full o' beans

I love that expression. It reminds me of when I was little. It’s like a cute G rated way of saying “you’re totally lying a/k/a you’re full of s#!t.” But so cute. “I think he’s full of beans!” It almost makes me like the liar in question. I don’t know why having a belly full of beans would make you prone to bending the truth. When most people are full of beans they’re just more prone to cut one, but hey, liars and farters, the world is full of them. Good thing I’m neither. So this soup is, quite literally, full of beans. I’ve had this recipe on the brain for a while now and hm, wow, two weeks ago (good lord, we are officially in the holiday time warp zone) I finally worked it up and put it together.



However, we are about to tread into untasted territory. I did not make this soup with the ingredients that are set forth below. I did use the prosciutto, onion, garlic, sage and beans, topping it all off with chicken stock, but I did not use the potato or the wine/vinegar. Or did I? I might have used the vinegar. Crap, I should start writing things down. Anyways…in its first incarnation this soup was very good; however, it was a little too soupy. I had visions of a creamy, decadent, yet healthful soup and what I got was, well, not exactly that. It tasted like beans and chicken stock that had seen the business end of an immersion blender. Don't get me wrong, I did eat it and the flavors were great and like so many soups it got better as each day went by. So I endorse this soup, I just am not sure if the tweaks I’ve made to the recipe will work or not. You will have to let me know.



The recipe I’m providing here allows for some thickening by way of potato. I’m basing this adjustment on my experience making potato-based soups in the past and finding them to be hearty, thick and satisfying without having to drop a cup of heavy cream into the mix. There’s a time and a place for heavy cream and it’s not in my lunch on a Monday, know what I’m saying?



As for the addition of vinegar or wine (whichever you have on hand, really) I believe cooking the solid ingredients down with a bit of acid or alcohol will add another layer of flavor here and due to the large scale presence of white beans- which, admittedly are great, but need work to be really tasty- an extra layer of flavor in this soup is a good idea.

CARAMELIZED ONION, GARLIC and WHITE BEAN BISQUE

2-3 slices of prosciutto, diced
1 large onion, diced; or, 3-4 shallots
5 cloves garlic, minced
Sage, dried or fresh*
½ cup dry white wine; or, a splash of white wine vinegar
1 potato (I prefer russet), peeled and diced
2 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
Chicken or vegetable stock (a 32 oz. container or two cans will do ya)
Salt and pepper, to taste
Splash cream or half and half (optional)

*y’all know that when you use dry herbs you half the amount you’re using, right? Dried herbs are a bit more intense (not in a good way) than fresh when it comes to their flavor. In this recipe, if you are using fresh sage, simply mince a few leaves (removed from the stems). If you’re using dried, as I did, use about a teaspoon and crush it up into a fine powder in your palm before adding it to the soup.



Heat a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Brown prosciutto. Add onions, lowering the heat just a touch. Cook onions for about 20 minutes to a half hour, or until deeply caramelized, stirring often. Add garlic, sage, salt and pepper; sauté a minute longer, stirring constantly, until fragrant. Turn heat up a bit, splash in wine or vinegar and let cook off (about 1 minute for vinegar, a touch longer if you’re using wine) using your wooden spoon to scrape up any browned bits on the bottom of the pot. Add beans and potato and then top the whole pot off with chicken stock. Set heat at medium high and let cook about 15 to 20 minutes, or until the potato is completely tender. Taste and adjust salt and pepper accordingly. I used a good amount of salt, but if you are using prosciutto to start the soup, that will give you a nice salty base from which to build on. Lower the heat and let simmer on low until you are ready to serve. Before serving, you’ll need to puree the soup completely. If you have an immersion blender, use it to puree the soup to a smooth consistency. If you are pureeing the soup in a blender or food processor be very careful and do so in batches, because hot liquids expand. Once pureed taste again and adjust seasoning if necessary. Just before serving, feel free to swirl in just a bit a cream or half and half, if you’d like. Serve with a big salad or some grilled cheeses. I made a grilled ham and cheese using smoked Gouda and prosciutto. Highly recommended. Also, if you were to omit the prosciutto and make this with vegetable stock it would be a great vegan soup as well.

