Jul 30, 2008

Meatball cravings

Today, I was in the mood for spagetti and meat balls. This caught me by surprize, because I swore off meatballs years ago. My Oldest Sister, along with her Italian husband, has the corner on the meatball market. Every time I've been to their house they've pushed "real Italian-style" meatballs on me.

So today, when I got the urge, I tried to stop myself. Then I surrendered and gave myself over to meatballs, my style. This is what I did:

Hamburger, a handful of dried oregano that's been rubbed between my hands so I can loose myself in the aroma, diced yellow chili pepper, mushrooms, onion, garlic, and ground comino, all mixed well in a bowl with a raw egg. Then I let that sit to develop it's flavors. While that was sitting, I prepared the sauce: in a saute pan, I heated olive oil with more rubbed oregano. After I recovered from the intoxicating aroma, I sauteed sliced mushrooms in the oil. I dumped tomato sauce in a pot to heat, with even more rubbed oregano and ground comino, added the mushrooms, and a half tablespoon of miso. I would have preferred to add dry red wine, but somebody (me) drank it. So miso helps to intensify the flavors. Then I put that on to simmer.

While the sauce was simmering, I fried the meatballs.

Then I ate one of the meatballs - definitely NOT "real Italian-style" meatballs, but just how I like them.

Then I commited a cardinal sin and cooked egg noodles instead of spagetti. YUM. Sorry, no pictures...I ate everything before I thought of photos...

3 comments:

Wooly Works said...

Those real Italian meatballs are probably purchased in a bag from WalMart. It sounds like a great meal. Did O have some with you? You know, I like egg noodles better with spaghetti sauce, too.

Kathleen said...

Nope, O was at work, so he missed out. The truth is that those real Italian meatballs and the sauce are just about the blandest things I've ever tasted.

Oh, and I forgot to tell you to take care when you're heating the oregano in the olive oil and drooling over the wonderful smell - the oil spatters when you drool into it, and you can get those little hot oil droplets splattered on your face. Guess how I know...

Iron Needles said...

Thanks for your comment on Iron Needles. Is Woolyworks your sister?
As for the car, it's an Isetta, that was originally made in Europe. This particular one made it's way to Uraguay and was imported to the states from South America.
I went with her to show it yesterday. I took my spinning wheel and spun my baby alpaca, and got almost as much attention!