Week 30: Beef Meatballs with tomato-salad and mushrooms

The Recipe
400g minced beef
a handful of fresh basil leaves
65gr almonds
32g pine nuts

Salad
200g plum or cherry tomatoes
1/4 onion (or one small)
100g feta cheese
1 avocado
12 olives
1-2tsp olive oil

Mushrooms
250g white mushrooms
2 cloves of garlic
a bit of butter

Meatballs: Chop the basil leaves, the almonds and the pine nuts coarsely. Mix thoroughly with the beef. Form to small meatballs (makes about 20) and cook in butter for about 3-5 minutes on each side.

Salad: Cut the tomatoes and olives into halves, chop the onion, cut the avocado into bite-sized pieces. Mix everything together and drizzle with a bit of olive oil.

Mushrooms: Rinse the mushrooms and cut them into quarters. chop the garlic. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat and cook the garlic for a few minutes - just until it turns fragrant. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring frequently, until they're brown in colour and have given off most of their moisture.

The Verdict
I served this with garlic bread. The meat-balls were a tad dry, but I loved the taste the nuts gave them. Will have to try to experiment with making them more moist... perhaps it's as simple as just not cooking them for as long. Both the mushrooms and the salad were awesome and we could easily have eaten more! We had left-overs of the meatballs (6 of them), but nothing else.