I'll take "s"words for $500

At the outset, you should know that when I pronounce the words “sword”, “swords” or “swordfish” I very clearly include the “w” sound. So while you read this, in your head, for the sake of accuracy, I would ask that you do the same.



What can I say about swordfish? Let’s see they have swords for noses, first off, so that’s pretty bad ass. I think we can all agree on that. If you could have a weapon for a body part what would it be and which body part would you replace it with? I can’t decide myself, I might replace my lazy eye with a laser beam, provided there wouldn’t be any free radical damage to my face and it would be the kind of laser beam used for good, not evil. Anyways back to the sWordfish.



When I was 16, I finally decided to expand my eating parameters beyond chicken fingers and steak tips and I decided that I liked swordfish. Probably because it was the most steak-like out of all the sea creatures. So when my parents took me and a friend to Anthony’s Pier 4 for a fancy dinner to celebrate my Sweet 16, swordfish it was. Nowadays, I don’t eat swordfish all that much, mostly because it’s pretty expensive and also not a very sustainable fish to eat; however, something inside me said “sWordfish” on Tuesday and I answered the call.





I had this idea in my head that I wanted to make a nice pan seared piece of fish with some sort of jazzy sauce. Tomatoes and capers came to mind. Mostly, because I knew I had both at home. I did some light googling and determined that this was, in fact, a combination that would work well with some swordfish so I decided to work it out and see what happened.



What happened was I found a sauce/chutney/warm relish type thing that is straight delicious. Make a batch and spoon it over chicken, fish or shrimp. Heck, just spoon it into a small bowl as a tasty addition to a spread of cheese and crackers. The swordfish was great but for me the major success of this meal was really the chutney. This stuff is tangy, salty and sweet all at once. It’s dynamic without being heavy and if you make it you will enjoy yourself I promise.



PAN SEARED SWORDFISH with WARM TOMATO CAPER CHUTNEY

Swordfish (about 1/2 lb. per person)

About a half package cherry tomatoes
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper

Olive oil
1 shallot, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2-3 tablespoons capers
½ tsp. Dijon mustard
Pinch sugar
Red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper



Preheat your oven to 350. Toss tomatoes with a light drizzle of olive oil and balsamic, salt and pepper. Roast for about 45 to an hour, until they are blistered and have given off some of their juice. While this goes on you can do whatever you want, because this is the only part of this meal that takes a while, but is completely hands off. I drew a picture of my salt and pepper shakers with a ball point pen and did a load of laundry, if you must know. The picture came out awful but the laundry was fine. Win some, lose some.

While the tomatoes are roasting, trim the skin from your fish, salt and pepper each side and then marinate in a shallow pan in some olive oil in the refrigerator. When your tomatoes are ready, remove the pan from the oven. Preheat a skillet with about two tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Sauté shallots for about five minutes, add garlic, sauté another two minutes or so. Add pinch of sugar, salt and pepper and your Dijon mustard, stirring everything together. Splash a few drops of red wine vinegar (about 2-3 tbs. I would guess) in the pan, crank the heat a little and stirring constantly let the vinegar burn off. At this point in time, you can reduce the heat to low and let the sauce hang out while you cook your fish. If you’re adept at multi tasking you can sear the fish while making the sauce.



To cook the fish, preheat two tablespoons of olive oil and one tablespoon butter in a skillet over medium high heat. When the pan is good and hot, add the swordfish steaks. Let cook about 5-6 minutes on one side, flip and cook on the other side until cooked through. The directions I read on how to cook swordfish said 4 minutes per side, but when we got it to the table it was uncooked in the middle. Grody. I cranked the oven to 400 and put the whole pan in there for about 5 minutes and then the fish was completely cooked through. If you are timid about cooking fish and easily skeeved if things aren’t cooked through, this is my advice to you: sear the fish on one side for 5 minutes, flip, sear the other side for 3 minutes and then transfer the skillet to a 400 degree oven to finish cooking for 5 minutes. Once the fish is done, pour the sauce over. Serve with a green vegetable and brown rice or cous cous.




