Well its the day after Vegan Mofo - but technically I cooked this last night which was during Mofo.I have been trying to make better use of my cook books and with Veganomicon it is not hard to find really yummy looking new recipes. I feel a bit guilty as I have not had pasta for a few months (I just haven't bought any). I know Nat loves spaghetti and so I got some spelt spaghetti from my parents business with the intention to finally try spaghetti and beanballs. Well its taken a little while but I finally got round to making this beauty of a recipe.
I defrosted some kidney beans but they weren't quite enough to make the full recipe. So, after I ate some of the kidney beans before and during the mashing phase (whoops) I realised I should probably half the recipe. The only substitution was that I used cornflake crumbs instead of bread crumbs (after my horror of a discovery).
I have read that other people have found that their beanballs were a bit mushy. I think my disregard for following recipes and the fact that I wasn't sure when Nathan would come home from work saved this from occurring for me. I added extra gluten flour (half because I forgot I was halving the recipe and half because the mixture looked a little wet). I also baked these balls using olive oil cooking spray. After I had cooked them and turned them and cooked them again I realised that Nat wasn't going to be home for a while. So I let the balls cool in my toaster oven until Nat came home. Then I completed the baking of the balls by adding the spaghetti sauce. I think this helped the balls to stick well together - they weren't going to fall apart at all.
I didn't use the marinara sauce from Vcon, instead I used a spaghetti sauce recipe that I use for lasagne's. Basically, I sauté some onion and garlic in broth (or oil) then add 800g (2 cans) diced tomatoes and tomato paste, basil, thyme, oregano, a bay leaf, salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. I won't bother posting exact quantities for two reasons; 1. people tend to have their favourite pasta sauce and 2. I often adjust the seasonings to taste instead of following a recipe - pasta sauce is a good recipe to start this practice.
We loved these balls -but don't be fooled - they taste nothing like meatballs (which is probably better for me) but Nat thought that it would be cool if I could find a 'meatier' texture for the meatball (he also really wants me to make these again though).
So... what would be a good meaty texture?? I was thinking TVP or some sort of seitan creation... does anyone have any suggestions or good recipes??
