I know, I know. It’s Saturday. Apparently my ability to keep accurately to resolutions like ‘I will blog on Wednesdays’ is flawed. But there you go. In fact, I had the food in this post made up ages ago but then I was in London on Wednesday for an interview so I couldn’t get it written in amongst all the travelling. So I’m doing it today instead. I’m being indulgent and blogging from my bed too. (Is there anything quite as indulgent as working from bed? I think not – in terms of the places to work I mean. There are many other indulgent things I would rather be doing in bed.)

I love lazy Saturday mornings when I can get up, make a coffee and return to my bed while I wait for my flat to warm up and to be lightning-bolted with a flash of energy so that I can continue rewriting my thesis draft. I’m still busy with the Foucault chapter. It’s a long one and it frames the thesis so I am stretching my brain to understanding this week. So far I’ve written about discourse – how discourse produces knowledge and how some discourses are taken up, incorporated into everyday life, and accepted as truths. For Foucault, discourse didn’t just mean language though – it wasn’t just about what we say. He talked about discursive practices rather than discourse. This is because he wasn’t simply interested in the things said, he was interested in the social, material and symbolic conditions that allow certain things to be said at any one time, and for those things to be taken up and become true. This knowledge about life and living, about how we should be, becomes incorporated into everyday life through technologies of power and techniques of the self (more on that next week).

So that’s Foucault for today, and the next few days. The chapter goes on to apply this analysis to the discourses of obesity and nutrition that currently produce (through the media, institutions, public awareness campaigns) people as healthy subjects and self-disciplining citizens. I knew y’ll wanted to know about it in vague detail. I mean, what is Saturday morning without a little Foucault?

But now I will tell you about this dinner instead, without analysing it, I promise. I haven’t made anything really savoury (and non-pastry related) in a very long time (for this blog I mean. I don’t eat only baked goods daily.) I always thought I would incorporate elements of what I was actually eating normally onto the blog but somehow, cake almost always wins on this site. When I was planning out the month of blogging Wednesdays, this Wednesday was supposed to be treacle tart. But then I had a craving for meatballs and I decided I could throw in a savoury/dinner post just to mix things up a little. And this is that.

There isn’t really a recipe as such for these meatballs. I mean there is a recipe, mostly for proportions, but it is infinitely adaptable and changeable. I like that kind of flexibility when I’m making dinner. My mom always used to make meatballs and when she was here at Christmas she taught me her chicken stuffing recipe. Somehow, I think due to the breadcrumbs, this made me think of the meatballs she made and then I started to crave them. So I made them for dinner a few weeks ago. They’re super easy, you can make them in advance and then reheat them to serve, and they freeze well.

Meatballs in Tomato Sauce
For the meatballs:
500g beef mince
4 pork sausages
1/2 an onion
generous bunch of flat-leaf parsley
1 egg
2 slices of bread, blitzed into breadcrumbs

For the tomato sauce:
1/2 an onion
2 cloves garlic
1 large carrot
1/2 red pepper
1/2 yellow pepper
500g cherry tomatoes
1 tin tomatoes
flat-leaf parsley

Begin with the meatballs as these need some refrigeration time.
Place the beef mince in a large bowl. Squeeze the sausage meat out of their casings and into the bowl. Discard the casings.
Finely dice the onion and roughly chop the flat-leaf parsley, including the stalks. Add these to the bowl.
Add in the egg and the breadcrumbs.

Using your hands, mix everything together. I’ve read that the more you mix, the smoother your meatballs will be and they’ll hold together better, so smush everything together until it is wonderfully incorporated.

Divide the meat mixture into 15 portions. Roll these into balls and flatten them onto a baking tray that has been lined with baking paper. Cover the tray with clingfilm and refrigerate for an hour.

While the meatballs are chilling, make the sauce.

Dice the onion, carrot and peppers into equally-sized pieces. Finely chop the garlic. Halve the cherry tomatoes and roughly chop the parsley, including the stalks.

In a large heavy-bottomed pot, sweat the onions, carrots and peppers in a generous glug of olive oil. Once the onions are translucent, add in the garlic. Continue cooking but reduce the heat slightly.

Once this veg is soft, add in the cherry tomatoes and the tin of tomatoes. Fill the tin up with water and add this in too. Bring the sauce to the boil and then reduce the heat so that it simmers lazily. I like to cook the sauce for at least two hours, stirring it occasionally.

About 45 minutes before you want to eat, or after about an hour of the sauce reducing, cook the meatballs. There are more meatballs than you’ll need for the sauce so I usually cook 8 meatballs in the sauce and freeze the other 7, uncooked, for later.

Heat some oil in a frying pan and fry the meatballs in batches, so they aren’t too crowded in the pan. You want them nice and caramelised but not black, obviously. Turn them over when they’ve reached a good colour. Once they’re brown on both sides, place them into the sauce.

Cook the meatballs in the sauce for about half an hour to 45 minutes. You want them cooked through and the sauce reduced but you don’t necessarily want them to fall completely apart. Serve with some salad or pasta or just as they are, with some good baguette.