What do you do when you want a specific thing but can’t find a recipe for it anywhere? Why, you make up your own by mashing up a few others!

The husband didn’t want TheFitFoodieMama’s Mushroom and Black Bean Meatless Meatballs we’d tried sometime last year but he did want some meatless meatballs, and he suggested using paneer to make them. Kofta recipes (which we searched) were very Indian and deep-fried, so I took TheFitFoodieMama’s recipe and adapted it slightly to make my very own meatless meatballs.

I’ve only made them once so far, and genius that I am, I screwed up slightly which is why they look undercooked, but we’re already making plans to try deep-frying them and shallow-frying them and seeing whether these baked ones are better.

Some days you just want to be unhealthy, so on that day, I’m going to deep-fry these babies, add some cheese to the marinara, and have a big glass of Coke and just, eat happily.

Paneer & Black Beans “Meat” Balls

Ingredients

• 250gm paneer
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs
• salt, about 2 tsps, to taste
• pepper, about 1 tsp, to taste
• fresh parsley, about 1 tsp, to garnish
• corn flour, to bind’

Method

1. preheat oven to 150 degrees.
2. place black beans, paneer, bread crumbs, salt, pepper and parsley in a large bowl.
3. mash all ingredients together until thoroughly combined.
4. grease tin with olive oil or butter.
5. roll mixture into appropriate size balls and place in muffin tin.
6. bake for approximately 10 minutes, being careful not to let them dry out.
7. remove from oven and serve with pasta and sauce.
8. try not to stuff your face.
9. fail.

These were yum and filling, and if the fried versions taste good, I’ll be posting an edited version of the recipe!