Pasketti and Meatballs

There is something about this weather that makes me crave carbs and, specifically pasta.  Maybe my body needs the extra fuel to stay warm through the damp chill of late winter.  Maybe I have been denying myself pasta since the holidays and my belly just says, “okay, you are being ridiculous; make spaghetti now, please.”  Regardless of the impetus, I had to get down to making some sauce and pasta this weekend.

As a born-again omnivore and regular gym-goer, I pretty much eat an animal-based protein at every meal except breakfast.  It may not be the best course of action, health-wise, but I do try my best to keep my choices on the leaner side whenever possible.  Unfortunately, this meal was an exception to the lean meats, as was the previous Bolognese post.  Yikes!  All I can say is, enjoy a few less healthy meals now, while you can, and hit the gym a little more often.  In a couple of months, none of us will be in the mood for heavy pasta and meat dishes.

Regarding meatballs, I am a big proponent of mixing meats so that you get a variety of flavors and textures.  For this particular recipe, I used ground pork and ground beef, but I often use ground turkey, italian sausage, ground lamb, or ground veal.  The rule, I think, is to use at least one bolder flavored meat (like beef, sausage, or lamb) with one that is more mild (like pork, turkey, or veal).  From there, the possibilities are endless.

Though the meat is your base flavor profile, I also think that good seasoning for meatballs is imperative.  I stick to herbs and some parmesan cheese, but you can certainly branch out to more exotic spices (cumin, coriander, fennel) and skip the cheese altogether.  The total mixture is generally much like what you would create for a meatloaf, but with less breadcrumbs and, perhaps, fewer seasonings.  Think of the ground meat as a canvas and the seasonings as your paints; you can do pretty much anything you want!  Evidence of this is an entire article in the January 2010 Bon Appetit devoted to various iterations of meatballs.

This is another recipe where I encourage you to cook with your instincts.  If you are familiar with ingredients, then you know how they will taste in combination, so go for it.  The worst that can happen is a failed round of meatballs and a quick call for takeout.  Fear in the kitchen is unacceptable!

For basic Italian American red sauce, I stick to a pretty simple recipe of tomato, wine, herbs, salt and pepper. Sometimes, the most basic flavors are the most satisfying.

Pasketti and Meatballs.

My Bolognese

I will admit that the first time I ever had something called Spaghetti Bolognese, I had no idea what I was ordering.  It was my first time in Europe and I was with a person who, at the time, was almost a complete stranger, who is now my very dear friend Melissa.  Both of us were jet-lagged and on our first assignment in what would be our home country for the next 10+ months: the UK.  We were charged by our year-abroad advisor, Professor Wendy Moffat, to drop off our bags at our rooming house and head straight to a neighborhood of London that was randomly assigned to us, where we would make an attempt to observe and record the essence of that neighborhood.  Melissa and I headed to Camden Town, exhausted and hungry.  At the time, Camden was the hotbed of counterculture in London, but had its own brand of gentrification in place, as well.  Hence, we stumbled into a hole-in-the-wall cafe that served what looked to be pretty decent Italian food.  For my first meal in the country, I wasn’t ready for traditional British fare, so I figured Italian would be a good, safe bet.

As Melissa and I sat observing both the clientele and each other, we chatted and got to know one another in an awkward, but oddly disarming way. This is Melissa’s way – no matter how bizarre the circumstances might be, she always manages to make you feel like it is the most natural thing in the world for you to be where you are, when you are, with her.  Before I knew it, our food was sitting in front of us and, to my horror, it was a huge plate of pasta with meat sauce!  This was at the height of the mad cow scare in the UK, and just days before I left, my mother pulled me aside and very gravely said, “I need you to be careful of one thing for me while you are there.”  At the time, my mind raced about all of the topics I did NOT want to discuss with my mother, namely sex, sexuality, and partying.  ”Please do not eat the beef,” she said.  While I sighed relief in those days before departing, there I was sitting with a HUGE plate of BSE beef in front of me within the first few hours of landing on British soil!  My hunger far outweighed my sensibilities (and my mother’s paranoia), so I delved in and found it to be pretty standard pasta-and-meat sauce; palatable, but nothing to write home about (and certainly not to my mum!).

Since that first plate of “Bolognese,” I have come to discover that this dish is so far beyond anything I had as a kid or in my early adulthood.  Where those dishes were meat-studded glops of tomatoe-y sauce, real Bolognese is a lovingly nuanced dish of mostly meat, little tomato, and a lot of surprises.  It is somewhat labor-intensive, but has more to do with your level of patience than anything.  My recipe changes pretty much every time I make it.  In my last go, I think I figured out how to treat everything properly so that the texture comes out just right.  You certainly do not need to grind the meats for this sauce yourself, but I did so this time and I think it brought a certain smooth richness to dish.

Grinder. Meat.

I encourage you to take a few hours and make this dish for yourself and anyone else you think is deserving of the love you put into it.  It is undoubtedly one of the most satisfying things I can think of eating, and those you share it with will certainly appreciate your efforts.

My Bolognese

Pasta with Pesto, Summer Vegetables, and Shrimp

Pasta is usually not on the top of my list of things to eat, but I do really enjoy it on occasion. Since the Bun comes from an Italian-American family, he loves him some pasta of any sort, and I like to keep it lively with different combinations of ingredients. In the summer, I try to let seasonal vegetables lead the way on “one pot” dishes like this, and with green peas and asparagus, the leading color was green. I also wanted to incorporate some light protein (which I always appreciate with pasta), so I thought about adding chicken, but then thought that shrimp would make for a more interesting, more summer-y addition. Going with Heidi Swanson’s advice to cook by color, I decided on my basic pesto as a sauce for this dish. I kept the list of ingredients simple, for the most part, but if you wanted to bump up the variety of vegetables, I think that a little spinach or kale would be a nice color boost and a texture variation. Serve this with a crisp, cold Pinot Grigio and a simple dessert of fruit, nuts and cheese, and I think you have a perfect summer supper – even on a weeknight.

My Basic Pesto