I think meatballs may be the new “comfort food” for 2010 … we noticed some recipes in the New York Times as well as Bon Appetit. Linda paid no attention to those recipes though, and made up her own — and they turned out really well. We decided to use reconstituted onions instead of fresh so that they would be finer in their chop, but we really liked the flavor that they provided, too. We were going to make homemade marinara sauce, but we had just taken delivery on a new refrigerated pasta sauce line from Sauces 'n Love, so we tried out their Pomodoro Basilico sauce. Wow, are these sauces good!

Linda’s Meatballs
Makes about 18 meatballs

Ingredients:
½ lb. ground beef
½ ground pork
¼ cup bread crumbs
1/8 cup beef broth
1 egg, beaten
2 cloves garlic, minced
¾ tsp. Italian seasoning
¾ tsp. dried basil
¼ tsp. red pepper flakes
¼ tsp. ground black pepper
¼ tsp. white pepper
¾ tsp. salt
¼ cup dried onion flakes, reconstituted per instructions on jar (from Penzey's)

Preparation:
Begin by reconstituting the onions per the instructions on the bottle. Mix beef broth and beaten egg with the bread crumbs and let sit for a minute or so. Then add meats and all other spices. Not very fun, but the best way to mix is to just plunge your hands and get it done. Form into meatballs approximately 1" in diameter, and then brown well on all sides over medium heat.

To save time, we used the new Pomodoro & Basilico sauce from Sauces ’n Love that we carry here at Grapevine Cottage, adding 1/3 cup of red wine and ½ cup of beef broth, and then simmered the meatballs in the sauce for about 30 minutes. The flavors melded together very well.

 

March 3, 2010