Moro-ish meatballs with pepper sauce

Recently I got carried away in Morrisons where they had great deals on beef mince. An enormous bolognese sauce later, there was still 1.5 kilos left. I decided to be brave and make something that I've never made before- meatballs. This was further complicated by the fact that I don't eat bread so would need a bread-crumb free version. My friend wanted "something with a winter flavour" so I opted for "vaguely Moro", dependent upon what was in the cupboard. I had pimenton (smoked paprika) from a previous recipe and apricots thanks to canapes that I had made for a party the night before. These combined with other ingredients to makes something rich, warming and satisfying.

You need:
3/4 kg lean beef mince
8 dried apricots
1 teaspoon pimenton
two spring onions
two medium sized onions
four peppers (red & yellow, not green)
two tins of tomatoes
500g fresh tomatoes
1/4 tea spoon allspice
three cloves garlic
two heaped tablespoons hemp flour
1 egg
one tea spoon butter


For the meatballs:
Mix the beef with the finely chopped spring onion and one diced onion. Add four finely chopped dried apricots, two minced cloves of garlic, half the pimenton, the hemp flour and the allspice. Mix them very well and then mix in the beaten egg. Form the mince into balls about 4 cm diameter and brown in a hot frying pan.

For the sauce
Saute the other onion, diced with some olive oil and the spoonful of butter. Add the remaining pimenton and a whoel clove of garlice. Add the peppers, diced and saute also. When they have softened, add the fresh tomatoes, chopped, and five minutes later the tinned tomatoes, with an additional canful of water, bring to the boil and simmer. If the sauce is bitter after about 20 minutes of cooking, and a couple of apricots. Blitz the sauce until smooth with a hand mixer.

To serve:
The great thing of this recipe is that you can make it in advance and then just heat the meatballs up in the sauce. Great served over rice or pasta.

Tips:
Obviously, the meatballs could be made with very different flavours, and the sauce could also be made with different vegetables and spices.