Self Sufficient Dinners
(from our small holding)
Fabulous balls, I love meatballs and these beautiful little balls are loaded with flavour from caramelised onions and home made fresh sharp goats cheese that balances really well with the sweetness from the onions, a few herbs and seasonings and you are served up with delicious moist and moreish meatballs, so make plenty as these are a great left over in the fridge for snacks, tossed in a slow cooked tomato sauce over spaghetti or served on top of a toasted strip of french bread and finished off with mozzarella cheese in all a great way to serve three or four meals from one cook...
Prep Time 5 minutes / Onion Caramelising Time 15 mins / Meatball Cooking Time 35 mins
Goats Cheese 24hrs mostly unattended actual hands on time 30 mins
Ingredients
(serves 4)
THE BALLS
500g organic lamb mince
500g organic pork mince
1 tbsp coconut oil
2 onions finely chopped
1 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 tbsp sugar
1 beaten egg
100g breadcrumbs
1 tsp dried red chilli flakes
1 tsp Sea Salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
1 tsp freshly grated turmeric (or 1/4 tsp powdered)
1 tsp fresh chopped thyme
1 tsp fresh chopped marjoram
100g fresh soft ish goats cheese
(home made recipe and instructions at end of blog)
MY ITALIAN FIVE FAMILIES TOMATO SAUCE
(best when cooked slowly for 3hrs)
2 tins San Manzarno tomatoes
1 tbsp olive or coconut oil
1 onion finely chopped
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
1/2 red pepper finely diced
1 glass red wine
1 tbsp fresh thyme
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
Pre heat your oven to 180 degrees and place a tbsp of coconut oil in a shallow roasting tin and leave to one side for now, heat a pan and add the rest of the coconut oil until hot, add the onions and gently sweat for ten minutes, then add the garlic and cook for a further five minutes, then add the sugar and cook for a further five minutes then leave to cool for a few minutes, in a large bowl place all of the ingredients and the onions except the goats cheese and mix thoroughly together with your hands, squish and squash gently, then add the goats cheese and gently squish a little more, take a small ball of the mixture, flatten and cook in the onion pan check how the sample tastes and adjust the seasoning if needed.
Make your balls, whatever size you like, sometimes I like big ones and other times I like lots of small ones, especially if I am tossing them through spaghetti and tomato sauce. Place your meatballs on the pre greased roasting tin with a small gap between each ball, the cooking time for this recipe is for large golf ball size balls around 35 mins but if your making the balls smaller adjust the cooking time to around 20-25 minutes, to check take one of your largest balls and cut in half to check if cooked. Once just cooked take the tray out of the oven and leave to rest for around five minutes before serving either on a bed of the tomato sauce or to flavour the sauce further pop the cooked meatballs and resting juices in to the tomato sauce and simmer gently for five minutes before serving over spaghetti or on their own.,
TOMATO SAUCE
Heat the oil medium hot and gently soften the onions and garlic for ten minutes, add the red pepper and wine and simmer for a couple of minutes then add the tomatoes and herbs, bring up to a gently simmer, pop a lid on and leave to gently bubble away for up to three hours if you can, this really deepens the flavour of the sauce and is well worth the wait.
HOMEMADE GOATS CHEESE
First you will need to make a culture, this is what you need to sour the goats milk for the next stage, you will use the culture with a few drops of rennet which in the next stage will separate the curds and whey.
Ingredients and equipment for the culture
1 sachet of culture (homestead farms on line)
1 ltr goats milk
1 saucepan
Ingredients and equipment for making the goats cheese
24 hrs at room temperature
1 bottle vegetarian rennet
4.5ltr goats milk
1 deep saucepan
1 cheese cloth
1 drainer and large bowl
Baking paper
This is a really simple slow process, patients is the key here, in a sterilised saucepan bring the goats milk to room temperature 22 degrees Celsius sprinkle over the sachet of culture powder and leave for one minute to allow the dry culture to absorb some of the goats milk then gently whisk the goats milk to incorporate a even spread of culture throughout the milk, leave covered with cling film and a saucepan lid in a warm place for 24hrs, when you remove the lid you will find a beautiful double cream consistency with a gorgeous aroma of a promise of fresh sharp clean goats cheese.
This recipe makes enough culture for 20 batches you can freeze the culture in ice cube trays then pop into a freezer bag and use when needed. Now you are ready for stage two.
Pour the 4.5ltrs of goats milk into a deep pan and bring to room temperature 22 degrees Celsius add 30ml of your room temperature culture and four drops of the vegetarian rennet stir in well and cover the pan with cling film and leave to one side in the kitchen for another 18-24 hrs. I found this stage exciting as after 18hrs I had separated curds and whey and the promise of exciting goats cheese...
After 24hrs pour the cheese curds and whey in to a cheese cloth using a jug and leave to drain for approx 24 hrs, don't be tempted to speed this up by squeezing the cloth as you will squeeze out some of the soft cheese.
Once all the whey has drained from the cheese cloth after 24hrs you will be left with a soft goats cheese, turn this out onto some baking paper, this is the point where you can knead in any flavours you might like then shape using the paper to roll up, spatula or butter pats.
I bashed some walnuts and rolled the goats cheese coating all the way round, I left my goats cheese plain as I wanted to taste the pure clean sharp fresh flavour.
The Culture
One batch of culture will provide you with enough frozen culture for approx 20 more batches of 450g of goats cheese, having this ready to hand in freezer bags will save 24hrs of the goats cheese making process, approx two ice cubes per batch.
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