This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

what the chicken said

Sometimes the food speaks to you and tells you what to do with it. I had barely any groceries in my house on Sunday. It was cold and grey and windy outside and all of my roommates (the one human and two kittens) were nestled on the couch reading. Bruce and Bea were reading Dostoevsky and US Weekly, respectively. Me though, I was ansty. I desperately wanted to cook something but I would rather die than get back in the car. My grocery inventory was nil. I didn’t even have eggs. EGGS. So I started to putz. I pulled out the remainder of a roasted chicken and began to shred the remaining meat off, so that I could use the carcass to brew up some stock.



I looked over my pile of shredded chicken and said “speak to me” it whispered back in a throaty tone, voice dripping with sex appeal, “Buffalo sauce.” Could I? Would I? Checking in with the fridge contents I quickly determined no…Buffalo chicken dip would probably not be happening today; but the ship had not quite sailed. In my freezer I possessed a package of corn tortillas; in my pantry, a can of black beans; the cheese drawer held a sack of shredded cheese, just ready to rock. I also had some sour cream and a gallon sized jug of hot sauce. Somewhere in the background a Mariachi band began to softly play.



I simmered the black beans with a half can of tomato paste (which you will need to break up to incorporate), a generous douse of cumin, salt and pepper. Then I gushed a whole lot of Frank’s Red Hot in. Probably about ¼ cup at least. Then I stirred in the chicken. I layered this spicy black bean and chicken concoction in a baking dish, alternating layers of tortillas, the chicken and beans mixture and cheese until the pan was filled. Then I baked it at 350 for about 15 minutes, or until the cheese was bubbling. It was delicious. Not a groundbreaking work of food craftery, but all the same, a satisfying easy way to utilize my leftovers. Leftovers deserve love too. Even though they seem lame because you have already eaten them, if you repurpose them just slightly, they take on a whole new meaning and get exciting again. It’s just like Can’t Buy Me Love*, how all she does is rip his sleeves off and add mouse to his hair and suddenly Ronald Miller is a stud. Make your used up nerdy chicken a stud again. Add some mousse. Have some fun.

A real recipe tomorrow.

*I think I have made Can’t Buy Me Love references on here before. Clearly that movie had a strong impact on my adolescent sensibilities. I blame the suede fringe outfit. I have always been powerless to fringe.

chips! chips! chips!

I have issues with potato chips. They are one of my kryptonite foods. This means that in their presence I have little to no self control. Especially if they are Kettle Chips, you know the ones with the flavors that make me want to high kick and punch the wind and do a roaring guitar solo because they are so, so good. Holy crow man, keep me away from those things.

Apparently, *they* say if you are going to eat junk food, you should make it at home. I believe that this theory is supposed to apply solely to sugared treats. For example, your made-from-scratch cookies, although high in calories, sugar and fat, are at least not made with a battery of strange sounding, multi-syllabic sucrose based words and Monsanto modified petrochemicals*. You get the point, and I like this theory. I can wholeheartedly get behind it. However, a broad sweeping generalization about how making things at home is “healthier” can be a dangerous revelation to someone like myself. Someone whose metabolism may or may not be totally mad at her and giving her the silent treatment lately and someone who’s jeans may or may not have been seen waving a white flag of surrender from the bottom drawer of my bureau this morning.



So last week I sort of accidentally invented homemade, baked kettle chips. Because that is how most incredible inventions and discoveries happen, by accident. Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, the dude who invented penicillin (possibly also Louis Pasteur?) and Porky Dickens. I’m pretty much on the fast track to having a laboratory named after me at MIT. And yes I realize claiming that making oven fries into a different shape and claiming that they are a new wonder of modern kitchen science is a bit exaggeratory and ridiculous, but hey you know what, it’s Friday and I’ma do what I want.



