More deliciousness from the Hobbit at Home! This was a really good invented recipe made for my boyfriend and myself. We had left over venison burger, leftover sausages and leftover pizza sauce. So we were in a bit of a quandary of what to make for dinner, until someone on TV happened to mention meatballs! At this point my boyfriend's eyes lit up. So we put on a pan of pasta. I'm not going to be precise about how much we used, really make as much or as little as you need, the sauce and meatballs make enough for about four people though (we yet again have more leftovers)!
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First of all make a small bowlful of pizza sauce. Roughly about half a cereal bowl size is what you will need.
Pizza Sauce Ingredients
- Passata ~ For something like pizza, canned tomatoes tend to be too watery and tomato puree is too thick. So I go for Passata as it has the right consistency.
- 1 tsp Mixed Herbs ~ Go for Italian or just normal.
- Salt & Pepper ~ To Taste
- 1 tsp Paprika
- BBQ sauce ~ Optional.
Method:
Pour in enough passata sauce to fill half a cereal bowl. Add about 1tsp of BBQ sauce, the herbs, salt and pepper and paprika. Mix and viola!
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Now make the meatballs.
Meatballs Ingredients
- Four sausages (without the skin) ~ You can go for any you like, we just used basic pork. But that's what we had in the fridge at the time.
- One venison burger ~ Again, this is what we had in my fridge, but if you know of somewhere that does good venison mince use about a small handful. You may need to add some more herbs and seasoning to boost up the flavour of the meatballs.
- 1 tsp Smoked Paprika - I'm sorry, I'm a big Paprika lover and I love Smoked Paprika even more! If I can find a way to use Paprika, smoked or otherwise, in any recipe, then I will do! If it's not to your taste feel free to omit it. But it gives a lovely, smokey flavour to the meatballs.- 1tsp of Mixed Herbs
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Method:
I make my meatballs by hand, because I lack the technology to do otherwise. But if you are so fortunate to have a mixer to do the work for you, then I envy you. But I do think it's easier to control the distribution of the herbs and spices within the meat, if you do it by hand.
First just break up the sausage and venison meat, then add the herbs and spices, mix well into the mince meat. Form into meatballs, you can decide on size, whether you prefer your balls big or small, just have a play around!
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Finally we get to the pasta and the pasta sauce. So make however much pasta you need. Now onto the pasta sauce.
Pasta Sauce Ingredients
- 1 can of Chopped Tomatoes
- 1 small Onion
- Handful of Spinach ~ My boyfriend would say omit the spinach, but I love spinach and being healthy.
- Pizza sauce ~ See above
- 1 tsp Mixed Herbs- 1 tsp Smoked Paprika
- 1 tsp of Sugar
- 1 tsp of Salt
- Salt and Pepper to taste ~ The extra Salt can be optional.
Method:
Heat a large frying pan or Wok with oil. Dice the onion. Having prepared the meatballs add them to the frying pan and brown one one side first, then gently turn over to prevent from falling apart. Add the onion and fry gently.
Add the pizza sauce and the chopped tomatoes to the pan, and turn the heat up slightly, till you have a low boil. But keep an eye on it. Add the salt and sugar to combat the acidicness of the can. Lower the heat to a simmer and go watch some crappy reality TV for 10-15 mins or so, till the sauce has thickened slightly. Add the herbs, spices and spinach. Et voila, pour the sauce and meatballs over your pasta. And Enjoy!
