Spaghetti & Meatballs... Enough Said

Valentine's Day was a few weeks ago.  To celebrate, I had a small group of friends over for dinner - more of a singles awareness party.  I decided to make home-made spaghetti and meatballs.  This dish had been on my mind for quite sometime, and it had been a LONG time since I'd had great spaghetti and meatballs.  I found the perfect recipe.

For Christmas, my mom got me a book I'd been wanting, called the "The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual" , and it is one of the coolest cook books I've seen!  Along with killer recipes for pastas, sauces, vegetables, salads, meats, and desserts, it covers basic kitchen / pantry supplies, and essential tools one should have at home.  Not only are the recipes great, but there is a story to go along with many of them.  I made the "Sunday Sauce" and the raisin and pine-nut meatballs.  The story that went with the sunday sauce described how the old italian women would wake up before the sun came up to start the sauce.  After attending mass, the meal would continue to come together for a massive feast, with the sauce, of course, as the star of the show.  Although I'm not from an Italian family, it reminded me of growing up and being around family for certain meal gatherings.  It goes to show how we don't simply eat for taste.  Love and memories go along with a meal.

I followed the sauce recipe to the t, and it was phenomenal!  It was super simple: tomatos, olive oil, garlic, salt, and crushed red chili pepper.  It did take four hours, though!  Time is what brought all these flavors together to make some of the best sauce I've ever tasted.  I had never really experienced garlic in this way before.  As the sauce cooked, it became extremely tender and sweet. 

As for the meatballs, I did modify them just a tad.  The recipe in the book called for ground beef.  I went with a three-part blend of beef, veal, and pork.  I think this brought a more complex flavor to the party, and there's nothing like pork fat to make something better, right?!  I roasted them in the oven for about 30 minutes, then the day of the meal, they spent sometime in the sauce before being served.  [I made the meatballs two days ahead].

As for the pasta, I picked up fresh some fresh made linguini (they were all out of spaghetti for the day) at the coolest Italian market in Nashville's Germantown neighborhood: Lazarolli.  If you plan on doing any Italian cooking, please check this place out.  They were extremely friendly and helpful.

The fact that nobody at the table had any desire to pickup a fork for dessert meant on of two things: nobody likes chocolate anymore... or the meal was tasty enough, everyone ate enough to hibernate for a month or two.