Perhaps it’s a bit off-putting to call these “veggie meatballs” and tie them by name to their carno-cousins. Sure, they take after their namesake in shape and serving suggestion, but they’re not overtly trying to be “meaty”. They’re more bread-y than anything else.

• 1/4 of a baguette or whatever stale, crusty bread you have lying around, diced
• About 25g mushrooms, diced (more if you’re feeling shroomy)
• 2 big cloves of garlic, minced
• A large handful of fresh parsley
• 10g or so of cheese. You know: cheese. Whatever you have on hand. Something hard and Italian or British and mature makes a lot of sense.
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• A few glugs of extra virgin olive oil
• A few tablespoons of water
• 1 egg, beaten
• Salt, pepper to taste

• Dice up your bread. If it’s not stale/crusty enough, pop it in the oven for a few. In a food processor, turn those chunks of bread into crumbs. They don’t have to be microscopic. Even pea-sized crumbs work just fine. Once you have your crumbs the way you like, add in the parsley and process for a few more seconds. Place the mixture in a big bowl and set aside.
• In a frying pan over medium-high heat, get your garlic going in a tablespoon of olive oil. Once the garlic is golden, add the diced mushrooms. Get those fungi frying until almost all of the water is cooked out. Add salt and pepper to taste and then scrape the results into the bowl of breadcrumbs.
• Add the rest of ingredients, except for the egg and water, to the bowl. Mix, taste, and adjust for seasoning.
• Add the beaten egg and enough water so the mix comes together easily when shaped into balls. It doesn’t really matter how large and in charge you make these little wonders – I just wouldn’t make them more than about 5-7cm (2.5 inches or so) across. Place the finished ballz on a lightly oiled baking sheet. You should end up with 6-12, depending on how big your balls are. (Filthy!)
• Bake at 175C for 25-30 minutes, turning once halfway through cooking. They should be nice and golden brown but still a little soft in the middle.

We had these over some pasta and tomato sauce. Delicious starch-on-starch action.

These would be ultra-tasty on a veggie meatball sandwich. As long as you can forget that fact that you’re essentially eating bread on bread.

Rolled (and rocked) to Sonic Youth – EVOL. But really, any Sonic Youth will do.

A paste-y thick tomato sauce for the delight of pizzas and pastas everywhere.

• 2 cans of peeled roma tomatoes
• 4-5 cloves of garlic
• A glug of olive oil
• A glug of red wine
• 1 teaspoon of thyme
• Salt, pepper to taste

1. Preheat your oven to 200C/400F.
2. Empty the 2 cans of tomatoes into a baking dish, along with the garlic cloves and olive oil. Give a sprinkle of salt while you’re at it. Use a little less salt than you would think. Pop that thing in the oven for an hour.
3. Take the baking dish out of the oven. The tomatoes and garlic should be a nice, healthy brown. Mash up the tomatoes and garlic with whatever utensil tickles your fancy. I won’t judge you.
4. Taste for seasoning and adjust. Stir in a glug of wine, and the thyme. Pop it back in the oven for another 15-30 minutes, depending on how thick you want your concoction. It’ll probably start to caramelize a bit around the edges, which is only a good thing.

The final result is oh-so-very rich with tomato-y goodness. Stir in some chili flakes for a kick or even a teaspoon of lemon juice for some extra tang. Really fantastic on whatever starch you want to grace with its presence.

Concentrated with Jana Hunter – There’s No Home

More mediterranean madness this weekend. Lately, we’ve become a bit obsessed with making flatbreads. Typically, Nat handles the tortillas and chapati and I have the immense pleasure of dealing with the pita.

Fresh, homemade pita has a texture that’s worlds away from anything you’ll find at the store – well, maybe you live right by a middle-eastern grocery, but still.

