Spaghetti and Meatballs

Tonight it’s meat. Just for you, baby, because you’re so special.

Still living paycheck to paycheck and today is one of those days I find myself scouring our cupboards for interesting ingredients. Not one to embrace normal or routine in my kitchen so I’m always looking for new ways to impress myself. Tonight I have a hankering for meatballs with some kind of sauce. Fortunately my search was fruitful and I found a pound of ground beef from James Ranch… Oh yeah! This is an easy sell to the hubby.

First, what kind? Second, what ingredients do we have? Pickings are slim so I scroll through the fave sites, epicurious and allrecipes. One recipe jumps out which calls for day old rye bread. we're in luck! We do in fact have old rye bread and it hasn’t visibly molded yet. Oh joy! The reviews look good but I’m not convinced by the accompanying cream gravy sauce so I continue my search. In the end Rye prevails.

The recipe starts with soaking rye bread in beef broth. I’ve opted for a few Tbs of 2% milk, something I saw in one of the many other recipes. From there it moves on simply enough, sautéing minced onions in butter, with my addition of three small cloves of garlic, green center vein removed. I sprinkle in some pepper and add some Worcestershire sauce because I just can’t resist. I’ve tried the healthy alternatives and they are nothing like true Worcestershire! Vegetarian, vegan or whatever I will never give up good flavorings.

While the onions were cooling I cracked one egg into the large bowl of soaking bread, keeping the egg confined to one side. I lightly scrambled the egg and then mixed with the bread. To this I added a couple pinches of allspice and a light layer of salt. The bread was soggy so it tore up easily but I ended up mashing the bread mixture into a sort of pasty substance, with no visible lumps of bread. Added the burger and tried to mix with a large fork, but eventually opted for my bare hands and it came together much better. It’s cooling in the fridge now.

Ok, so here is when the hubby nonchalantly vetoes the cream sauce the recipe calls for. No worries, we have a can of Muir organic crushed tomatoes. Besides if he wants tomato sauce I have to take it when I can get it, not being a favorite of his. My plan now is simple: chop the other half of my onion and sauté in butter. Pour in the tomatoes, add spices and simmer.

The recipe calls for sautéing the meatballs but I’ve decided to bake some of the meatballs and then freeze for later use. Once the sautéed meatballs were done I removed and set aside. I quickly sautéed the additional onion and a bit of garlic and then the tomato puree, and add a bit of Worcestershire to the sauce. The bottle says “unlock the possibilities” and it sure does! The sauce now consists of pureed, crushed tomatoes (Andy doesn’t like the chunks), sautéed onions, garlic powder, a mix of dried Italian herbs and the little bits of burned meatball left sticking to the pan.

The tomato sauce will simmer for nearly 10 minutes while the frozen garlic bread bakes. We are limited to carb accompaniments and between spaghetti and linguine, linguine wins. Sure wish we had a veggie or two to go with this…

We’ll have to settle for sippin’ on warm tequila tonight as I’ve just finished our very last Ska ESB. I’m laying down the law tonight, he’s watching disk one of two, Gone with the Wind. Ha!

We ended up pan frying 8 small meatballs and the smallest ended up falling apart. The other 20+ smallish balls are baking in the oven at 400 with our loaf of garlic bread.

We were off the ball a bit and forgot until just a few minutes ago about cooking the pasta. The water is hopefully near boiling by now as we have ten minutes until most systems are a go…!


For some reason, I’m the “when in doubt add a dash of cayenne” type. The sauce is simmering and the meatballs are cooling on the side. Hubby has ground some Parmesan and is downstairs preparing the movie.

Twelve minutes later the alarm goes off and the bread is done. So are the meatballs, I think, so I shut off the oven leaving the baked meatballs until I’m ready for them. The pasta is still cooking and therefore so is the sauce. The plates are out and I’m famished.