In fact, if I may, and I will, I’m going to take the liberty to call these little babies “crisps” instead of chips. Because crisps is what they call them in England and everyone knows that food from Europe and/or the UK is not as bad for you as American food and thusly, you can eat more of it [this is a theory I have used to justify consumption of copious amounts of Nutella for decades].



So this sort of enjoyable madness is what I’m talking about vis a vis the dangers of homemade junk food. Are these far better for me than an order of fries or a bag of chips? Yes. Does that give me license to eat like, three whole potatoes with reckless abandon? Sadly no. So be forewarned that these are delicious and addictive and potentially my new favorite sort-of-bad-for-you-sort-of-who-gives-a-crap side dish. Enjoy with caution. Happy weekend.

*holy crap, spellcheck automatically capitalized Monsanto. Gross! You know something is courting world domination if it get automatically switched into a proper noun in Word. Bogus.

SALTY, ADDICTIVE OVEN CRISPS

(serves 2, generously)

2 russet potatoes, scrubbed, dried, thinly sliced**
2 nonstick baking sheets
Olive oil
Salt and pepper



Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Wash and slice your potatoes. Arrange in a single layer on baking sheets. Drizzle olive oil over and rub and flip to evenly coat each side with oil. Salt, pepper and stick in the oven. Set timer for 40 minutes. At the 20 minute mark open the door quickly and remove one pan. Flip all the crisps to the other side. Replace the pan and take the other, making the switch on this pan as well. It is imperative that you only open and close the door at this point in the process and that you close it very quickly. This is crucial to crisping the outside edges. Take a peek (through the door) at the 35 minute mark to see if they’re done. They very well may be, mine cooked a bit quicker than the 40 minutes I allotted. Remove from oven and immediately toss with lots of sea salt and black pepper. Serve as a side dish to any number of things, I plated mine along with burgers topped with Gorgonzola and caramelized shallots.

**if you have a mandolin, you could slice them super thin. But BE CAREFUL and also, watch the cooking time, as I believe it would drastically reduce and your finished product will end up much closer to actual potato chips.

pumpkin seeds, done right.

If you haven’t carved a pumpkin by now, then maybe you’re not going to. But just in case you want to and you have designs on say roasting some pumpkin seeds, here’s the 411 on the how to.




SMOKY, SALTY ROASTED PUMPKIN SEEDS

First, carve out the hole in your pumpkin. Martha Stewart’s new technique on this front is that you should cut your hole in the bottom of your pumpkin, so as not to disturb the pristine aesthetics of the top of your pumpkin with (gasp) a line cut across it. But do you really want to take festive holiday advice from a convicted felon?



So I decided to buck this new trend and hack into mine the old fashioned way: top cut. Take that Martha! While you scoop the freezing cold guts out of your pumpkin and wonder why you wanted to carve pumpkins in the first place, preheat your oven to 375.



Now in my house growing up my mom wasn’t one for taking the care to hose off her seeds before roasting. More like she splatted the whole mess onto a baking sheet and voila: roasted pumpkin seeds. Me, personally, having all that stringy pumpkin flesh roasted onto my seeds makes me want to barf, so I was a little more detail oriented on the pre-roast prep.



First pick out as much of the flesh as you can. Then transfer your seeds to a colander and give them a really good rinse. Transfer to a clean kitchen towel or a couple of paper towels that are still attached together. Pat dry as thoroughly as you can and pick out any remaining threads of flesh.