• 2 cups strong flour, like the “0″ or “00″ pasta flour variety
• 1 cup warm water
• 1.5 – 2 teaspoons yeast
• 1 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon olive oil

1. Gently mix the yeast, water, and oil. Let the yeast dissolve for a few minutes.
2. While the yeasties are working their magic, mix together the flour and salt.
3. Combine the wet and dry ingredients. Get messy – use your hands.
4. Knead the dough until it’s no longer sticky, adding a touch of water or flour as needed.
5. Lightly oil the dough and set it aside in a warm, draft-free place until it’s doubled in size. Should take about 30-45 minutes. OK, fine. Sometimes it takes a little longer.
6. Punch the dough down and knead the air bubbles out.
7. Time for more rising. Second verse, same as the first. Another 30-45 minutes, until it’s doubled in size.
8. Cut the dough into golfball-sized chunks. Roll them in a little bit of flour to keep them stick-free.
9. Heat up a frying pan. You want it really hot, but not quite smoking. You don’t need any oil. Just dry heat. Some folks cook their pita in the oven, but I just love the beautiful char the stove-top version yields.
10. One at a time, roll out your delicious little golf balls and transfer them to the pan. You don’t want them too thin. Maybe 1/4 cm thick. Maybe a little less.
11. They’ll get uniformly bubbly when they’re ready to flip. It’s usually only takes around 30 seconds. Flip it. At this point, sometimes you get lucky and they start to puff. Sometimes they don’t. The pita puff is a fickle mistress.
12. Transfer the pita from the pan to an open gas burner on medium heat. Just a few seconds on each side will give them a little char, and if you’re lucky you’ll see some more puffing. Be careful not to let them puff too much or they’ll burst. It’s OK – it’s not the end of the world if they do.
13. Place the pita on a cooling rack.
14. Roll out another pita ball and you’re back in action.

Today, we’re enjoying these with some baba ghanoush, roast tomatoes with garlic and olives, and tabbouleh.

If your pita puffed (or perplexingly partially puffed), you’ll have a picture perfect pocket to polish off. The pita will keep for a few days.

Accompaniment: Grouper – Dragging a Dead Deer up a Hill. Certainly, one of my favorite records this year.

Inspired by a Thai place we used to eat at in those halcyon days, back in San Diego.

• 1-2 tablespoons of Chinese mushroom sauce. (This is that pseudo-oyster sauce you find at the good markets.)
• 2 limes, juiced
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1-2 tablespoons of chili sauce/sriracha
• 1 teaspoon of dark sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon of water

1. Yes. You mix it all together.

The result is a dressing chocked full of umami. Slightly sweet, slightly spicy, mega-savory. We brushed this on some seared aubergines and courgettes to top a salad. Versatile as a marinade, dressing, sauce, what have you.

Marinated with The Dodos – Visiter

Yesterday (along with a bunch of punk rakas from Poke), I took part in my first ever cooking class, given by Ottolenghi at the Leiths School of Food and Wine. A deal was forged – something along the lines of: website we make, cook you teach. So now, Ottolenghi has a shiny new digital home, and we have bulging bellies.

Yotam O. was kind enough to conjure up a vegetarian main for the two veggies of the bunch to prepare. Following the Ottolenghi spirit, it’s a simple yet divine dish of baked aubergine wedges with yoghurt sauce and pomegranate. Now, aubergine and yoghurt – fine, we’ve done that before. But, the addition of pomegranate is visionary.

• 2 medium aubergines, cut into wedges. Cut them in half horizontally, and then slice up the wedges out of the two halves.
• A mixture of nice, fruity extra-virgin olive oil and some lighter olive oil. About 3 parts of the nice stuff to 1 part of the cheap stuff.
• Some yoghurt sauce. Figure it out. (Yoghurt, garlic, oil, lemon, herbs…you can’t go wrong.)
• 1 pomegranate, seeded
• Salt + pepper, of course.

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C.
2. Arrange the aubergine wedges on a baking sheet and brush them very liberally with olive oil. Sprinkle on a hearty dose of salt and pepper.
3. Pop those puppies in the oven. It’ll take a while. So make yourself some yogurt sauce and set it aside. While your at it, get those pesky pomegranate seeds out.
4. Check your aubergine after 20 minutes or so, but it’ll probably take 30-40 minutes depending on the chunkiness of your wedges. They should be a healthy, dark brown. Give those beauties a little squeeze with your fingers to see if they’re properly done. They should feel pretty mushy.
5. Plate em up with some of the yoghurt sauce and pomegranate seeds. So very, very good.

We also prepared a cucumber + onion salad, bulghur wheat with caramelized onion and feta, and some crazy raspberry and passion fruit mess. All delicious.