On Top of Spaghetti...

Continuing what is becoming a regular feature, here's my big cooking extravaganza for the week. This week: Spaghetti and meatballs. I make the meatballs from scratch, and doctor some spaghetti sauce from a jar. I've made my own sauce before, but something's got to give when making meatballs from scratch.

[Fair warning before I continue: This topic is fraught with the possibility for double entrendre. Feel free to snicker like Beavis and/or Butthead at will.]

I started with a mixture of ground turkey and mild Italian sausage. As I removed the sausage from its casings, I remembered that this is not a recipe for the neat-niks among us. Let's just say that the sausage needs coaxing. It seems to respond best to firm pressure, starting at one end ... that's all I'm going to say about that.

Next, I dumped breadcrumbs, eggs, garlic, parmesan cheese, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper into the mixing bowl. I looked at the gooey mess and knew that I needed to push up my sleeves and dig in. But, I wasn't ready to get that messy. Optimistically, I grabbed my spoon. I knew it wouldn't work and sure enough, it didn't. Oh, it stirred fine, but it didn't mix. Sighing loudly, I pushed up my sleeves and dove in with both hands. Within seconds, I had an evenly mixed batch of meatball goodness. I'd show you a picture, but the goodness doesn't digitally transfer. The goodness looks more like something that someone has already enjoyed once and no one wants to see that.

So, moving on. Using my gooey hands, I reached in and broke off a piece of goodness. Carefully rolling it between my palms, I shaped it into a rather sticky ball, like a ping pong ball. A ping pong ball that won't bounce because it's made of meat. There wasn't time to admire my handiwork because there was much more meat to handle. After more dipping, rolling, and shaping, I ended up with this:

And ... repeat. Made another pan just like this one. If you're counting, that's 30 meatballs. That's a lot of balls. Since I don't want to eat meatballs at every meal for the next 3 weeks, 20 of the little fellows headed to the freezer. They'll come in handy on a long workday when I'm too tired to think about food.

While the balls rested, I moved onto the sauce. Like I said, it's doctored jar sauce.

Mix all of this together and let it boil. (Not all of the wine, obviously. Must save some for the actual meal.)

After simmering for 10 minutes, I dropped the first balls in. They disappeared to the bottom and started cooking. Ten minutes later, they came out and the next batch went in. Another ten minutes and it was all balls in. Dropped the pasta in the boiling water and put the bread in the toaster oven. Ten more minutes and we had spaghetti and meatballs, with a side of garlic bread.

Everyone now: "On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese. I lost my poor meatball, when somebody sneezed..."