remove from the pan, set aside and keep warm.
3. Whilst the meatballs are cooking, fry the onion in a little oil in a small saucepan until soft.  Add the passata, basil and garlic and heat through gently.
4. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
5. Serve the meatballs on top of the tomato and basil sauce on a bed of freshly cooked spaghetti, with a fresh green side salad.

Ryvita Recipe Reviews (2)

Well, here's the second instalment of the fabulous recipes from Mark Sargeant & Ryvita.  They are both seasonal toppings for the crispbreads - the first as a light breakfast and the second as a light lunch.

Ryvita Fruit Crunch crispbread with banana, yogurt, honey, basil & passion fruit is a quick and easy light breakfast for a great start to your day.  I actually substituted the passion fruit for strawberries as, believe me, trying to find passion fruit in my small town was a major feat - a bit too tropical for a small Welsh town!  The passion fruit/strawberries are used to flavour the yogurt & make a simple coulis so any soft fruit you can get your hands on will work just fine... also it depends on the flavours you want to use for variety.  Next time I'm on my travels to the "big town", I will definitely pick up a couple of passion fruits to redo the recipe again!

 

The flavours of the fruits with the honey & basil fitted very well together and even my children (both under 8 years old) gave this the thumbs up!

The second recipe used the Mediterranean Herb Crispbread with Sardine Escabeche.  This recipe took a bit more in the way of preparation, with lots of thinly slicing to be done but it is worth the effort.  The marinade of red wine vinegar, orange, thyme, rosemary, bay, garlic, parsley & chilli gently pickles the fennel, carrot and onion and is lovely with the sardines... in fact, any oily fish would be great to use in this recipe.

I think this recipe is most suited to eating "al fresco" sat on a sun terrace on a warm afternoon... at the moment, a wet and windy Wales will have to do but it definitely gave a Mediterranean feeling to my afternoon.  The flavours from the crispbreads paint a perfect picture of the Med and the tastes most associated with the area.

I've really enjoyed working "with" Mark Sargeant - even if from afar!  But it has shown that a normal housewife and mum can create great looking and tasting foods in a normal kitchen with (mostly!) store cupboard ingredients!  "Come Dine With Me" here I come!

And of course, innovative ways to use the underestimated Ryvita Crispbread - a great source of fibre with great new flavours for family life!