Lady and The Tramp-Inspired Oven-Baked Meatballs with Goat's Cheese

This month's Food 'n' Flix is a lovely Disney film: Lady and the Tramp. It was chosen by Elizabeth at The Lawyer's Cookbook and is perfect for Valentine's day. I must have been quite young when I first saw this film and thought it was lovely, and was particularly taken by Lady (less a fan of the scruffy Tramp!) but I remember cringing when they kissed, in a 'boys are icky' sort of way!

But the scene where Lady and her beau eat the plate of spaghetti and meatballs, and find they are sucking up the same strand of pasta when their mouths meet in a kiss, is iconic. It's been parodied so many times but is actually very sweet. So I couldn't really make anything else for Food 'n' Flix!

I have made spaghetti and meatballs before so wanted to do something a bit different this time. I found a recipe in Slimming World magazine for oven-baked meatballs with cheese melted over the top, which was something I hadn't tried. I adapted the recipe, leaving out the courgette and aubergine as I don't like them.

To serve two, you need:
1 onion, finely chopped
250g lean beef mince
1 tsp dried oregano
1 garlic clove, crushed
salt, pepper
200g tin chopped tomatoes
1 tsp sweetener
200g passata
75ml vegetable stock
100g goat's cheese
pasta to serve

Preheat oven to 180C. In a large bowl mix half the onion, the mince, oregano, garlic and seasoning and roll into balls. In another bowl mix the tinned tomatoes, sweetener, passata and vegetable stock. Place the meatballs in an oven proof dish, pour over the tomato mixture and top with goat's cheese. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes depending on how big you've made your meatballs.

While the meatballs are cooking, boil the pasta according to pack instructions. Serve the meatballs and the sauce over the pasta. I used fusilli but for a true Lady and the Tramp experience you should of course use spaghetti!

As mentioned above I'm sending this to Food 'n' Flix.

Turkey Mince and Potato Wedge Hash

I created this recipe to use up some leftover cooked potato wedges which I didn't want to throw away. I also had some turkey mince in the fridge which needed using up so I decided to make the mince into meatballs. At the last minute I wasn't sure if that would be enough so I cut up a few sausages and threw them into the frying pan as well, along with some onion.

I then added some passata from a carton as well as salt and pepper and a pinch of chilli flakes.

I then added the cooked potato wedges to heat through, and sprinkled some grated cheese on top.

Serve with some salad or green veg.

This was really tasty and a good way to use up leftovers. I think you could also use leftover turkey from your Christmas dinner!

Food 'n' Flix: Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

This month's Food 'n' Flix food blog challenge is Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, chosen by Culinary Adventures with Camilla.

I've seen the film before and thought it was fun; a story that would appeal to both adults and children. The central character, a young man named Flint, lives with his dad and pet monkey, and when his town suffers a shortage of food, he invents a machine that transforms water into food. However, things get out of hand and the machine starts producing food that is bigger and bigger and finally a large tornado of spaghetti and meatballs threatens the town, and the world. Do they save the day? What do you think?

This film is full of food - at one point it rains cheeseburgers - but as the title is so memorable I wanted to make something with meatballs. I've featured meatball recipes on my blog before, like these cheese-stuffed meatballs:

So instead, this is more of a serving suggestion than a recipe. I give you: cloudy with a chance of meatballs!

The clouds are of course mashed potato and the trees are broccoli. This would be a good way to let children have fun with their food and perhaps try something they haven't eaten before!

I'm sending this to Food 'n' Flix,  hosted by Culinary Adventures with Camilla.

Cheese-stuffed meatballs

These cheese-stuffed meatballs are really simple and tasty and are a good way of jazzing up spaghetti bolognese if it's a dish you make a lot or you have someone who isn't that keen on pasta (strangely enough there are people like that out there!). Somehow the idea of a cheese-stuffed meatball is so much better than spaghetti bolognese even though there's not all that much difference!

I made these to use up some freshly minced beef I made after buying chuck steak from the local butcher and trying out my Kitchenaid mincer attachment. You can mix the mince with whatever you like such as finely diced onion, garlic, oregano and other herbs and a little salt. Then cut cubes of hard cheese - I've used cheddar here, but you could also try halloumi. Form the mince into a ball around the cheese.

Roll into balls and place in the fridge for about half an hour to firm up.

When ready to cook, heat a frying pan and spray with Fry Light or a little oil and fry the meatballs on all sides until browned.

In the meantime cook some spaghetti according to the packet instructions. You can also make a tomato sauce from scratch if you have time, but here I just used passata as I didn't want to compete too much with the flavour of the meatballs.

As you can see, when you cut into the meatballs, the cheese is softened but still intact; it hasn't oozed out or melted into the meat. These went down very well with my boyfriend!

In fact because I made these for my boyfriend as I knew he would love it (more than spag bol) and because I love him (awww)  I'm sending this to Cheese Please, hosted by Fromage Homage, which has a theme this month of cheesy romance.

I'm also sending this to Pasta Please, as the challenge this month focuses on spaghetti and these meatballs go perfectly with spaghetti. The challenge is hosted this month by a blogger I haven't come across before, called Feeding Boys and a Firefighter, on behalf of Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

Pasta Pomadoro with Meatballs

Out of curiosity I bought a cookery book called How to Feed a Man With Love - it's very different to the other books I've got and I feel deserves an entire blog post in itself, so watch this space for a review. In the meantime though I wanted to post this recipe I made from the book - at least, the recipe for the sauce is from this book, the meatball recipe is an old one I already knew.

Pasta Pomadoro (pasta with tomato sauce)

You need:

1 clove garlic

1 carton passata (crushed tomatoes)

squeeze of tomato puree

olive oil

2 tsp sugar

fresh basil

salt, pepper

Crush the garlic and fry in olive oil

Add the passata to the pan and stir in the sugar, tomato puree and season.

Add the fresh basil and allow the sauce to simmer

To make the meatballs, you need:
minced beef
parmesan cheese
dried oregano
half an onion, finely chopped

Mix the parmesan, oregano and onion in a bowl

Add the mince and mix well

Roll into balls then fry until browned

Serve with the tomato sauce and spaghetti