Meatballs!

Tonight I made some meatballs and sketti!

While waiting for my meatballs to cook this evening, I took a few moments to investigate the history of the meatball dish. The earliest recordings of meatball recipes dates back to Roman times, specifically in a recipe book series entitled "De re coquinaria libri decem (Cuisine in Ten Books)" by Marcus Gavius Apicus. Today, some form of meatball is a part of countless cultural cuisines. Bulgarians refer to them as “Kyufte”. Germans have a variation which includes anchovy called “Königsberger Klopse”. The Chinese make giant meat balls they refer to as “Lion’s Heads”.

Some more cool facts:

·      The world record for largest meatball was given in October 2011 to Columbus Italian Club for cooking a delicious meatball weighing in at 1,110.5 pounds!

·      Urban Dictionary tells of meatball being a derogatory term implying one to be dimwitted and lacking of common sense.

That is about it for cool meatball factoids. Now for the recipe!

Charlie’s World Famous Slow Cooked Meatballs (Improved)

What will be needed:

            Balls

·      1 lb ground beef (I like using one that isn’t too lean as it seems to help the meat stay in a ball)

·      ¼ cup diced onion (I use sweet yellow’s)

·      ¾ cup bread crumbs (Italian style for an Italian dish?)

·      ¼ cup milk

·      ¼ cup sugar (They got to be sweet)

·      ½ teaspoon salt

·      ½ teaspoon garlic powder

·      1 egg

Other stuff

·      1 Can Pasta sauce (I like to use a three cheese sauce or an alfredo tomato sauce as it seems to be creamier!)

·      ¼ cup milk

·      Appropriate amount of spaghetti (I have found about 10 ounces works well)

·      Lots of grated parmesan! (I love me some parm)

The process:

Making the balls is simple. Take all the ingredients under the “Balls” section and mash them together until consistent. Then dump the pasta sauce into a pot along with the second ¼ cup of milk and set to a low simmer. While the sauce is heating up, begin rolling the meat mixture into balls of one inch diameter and plopping them into the pot. Once all the balls have been rolled, cover the pot.

Wait about 15 minutes then return and gently roll the balls to get them to begin circulating. At this point, be extremely gentle not to destroy any of the meatballs! Leave on a low simmer (Level 2 out of 10 on my stove) for a total of 1 hour. (Including the earlier allotted for 15 minutes) Every 5 or 10 minutes, return to roll the meatballs so as to ensure they are all cooked evenly.  I normally start cooking the pasta around the 35 minute mark and both generally finish around the same time.

That is it. Enjoy! Below is a picture of the meatballs I created tonight, covered in a flurry of parmesan cheese.

Something new I would like to begin doing is to a catalog some benefits of being a smaller than average person....

Benefit of Being a Smaller than Average Person:

#1. Spending less on soap. Less surface area, less soap needed to clean.