Meatballs in tomato sauce

I am not sure why but the sauce for these always seems to work better than my almost identical attempts for bolognese sauce. Hmm.. I use a medium tray, I suppose of minced beef. Will have to check the packaging but it's about 2lb, I think. This made 23 meatballs last night of which 14 were cooked in the sauce and 9 were frozen for use at a later date.

Ingredients

For the sauce
- splash of olive oil
- teaspoon of fennel seeds
- 1 small to medium onion, chopped
- 1 small carrot, finely chopped or grated
- 3-4 cloves of garlic (the more the merrier, to be honest..but I guess it depends on your taste)
- 1/2 big tin of crushed tomatoes
-1/2 of the tin (or 2 small glasses) of water
- 1tsp sugar
- salt and pepper

For the meatballs
- minced beef, I try to buy medium but it's more often lean (not extra lean)
- salt and pepper for seasoning
- 1 egg
- breadcrumbs - about a cup
- 1 or 2 cloves of crushed garlic

Method
Sauce
1. Heat the oil in a pan on a medium heat with the fennel seeds
2. While this is happening, chop your onion finely
3. Add onion to oil and fennel seeds and cook, stirring occasionally for five minutes...or a bit more even
4. Chop or grate the carrot while onions are cooking and then add to the pot and allow to cook for 3 further minutes
5. Stir in the majority of the crushed garlic cloves (so, if using 4, crush 3 of them into the pot now)
6. Add tomatoes, water, sugar, and salt and pepper and stir.
7. Bring to the boil over the medium heat and simmer of five minutes before blending (careful now!) with a hand blender
8. Allow to simmer away while you make the meatballs, lid off is fine. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat once it has boiled.

Meatballs
1. Empty mince into large bowl.
2. Season with salt and pepper and add crushed garlic
3. Add breadcrumbs and crack the egg into the bowl.
4. Mix and squeeze it all in with your hands
5. Once thoroughly mixed, shape into balls. I make them about the size of a ping pong ballish, I think. To make sure they will hold their shape, a squish in the fist and re-roll doesn't go amiss.
6. Add them to the simmering sauce, one at a time until the pot is at capacity and give a gentle stir.
7. Add the final clove of garlic from the sauce mix now.
8. Simmer for 20 minutes on a gentle heat or until it is dinner time

Serve with buttered spaghetti

Zucchini and Apple Cake

Yes, I am Irish and zucchinis are really called courgettes in my brain but courgettes do seem to be chiefly used in cakes in North America and so zucchini cake, it is.

We were given a very large zucchini by our neighbour so baking had to be the way to go.
I made chocolate zucchini muffins (from some recipe on Pinterest that I did not save...well, the recipe was for cake/bread but I didn't have a suitable cake tin so made muffins and Z1 enjoyed them for her first week of school at lunch) with one half of the courgette and Z1 wanted to bake on the following rainy Saturday. She wanted to put apple in it and so we did. She had strong ideas about the apple  -  it was to be peeled and chopped but NOT grated and not sliced and put on the top a la upside down cake or as decoration.

Here is the recipe we used:

INGREDIENTS
2 cups of flour
2 cups of light brown sugar
2 tsp of baking soda
1tsp of baking powder
1/2tsp of salt (recipe said 1tsp but I found the muffins of earlier in the week too salty so cut it down)
1tsp of cinnamon (I might use 2 next time)
1 cup of oil
3 eggs, beaten
2tsp of vanilla
2 cups of grated zucchini (I left the peel on, you can do either - taking it off will mean it's easier to pass  off as not containing vegetables if that's what you want to do!)
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and chopped into pieces, kind of dice-sized, probably a bit bigger.      Roughly cubed, I guess one could say.

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Grease your loaf tin/cake tin (we used a cake tin)
3. Mix dry ingredients together 
4. Add vanilla essence, egg and oil to the dry ingredients and mix well
5. Add in the grated zucchini and mix well
6. Mix in the chopped apple and try to distribute it evenly throghout the mix 
7. Pour into cake tin and check again to distribute the apples evenly
8. Bake for about 1h10minutes...not sure if I should have made it 375C for shorter or what but tis took a LONG time to bake.
9. Leave to cool in tin for 10 minutes and then remove and allow to cool on a wire rack