Sunday Night: Spaghetti and Meatballs

On Saturday I developed a meatball craving as we were heading to the store to get stuff for the pork braised in milk. Andrea liked the idea, so yesterday we had spaghetti and meatballs.

Long Simmered Tomato Sauce
2 pints canned tomatoes
1 medium yellow onion, diced
5-6 cloves garlic, chopped
a "bouquet garni" made of 1 spring each rosemary and oregano, 3 springs thyme, and 2 springs sage
4 bay leaves
1/2 cup coarsely chopped parsley
~1 cup red wine
~1 cup chicken stock
salt and black pepper to taste

Cook the onion and garlic in a couple Tbs of olive oil until they start to brown, add everything else and bring to a light boil. Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for some hours (yesterday this went for ~6 hours). Fish out the bouquet garni and bay leaves and then puree with a hand blender. Adjust the seasonings and serve.
This makes a bit over a quart of sauce.


Meatballs
2 lbs ground meat (I used 1 lb of buffalo and 1 lb of pork)
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1 carrot, finely diced
1/2 onion, finely diced
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
1/2 c. good bread crumbs
1 sprig each worth of rosemary and sage leaves, finely chopped
1/4 c. parsely, finely chopped
salt and black pepper to taste

Saute the onion for a couple of minutes to soften it, then mix everything together in a big bowl.
This recipe makes 24 golf-ball sized meatballs.

To finish the meatballs, brown them well on all sides, then simmer in some sauce for 10-15 minutes. Serve over spaghetti with some coarsely chopped parsley and a bit of microplaned lemon zest (I used Meyer lemons, because that's what we have).