Mama Mia!

My brother and I were cooking dinner last week for my parents and put these recipes together to come up with a pretty delicious meal. We don't have any Italian in our blood but we have both grown up with a passion for their food and culture (wine included!) We served the spaghetti and meatballs with a simple caesar salad. A home made caesar vinaigrette is still on my list of things to try, just need to find a good recipe. We paired dinner with an Italian Valpolicella that my parents make.

We found the tomato sauce recipe on the Food Network Canada website (http://www.foodnetwork.ca/Recipes/recipe.html?dishid=477). It was really easy to make and smelled amazing while it was cooking. The 1/2 tsp hot pepper flakes gave the sauce a bit of a kick to make it interesting. Next time I make it I'll definitely double the recipe and freeze the extra sauce for a night when I need a quick meal.

Homemade Tomato Sauce
Yields: 4

    Ingredients:

• 28 oz. can plum tomatoes
• 8 sprigs fresh Italian parsley
• 4 leaves fresh basil
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 onion, halved
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. hot pepper flakes

    Directions:

1. In a blender, purée tomatoes until smooth; pour into saucepan
2. Add parsley, basil, garlic, onion, olive oil, oregano, salt, and hot pepper flakes; bring to a boil.
   ** The recipe didn't specify what to do with the parsley, basil, garlic, and onion. We put the parsley and basil in whole so that we could pull it out when the sauce is done cooking, chopped the garlic and minced the onion so it cooked through.
3. Cover partially and simmer for about 2 hours or until thickened.

When the sauce is finished cooking, toss with your preference of pasta - we used spaghetti, but whatever you have on hand is fine. We topped the pasta with some fresh basil leaves, and fresh parsley.


The meatball recipe I saw one night on David Rocco's show Dolce Vita. He has all kinds of recipes on his website (http://www.davidrocco.com/) - I can't wait to try some more in the future. This meatball recipe was super easy and not overly time consuming. We used half extra-lean ground beef and half ground pork for some extra flavour. Ground sirloin is also a delicious option, although it's a little more pricey. The sun-dried tomatoes add a great boost of flavour to an otherwise 'plain' meatball. I diced them so they mixed well into the meatball but that's a personal preference depending on how much or how little you want to taste at once. We substituted shredded parmesan for the fresh parmigiano cheese, trying to keep a bit of a budget in mind. We doubled the recipe and put half of the uncooked meat mixture in the freezer to cook another night. The number of servings depends on the size of the meatballs, and how much you can eat! We served them on top of the spaghetti and tomato sauce (instead of mixing them into a sauce) so we made them about the size of a golf ball, maybe a little bigger, and each had 3. With the leftovers I might try a smaller size and serve 5-6 meatballs mixed with tomato sauce.

David Rocco's Meatballs in a White Wine Sauce
Yields: 6 servings

    Ingredients:
       Meatballs:

• 500 g extra lean ground beef
• 100 g ricotta cheese
• 1 egg
• 10 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
• 1 cup parmigiano cheese, freshly grated
• salt and pepper, to season
• flour, for dredging

       White Wine Sauce:

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• garlic clove, crushed
• 10 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
• 1 cup white wine

    

    Directions:

1. Add beef, ricotta, egg, sun-dried tomatoes, parmigiano cheese, and salt and pepper to a mixing bowl. 
2. Mix together with your hands, until ingredients are evenly distributed. Shape the meatballs into the size of a golf ball and pat down so they can evenly cook. Lightly dredge the meatballs in flour.
3. In a large frying pan, heat extra virgin olive oil and add garlic. 
4. Add meatballs to the pan, then the sun-dried tomatoes. Fry meatballs until golden on the outside.
5. Add wine to de-glaze the pan. Let wine reduce by half and thicken up. Let cook for an additional 5 minutes.