spaghetti & beanballs

Meatballs are one of those ultimate feelgood foods I think. But not having eaten meat for a long time, I had totally crossed them off my comfort food list until I bought my copy of Veganomicon and found beanballs in there! Like any recipe, I can never follow it and always think my way is best. I've made these twice now, once with breadcrumbs and once wheat free.


Both recipes make at least 20 beanballs.

You will need to make a basic tomato pasta sauce to go with them.

Beanballs

With breadcrumbs:
1 x 410g tin red kidney beans
1/2 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1/4 of a leek
1 tbspn plum sauce*
2 tspn soy sauce
pinch of pepper

Drain the kidney beans (reserve the liquid). Put these in a food processor with the rest of the ingredients. Blend, adding the kidney bean liquid as you go, until you've got a mixture the consistency of mincemeat. That's it!

Wheat free:
1/2 cup of dry adzuki beans, soaked overnight (at least 12 hrs) and then cooked until soft
1/4 cup cornflour
1/8 cup rice flour
1/2 small onion
1 tbspn plum sauce*
2 tspn soy sauce
pinch of pepper

Same as above! Drain the beans, chuck everything in the food processor, and blend adding the cooking liquid as you go.

Cooking:
Roll either of the mixes into balls, and then fry them, turning as they cook. When they're fried all over, simply add them to some basic tomato pasta sauce (mine was just onion, tomato & zucchini). Cook for about 5 mins in the sauce, then serve over pasta!

* - you can use any sweet relish/chutney instead of the plum sauce.