Transfer to a nonstick baking sheet and lightly toss with a little bit of olive oil. Personally, I used olive oil spray, which worked well to give them just a light coating of oil. If you don’t have a spray (and for god’s sake, don’t use Pam or anything like chemical tasting) simply fill the well of your cupped palm with a little olive oil and rub your palms together. Then give the lot of the seeds a little “how’s your father” and they will be lightly coated with oil. Season however you wish. I used this awesome barbecue salt that I have. It’s essentially a combination of chili powder, smoked paprika, a teensy bit of cayenne, maybe a pinch of sugar and a bunch of sea salt. You could also use salt and pepper, maybe adding some cumin and garam masala for an Indian spiced pumpkin situation; or, a seasoned salt like Lowry’s.



I loved these barbecue spiced pumpkin seeds far more than any other seeds I’ve ever roasted. Normally, I must admit, that the novelty of the roasted pumpkin seeds wears off for me about 10 minutes after they cool to room temperature. But these guys? I have been snacking on since last Tuesday. They are salty and crunchy and delicious and, I feel like, not that bad for you because they are seeds. And like, der, seeds are pretty much chock full of brain developing nutrients. And judging from the grammar and content of this post, I need all the brain development I can get right now.



Oh right, roast them for 15-20 minutes. Checking on the pan to give it a shake. I burnt half of mine, so be careful and take them out when they smell toasty and a sampled one proves to be crispy and crunchy.



Happy Halloween! What are you even being? I am way into Halloween, by the way, because wigs are so funny and I love makeup and drinking and Reese’s products. This year I was going to be the goblin king, Jareth, from the movie Labyrinth (You know? BOWIE: “you remind me of the babe” so awesome) but my wardrobe wasn’t working out. So I’m going to be Tina Turner. The wig I have is sort of interchangeable for both. Be safe and have fun and if you’re in the area, come to my house, I just picked up the dankest selection of candy you’ve ever seen and Paul is making out porch into a scary porch to make kids scream and wet their pants!

dances with meatballs

You know how Native American tradition dictates that every person has a Spirit Animal? And we obviously all hope that ours is something cool and sexy like a wolf, and not something lame like a pigeon or something. Wait. Maybe I’m confusing Native American folk lore with the [intensely terrible] movie Couples Retreat. Regardless, I have a point and I’m going to keep rolling with this. I believe that each of us, in addition to having a Spirit Animal (I call wolf!) have a Spirit Food, and mine is meatballs.



I can’t even believe for one second that I’ve never talked about meatballs on here before. Everyone I know knows that my name is synonymous with meatballs. If you should happen to show up at a party at my house and there aren’t any meatballs, then check my vital signs, because I may have had a stroke or something. Even back in ’99 when I threw a lot more parties where quantity of booze trumped quality of food, I still had meatballs. There have always been meatballs.

My mom taught me her way to make meatballs exactly once, over the phone. The method was loosely explained and anticipated to be understood without any note taking of portion sizes or measurements. She had confidence I would be able to craft meatballs with only the loosest guidelines and she was right. I’m not trying to be conceited but I make a nice meatball and I do so with nothing fancy. No pre-soaked breadcrumbs, no mixing of separate and different meats, just meat, crushed Ritz, parsley, parmesan, one egg, salt, pepper. Handled minimally and rolled loosely into balls that get browned in the oven and finished in the sauce. I’m a firm believer in an “if it ain’t broke” mentality in the kitchen, and my meatballs had served me quite well up until now. I saw no need to rock the boat.



But then last month in Bon Appetit my homegirl, Molly, made meatballs, making claims that these were the most epic meatballs of all time (I’m taking some liberties with her wording). I read the article and accompanying recipe with rapt attention. We were, after all, covering meatballs here. I admired her work and her words as usual and moved on. My meatballs were perfectly fine, thank you very much. But I was a little haunted by her claims. Meatballs are my Spirit Food. Is “perfectly fine” good enough when it comes to the very fabric of my soul? About a week later my mom cracked my world wide open. Informing me that she had made meatballs and “oh by the way Jess, they were the best meatballs I’ve ever made, Jason said so.” I nodded. “I used Molly’s recipe. The one from the Bon Appetit.” My mouth dropped open and I dropped the People Magazine on the counter. Her words sent chills up my spine.



