I’ve finally got around to putting my recipe for my popular meatball sauce up! It can also be used as a base for spaghetti bolognese. It works best if you cook it slowly, and serves 2-4 people. The ingredients are pretty easy to source.

Ingredients

• Olive oil/cooking oil
• Salt
• Black pepper (you can extra pepper to give it some zing after you add the tomatoes)
• Basil (fresh or dried)
• Oregano
• 1 tin of plum tomatoes
• 1 tin of tomato purée (or 1/2  tube)
• 12 -24 beef meatballs or 1-2lbs. steak mince
• 1/2 punnet of Mushrooms (button mushrooms are best)
• 1 green pepper
• 1 onion
• 4 cloves of garlic
• Penne or spaghetti pasta
• Red wine
• 3-4 Bay leaves
• a tsp of white sugar (optional)

Equipment

• Large saucepan
• Wooden spoon
• Bloody sharp knife

Preparation

Splash a dash of oil into the saucepan. Put in on a low heat. Dice the onion, pepper and mushrooms and put to one side.

Peel and dice the garlic cloves and cook until they turn light brown, then add the onion and cook until golden.

Stir in the green pepper and mushrooms.

Add the meatballs to the mix and let them brown and cook through, stirring occasionally. Add the bay leaves, salt and pepper. Make sure that you keep

Dice the tomatoes in the tin – you don’t have to chop them up too much. Add to the mix and bring it to a simmering point.

Add the tomato purée, stirring it into the mix and allow it to simmer.

Dust the surface of the sauce liberally with the Oregano and Basil, and stir in well.

Add a dash of red wine, and taste – give it 30 minutes or so until it starts to simmer – and add any extra salt and pepper to taste.

You can also add a tsp of sugar to the sauce to bring out the flavor of the tomatoes.

Boil up the pasta (a dash of basil in the boiling water gives the pasta some flavour) and serve up the meatballs.