Meatballs in tomato sauce

Start the meatballs: fry one chopped onion until soft (about 10 mins.). Tear the bread into pieces in a shallow dish and soak in milk for about 10 minutes. Start the sauce: in a large casserole pot with a lid, fry the other onion, garlic, celery and carrots over a medium heat until they are soft, then add the tins of tomatoes and chop them up if they’re whole. Add the bay leaves, and season with salt and pepper. Cook for about 20 minutes then add the milk and cook for another 10 minutes, till it’s a thick tomato sauce. If it looks as if it’s reducing too much, lower the heat and put the lid 2/3 on. Meanwhile, back to the meatballs: squeeze the liquid from the bread and put it in a large mixing bowl, adding the mince, cooked onion, parsley, cheese, beaten eggs and salt and pepper. Mix together well with your hands. Get two plates and put about 4 tbsp flour on one. Using your hands, form the meat mixture into small balls about the size of a walnut, roll in the flour, and place on the other plate. Heat about 1 tbsp olive oil (depending on the size of your pan) in a large non-stick frying pan and, over a medium heat, gently fry the meatballs until they’re brown all over. Do them in batches, putting them into the sauce mixture as they’re done, topping up the olive oil as needed for each new batch. Once you’re fried all the meatballs, de-glaze the frying pan with red wine, scraping out any meat and pour into the sauce. Gently stir the meatballs in the sauce, taking care not to break them up. Lower the heat, and gently simmer, covered for about another half an hour. Serve with spaghetti or rice, and a green salad. For birthdays, we always had homemade garlic bread too. These can be made the day before and gently re-heated on the stove. They also freeze really well.