My guru of meatball was switching the script up on me after years of devoted service to her original recipe. My very own brother had endorsed them as the “greatest of all time.” The greatest of all time? I revisited the recipe; I was daunted by the steps. “Are you really necessary milk soaked breadcrumbs?” I wondered out loud in my kitchen. Were all the extra steps worth it? We were talking about my Spirit Food here and I owed it to myself to find out. I would make the fussy meatballs, and I would follow the steps and the recipe perfectly. I would food process homemade breadcrumbs, I would even measure things. I would throw my very own meat safety feelings out the window and follow the directions to braise the raw meatballs in the sauce rather than parbaking them in the oven. I would do it for Molly and I would do it for my mom and I would do it for every woman who’s ever enjoyed meatballs and all of my future party guests for the rest of history. We’re talking about meatballs, and if there is any person out there prepared to seek out the True Path to Epic Meatballs it was me. It is my destiny.

SPAGHETTI and MEATBALLS
(from Molly Wizenberg for Bon Appetit)

SAUCE

1 28 ounce can whole peeled tomatoes
1 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 medium onions, peeled, halved through root end
½ teaspoon (or more) salt

MEATBALLS

1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1/3 cup whole milk
8 ounces ground beef (85% lean)
8 ounces ground pork
1 cup finely ground parmesan cheese (not grated, use smallest hole side of your grater)
1/3 cup finely chopped Italian parsley
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper
2 large eggs
2 large garlic cloves, pressed
1 pound spaghetti



To make the sauce: combine both cans of tomato with butter, onions and salt in a large, wide pot. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat; simmer uncovered 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Discard onions. Using an immersion blender, pulse the sauce briefly to break up large chunks of tomato. If you don’t have an immersion blender, chop or squeeze the whole peeled tomatoes before starting the sauce. You want your sauce to have texture, but not whole entire tomatoes floating around in it. Season sauce with salt and pepper to taste. Turn heat down to low while you finish preparing your meatballs.



For the meatballs: combine bread crumbs and milk in a small bowl. Stir until breadcrumbs are evenly moistened. Let stand for 10 minutes. Place beef and pork in a large bowl and break up into small chunks. Add the parmesan, parsley, salt and pepper. Whisk eggs in a small bowl, add the pressed garlic and whisk some more; add this to your meat mixture. Using your hands, squeeze the milk from your breadcrumbs (reserving the milk) and add breadcrumbs to the meat mixture, Using hands, move quickly and lightly to mix everything together until just combined. It’s crucial to the texture of your meatballs that you don’t overwork the meat, and that you likewise have a delicate touch while forming your balls (hee). I’m from a long line of women for whom delicate does not come naturally. Seriously, my mother used to remove seven layers of skin from my face with a damp thumb at the bus stop and she can burp a baby with one swift thwack. My sister and I have often confirmed to each other that dainty touch and a delicate nature are simply not in our DNA. We are frontier women. We could behead a chicken with our bare hands and till soil all day, while 8 months pregnant. Fortunately, we don’t have to do that in modern times, but you get the picture. Strong ladies. Not little. Anyways, I digress. So delicate is something I have to be mindful of. I find that the best way to combine the meat with all the other goodies, with a light touch, but thoroughly combining things is to use a hand "grip" if you will that Molly refers to in her article as “The Claw” (see photo below- what did I say? Those are strong hands yes?). Unbeknownst to me I have been using The Claw for years. I had just never put a title on it. The separation of your fingers is key and The Claw acts as the perfect tool to gently combine everything together in a way that is thorough but not overworked. Once everything is combined, chill the meat mixture at least 15 minutes, or up to one hour.



