Spaghetti & Meatballs, Good Friends and Wine

The aroma of homemade spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove is so appealing I don’t know why I don’t make it more often.  Well I do know…  

Homemade sauce, while not difficult to make, does take time and when life gets busy it’s easier to get your “pasta fix” by going out to eat or just opening a jar of sauce from the grocery store.  I love to go out for dinner, but that can be pricey, and sauce from a jar?  Well it’s sauce from a jar; convenient and although many choices are very good, you can’t beat homemade.  Same goes for meatballs; not hard to do, but so much better than the ready-made frozen variety.  

So when I have a Saturday afternoon free, making spaghetti and meatballs from scratch is something I really enjoy doing.  I usually have the ingredients on hand and if I don’t, dear husband is always happy to oblige and go to the grocery store when I’m cooking Italian. (He grew up a few blocks from Toronto’s Little Italy so there are never any complaints when dinner is an Italian-inspired meal)

A hearty and comforting meal such as this deserves more than just two to eat it.  So when the urge to cook Italian hit a few weekends ago the call went out to some friends with a last minute invitation to join us for a casual Saturday night supper. Two of our closest friends live a few doors away and the four of us regularly get together for a meal either at their home or ours.  You might think seeing so much of each other would make it difficult to have anything new to talk about, but somehow the conversation is always fresh and we are sure to have a fun evening. Then a second call to another long-time friend, a bachelor, who if he's not busy, is almost always happy to join us for an impromptu dinner party; and he always brings good wine! 

So there you have it - the perfect recipe for a perfect evening of camaraderie, conversation, laughter and of course some silliness.  In my opinion there are few things better than good friends seated around a table laden with hearty food and good wine to lift one’s spirits on a cold Canadian February night.

THE RECIPES

Basic Tomato Sauce for Pasta
Makes 6 servings

This is a simple sauce that makes a good base for adding your own favourite ingredients.  Sautéed ground beef or veal and mushrooms will make it heartier.  If you like olives go ahead and add them in. Love garlic? Please add more.  Make it your sauce.




Ingredients
2 or 3 Tbsps Extra Virgin Oil
2 or 3 Medium Cooking Onions, chopped (about 1 lb.)
1 Large Green Bell Pepper, chopped
2 Heaping Tsps Dried Italian Herbs *
Sea Salt & Fresh Ground Pepper, to taste
4 Large Garlic Cloves, minced
1 Cup Dry Red Wine, Chianti works well
2 - 28 Ounce Cans Whole Tomatoes, preferably San Marzano
1 or 2 Tbsps Tomato Paste
Pinch (or more) Red Pepper Flakes, optional
2 Tbsps Italian Parsley, chopped

Heat enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a large heavy saucepan over medium heat.

Add onions and green peppers and sauté until soft.  Add garlic and cook for a few minutes, watching that it doesn't burn.  Add a little more oil if necessary.

Add the dried herbs and salt & pepper to taste.  Don't use too much salt as you can always add more at the end.

Add the red wine, increase heat and cook off the alcohol.

Reduce heat to medium-low and add the tomatoes with their juice.

Add the tomato paste.

Stir to combine, cover and maintain a low simmer for at least 30 minutes; 2 to 3 hours is best.

If you like a smooth sauce, use an immersion blender and blend until you are happy with the consistency.

Taste for seasoning, adding more herbs, salt or pepper as required.  If using, add the red pepper flakes, keeping in mind the meatballs will be spicy.  I put the pepper flakes on the table for those that like things really hot!

Meanwhile make the meatballs.

* Use any combination of dried herbs - I used a pre-mixed blend of oregano, basil, thyme, marjoram and rosemary.  
You can use fresh herbs, but I feel the dried stand up better to the long cooking time. 

Spicy Beef and Sausage Meatballs
Makes 12 to 16 meatballs

My husband loves hot Italian sausage. Me? Not so much - I prefer leaner meat products.  His all-time favourite pasta dish is rigatoni with sausage and he will order that most of the time.  I don't mind the occasional grilled sausage on a bun at a summer barbecue, but I'm not a big fan of it otherwise.  But if marriage teaches anything it is the art of compromise so a while ago I tried making meatballs with a combination of ground beef AND sausage meat.  It was an instant success.  I'm sure I wasn't the first to come up with this, but it impressed my husband and was the answer to satisfying both of our palates.  The leaner beef cuts the fattiness of the sausage while the sausage adds amazing flavour.  If you prefer less heat by all means use a sweet or mild sausage, but do use Italian for the authentic flavour it will impart.

