Tonight was a standard night-before-grocery-shopping dinner. Pasta with red sauce and meatballs. Easy peasy, right? Blah. I am THE world's worst meatball maker. I really have no idea what I do wrong. Maybe they're too wet, they're too big, the yummy bits inside aren't chopped up small enough. I don't know. I do know, that I suck at it. I've tried it a few times and I've failed miserably each and every stinkin' time.
Tonight, of course, was no exception. I'd already finished making the red sauce (packed with cremini mushrooms, yum) and was attempting to cook up the meatballs in a skillet. They proceeded to fall apart almost immediately. There was brief moment there where I was all, "Oh yeah. I can totally do this." And then blop. There goes my cute little spherical meats turning into broken pieces of blech. Whatevs. I'll just toss it in with the sauce and pretend it was supposed to be a meat sauce all along.
Only problem was, there was way too much meat in the meat:sauce ratio. And of course since it's the night before grocery shopping not the night after I have no other tomatoes in the house. It was a very interesting dinner, saved only by the last piece of Kalamansi Tart. It was delicious. I did learn a little trick though to kick up a red sauce, champagne vinegar.
It really adds a nice little angle to the flavor profile. I'd highly recommend it if you've got some lying around. Just a splash or two in the pan really does the job.
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3 comments:
Now this is an interesting idea, with the vinegar. I would think the acidity would be especially nice with homegrown tomatoes, which always seem to me to be much sweeter than store canned ones. I like my sauce a little sweet, so with store ones I even add a bit of sugar, but with the homegrown ones (which are coming--dum dum DUUUMM), I don't add sugar but will probably try adding vinegar.
I love this site. You can tell you're a former country girl. :-)
the meatball disaster of 2008!!!
My husband never ate tomato sauce (he said it was "gross") until I accidentally added too much meat (for me and the kids). He said, "oooh, this looks good!" So he chowed down, and now he raves about how his wife makes spaghetti (and trust me, my sauce is not as interesting as yours).
So don't dis the meat with sauce. Hubby says that is how it should be. Now I'm going to have to try your sauce recipe (as a meat addition) and see how that works. I bet the kids and I will love it(I'm raising two foodies!)
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