When you're ready to cook your meatballs, bring your sauce to a simmer over medium heat. Working again with a gentle hand (no kung fu grip) moisten your hands with the discarded breadcrumb milk and form the meat into equal sized balls. Place your meatballs in a single layer in the bottom of the sauce, reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until meatballs are cooked through (15 to 20 minutes). Personally, I am paranoid about cooking meat and chicken sometimes because I have read too many books/ watched too many food borne illness documentaries, so I checked my meatballs for doneness with a meat thermometer. In the last 10 minutes of cooking, you can cook your spaghetti, if you’re ready to eat (but boil the water before those last 10 min. It takes longer than that to boil water, obvi). Otherwise, this can be made ahead and served later. Just let the sauce and meatballs cool completely before storing in the fridge.



So after all this work, Jess, was it worth it? Um, (pausing in a way I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings) not reaaaallly. In my opinion there were some flaws with these meatballs. First, there’s about 17 more steps than I would normally take to make meatballs. Second, I was hesitant in the first place about cooking the raw meatballs in the sauce without baking them first, and as everything was finishing cooking, I remembered why. When you cook meat in a sauce, it releases a lot of its fat into the sauce. Couple that with the fact that the sauce was already made with a whole entire stick of butter and you’ve got yourself a pretty hardcore artery clogger of a meal here. And you know what? Call it sacrilege but as much as I love pork I don’t love pork in my meatballs. Maybe if it was crumbled Italian sausage? Anyways, I learned a really valuable lesson here though: when it comes to matters of your Spirit Food, trust yourself. I went against my instincts because this recipe deserved a try, but next time I make meatballs, I’m going back to Porky's original recipe. And, because it would be lame to write up the whole recipe above and then simply dismiss it as too much work, I want you to know that you will very much enjoy Molly’s Spaghetti and Meatballs. If you’re looking for a treat and have some extra time on a Sunday, try this recipe out (just don't plan on making any sudden movements for the remainder of your evening- seriously, these will destroy you). At the very least, definitely try making the sauce, it is very, very good and so easy; but if you’re looking to make meatballs and not make a big deal about it, use my recipe below. I do realize this is the longest blog post in history, but I mean, it’s meatballs.



PORKY’S MEATBALLS

1 package ground beef (however lean you like it, 85% is good)
1 cup crushed Ritz cracker crumbs (no substitutions!)
1 cup finely ground parmesan cheese
1/3 cup finely chopped Italian parsley, or about 1 ½ tbs. dried parsley is fine as well
1 large egg
Salt
Pepper



You can feel free to use the sauce recipe listed above, or if you have your own favorite, feel free. Prior to trying the butter and onion spaghetti sauce, I would make a simply tomato sauce with some finely diced onion, a little minced garlic, 1 can whole tomatoes, 1 can crushed and once I got the sauce simmering, I would season to taste with salt, pepper, oregano and basil. As your sauce simmers, make your meatballs. First, preheat your oven to 350. Break meat up into chunks in a large bowl. Add remaining ingredients, bring out The Claw and mix those suckers up. Gently roll into equal sized balls. Place meatballs on a nonstick baking sheet and pop in the oven for about 10-15 minutes. Until they are slightly browned, but not cooked through. Remove meatballs from oven and drop them, one by one, into your sauce. Let the meatballs and sauce simmer. Serve with your favorite pasta, topped with some grated parmesan.




Alternate recipe: PARTY MEATBALLS

Some people think that this is sort of a white trash dish, but you know what? They are snobs because these freaking things are delicious. Follow steps for preparation of meatballs above, cooking the meatballs the full 15 minutes in the oven. Remove meatballs. In a large Dutch oven, or even a Crock Pot if you have one, combine the hot meatballs with one jar apricot preserves and one bottle (normal size jar and bottle, not king sized or anything) of original barbecue sauce (my preferred BBQ sauce here is Kraft original, nothing fancy). Stir everything together so the sauce is mixed well. These can be served immediately or refrigerated until party time. When it’s party time, reheat them in the oven, or serve in the Crock Pot. People will pop these things like Tic Tacs I swear.