Ingredients
2 Large Hot Italian Sausages, about 1 lb.
1 1/2 lbs. Medium Ground Beef
2 Heaping Tsps Dried Italian Herbs
2 Tbsps Tomato Paste
Sea Salt & Fresh Ground Pepper, to taste
1 Egg, optional

Preheat oven to 375F.

Split sausage casings and squeeze the meat into a large bowl.

Add the ground beef, herbs, salt & pepper and tomato paste.

Add the egg if using. I feel there is enough moisture with the fat from the sausage and tomato paste.  You may need to add some breadcrumbs if the egg makes the mixture too wet.

Mix everything together with your hands.

Using a spoon divide into equal portions and roll into balls. Make them any size you wish - I usually weigh the portions and make the meatballs about 3 ounces each.

Place them on an ungreased baking sheet and bake in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes.  

There will be a lot of fat rendered out so you will want to drain them on a plate covered with paper towels for a few minutes.

Put some sauce in a medium sized saucepan and gently place the meatballs into the sauce.  Add more sauce to just cover them.  

Meanwhile, cook spaghetti according to package directions. Drain, return to cooking pot and add in enough sauce to coat.  Pour spaghetti into a big serving bowl and top with the rest of the sauce, and if you wish, the meatballs.  I prefer to serve the meatballs separately in their own dish covered in sauce.

Garnish both with chopped parsley, and serve with grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, crusty bread and a green salad.  On this occasion we had a big garlicky Caesar salad. 

And wine... lots of good red wine.

Cheers,

Chelly

The First Thing I Ever Cooked Was Not Edible…

But that's because it was invisible.

Let me explain... 

Dartha is not my name. Dartha was my paternal grandmother; my Nana.  In the 1960’s she used to live with us for part of every year.  During those visits, before I started going to school full time, she was my playmate and best friend.  It was a friendship that lasted until she passed away in the early 1970’s.

Nana and I would talk and watch TV together.  She would tell me stories of when my father was a boy and teach me things; like how to play Bingo or Roulette.  Seriously, I was three and had a toy Roulette game, purchased by her no doubt. That explains my current enjoyment of the occasional visit to a casino.  But more to the point she taught me how to cook.  Not real cooking - I was far too little to reach the stove or pick up the heavy cast iron pans that were once hers and then my mother’s (and now mine) - but pretend cooking; hence the title of this, my first post. 

Nana would sit at the kitchen table and instruct me in her methods of preparing a roast turkey dinner, or a big pot of soup or maybe one of her special desserts and I would pretend to cook, stirring empty bowls and pots full of imaginary ingredients.  The recipes were endless.  Nana had a vast knowledge of cooking and of course when you are preparing pretend food, the pantry is always full of every ingredient you will ever need.

Born in the 1880's on a farm in Listowel Ontario, she was raised by her maternal grandfather.  When she was about eighteen she moved to Toronto where the census records of the time show her as "a domestic".  Married young and widowed twice she raised six children mostly on her own.  She ran a boarding house to support them and at one time was a camp cook "up north".

The meals we would "prepare" together fueled not only my preschooler’s imagination, but fostered in me a lifelong love of cooking.

Family and friends tell me I’m a good cook.  I like to think that’s true but what do they know?  They all love me – they have to say that don’t they?

Not necessarily… my husband will tell you I have had my share of disasters in the kitchen and a few truly inedible meals have ended up in the garbage in favour of a take-out pizza.  As for family gatherings and dinner parties with friends there was a time when I would practice each and every recipe I planned to prepare until I was absolutely certain I could pull it off.  And I sometimes still spend hours going through cookbooks and surfing the internet in search of the perfect recipes to prepare for my guests.

A chef I am not, but I think I can say I have become a fairly competent home cook and there is nothing I enjoy more than preparing a well cooked meal and serving it to people I care about; whether it’s a quiet supper for two or an extravagant dinner party for eight.

So welcome to my first post on my first blog.  I have been considering doing this for some time and have put a lot of thought into what I want it to be. Or more accurately, what I don’t want it to be.

It is not my aim to teach you how to cook by providing a photographic chronicle of each and every step of a recipe. Websites and blogs that do that can be very informative, but I sometimes find it annoying having to scroll through picture after picture of a recipe in progress when all I really want is to get to that recipe the search engine pointed me to. 

So I will assume for the most part that you are comfortable in your kitchen and know your way around a recipe.  That’s not to say I won’t explain things or provide a photo of the end product – there’s nothing worse than a confusing recipe and it’s always nice to see what you’re supposed to end up with. 

As for what my blog will be, let’s find that out together.  

Nana and me around 1962

I will see you here again soon with some of my own recipes which I hope you will enjoy and will inspire you to actually try them out.

Cheers, 

Chelly