So, with the boiler broken meaning we have no heating I thought I'd would warm us up tonight with something spicy. As we had a yummy Indian take away whilst in London this weekend I thought it would have to be anything but a curry!

Meatballs came about as we have a lot of odds and sods of pasta packets in the cupboard so i thought i'd better use them up. I love meatballs. There is a lovely Greek cafe in the Royal Square in town called The Petit Greek (well, thats what we call it!) that does a beautiful meatball dish with the biggest meatballs I've ever eaten so i thought these meatballs should be huge in admiration of my favourite greek dish.

I have the time these days to cook meals that are quite quick to prepare but spend a long time in the oven. Ruby has started going to bed by 6pm and Papa bean doesn't get home till 8pm most nights so I have this time to sort dinner out. I like to get in the kitchen as soon as baby bean is in bed and then once its in the oven I can relax until Stephen comes home, what a domestic goddess, (a domestic goddess with a beer in her hands most nights!).

For the Meatballs you will need:

2 x slices of stale bread
500g minced beef
1 small onion finely chopped
2 x teaspoons of mustard (any, I used english as that was all we had)
1 x chilli chopped
Herbs of you're choice (I used fresh basil and dried oregano)

I used a small food processor I have for Ruby's food to chop up the stale bread, put the bread into a large bowl along with half the onion (which i also chop in the processor), and all the rest of the ingredients above. I really wanted to use whole grain mustard but we had ran out so any mustard will do. I like the idea of the whole grain mustard seeds popping in your mouth!

I added fresh basil but dried oregano as my oregano plant out side is looking very sorry for itself with the pretty sudden drop in temperature. It seemed as if summer stopped on November 1st very dramatically. Any herbs you like would be fine, i think Rosemary would work will and Marjoram would be good too.

Mush all the ingredients together in the bowl, use your hands, it not that bad and the best way to mix it all up keeping texture and not over doing it. Separate the mixture into 4 then separate again so you have 8 large meatballs. You could make as big or as small meatballs you like. If you're cooking for kids them maybe make the smaller. Fry the meatballs in a hot frying pan with some olive oil, keep turning the to get brown on all sides, while you're doing this you can make the sauce.

Make up a simple tomato sauce to go with them in a casserole dish, the meatballs will be be so packed of flavor that you wont need a fussy sauce. I fried the remaining chopped onion with some chopped garlic, chilli and some Taste No 5 Umami paste, added an 800g tin of chopped tomatoes and brought to the boil.
Add the browned meatballs, place the lid on and put in an oven heated to about 150 degrees (Fan oven).
Leave until you're ready! I had ours in the oven for just over an hour.

Serve with you're odds and sods of pasta and even add a couple of small basil leaves to the dish for garnish if you're feeling fancy! Enjoy.