Category: recipes

It seems like just everyone has an Italian grandmother.  I didn’t.  I had a WASPy one that wore Lacoste sweaters, ran the garden club, and cooked things for me like tuna salad and Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup.  She had a lot of legacy to leave behind, but one thing that she didn’t pass down was a family sawce recipe.

Sauce (or gravy, as some people call it, even though I have no idea how you could possibly use the words interchangeably, but I digress) is a comfort thing to most people.  It reminds them of a time when eating a bowlful of pasta didn’t require a carbohydrate induced guilt trip and a six mile run the next morning.

After a healthy take on this recipe last week, below is the original.

Meatballs (make 18):
1.5 lbs ground beef/pork/veal mix
2 cloves garlic
2 eggs
1/3 cup grated Locatelli cheese
fresh parsley, chopped
onion powder
Italian seasoning
Red pepper flakes
1/3 cup breadcrumbs (whole wheat, seasoned)
salt and pepper

Gently mix together in a bowl until just combined.  Line a sheet with foil, spray away with Pam, and bake for 30 minutes at 400.

Sauce:
3 quarts fresh tomato puree (skins removed, seeds removed)
handful fresh basil, chopped
fresh parsley, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 can tomato paste
Italian seasoning
onion powder
1 long hot pepper, grilled
olive oil
salt and pepper
1 tbsp. butter

Add olive oil to your pot, and warm.  Add garlic and brown.  Add tomato paste, almost toasting it in the pot.  Then, add the tomato puree.  Reduce tomato puree down until a little thinner than desired consistency (this will take some time, depending on how watery your tomatoes are to begin with).  Add remaining ingredients except for the butter and simmer for 2 hours.  When meatballs are done, add to sauce and simmer another 20 minutes.  Either remove the long hot pepper completely, or leave in.  Mine stayed whole, so I left it in, just removed the stem.  Add butter before serving and stir to melt into the sauce.

Serve immediately over pasta.  Don’t go for a run the next morning.

Copyright 2014 Anne Mathay

A healthy spin on spaghetti and meatballs….

For the “spaghetti”–
5 small/medium sized zucchini
2 cloves garlic, minced
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon butter (optional, but I used it.  What the Hell, right?)

Cut off the ends of the zucchini and rinse well.  Use a vegetable peeler to make your “spaghetti” noodles.  Stop peeling when you get to the seeded part.

Fava beans–
I bought two pounds of fava beans, momentarily forgetting that two pounds of fava beans in pods equals approximately .025963 cups of actual beans.  They were more in here for shits and giggles (and a little boost of something else healthy).

For the meatballs–
Let me preface this by saying I’ve never ever made good meatballs.  They’re always too something- too dry, too gross, too cooked.  This recipe is awesome.  Go me (!!), since I made it up.
2 lbs. ground turkey (use organic if you can)
1/4 cup breadcrumbs (I used whole wheat breadcrumbs, panko would have been my first choice)
5 or 6 shakes of the following:
– garlic powder
-onion powder
–Italian seasoning
-red pepper flakes
1-2 tsp. fennel seed
1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated
2 eggs
salt and pepper
a handful of fresh parsley, roughly chopped

Combine all ingredients in bowl and mix until just incorporated.  Don’t mash it all up- this is what makes meatballs tough when they’re finished cooking.  Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with Pam (my secret kitchen hero).  Shape meatballs into whatever size you’d like and bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.

Take a sauté pan and, over medium high heat, warm olive oil and butter until melted.  Add minced garlic and stir.  Add zucchini, stirring so oil/butter/garlic covers the vegetables (at this point I added my six-bean haul of favas).  Salt and pepper them.  I let this cook over high for 5-6 minutes, and then added about 1/2 cup water, covered, and let the zucchini steam.  Take off the lid and reduce heat to medium low for another 5-6 minutes to let the liquid reduce.  Salt and pepper again.

Toss your “pasta” and meatballs and enjoy!