doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
I recently made spaghetti for dinner at my parents' place, and used the sauce and meatballs for sandwiched the next day with my wife.
The sauce was made by puree-ing soup starter mix (chopped onion, green onion, cabbage, broccoli, carrot, celery, rosemary) along with the stems of the mushrooms I would add later (the caps are good chopped, the stems make great flavoring by aren't as good in terms of mouth feel), and olive oil. I heated up olive oil in my big pot, dumped in the puree once it was ready, and stirred until it got aromatic.
Before that, I'd gotten 2lbs ground beef, and 8 meatballs of ground pork with mozzarella. I lightly soaked both in low sodium soy sauce and red wine vinegar, then rolled the meatballs and mixed the group beef with a ground mix of salt, pepper (red, white, and black), oregano, sage, italian seasoning, and a pinch of my chili seasoning mix (curry spices with cayenne, mostly) for a hint of a kick. I let both meats rest covered on the counter in that mix for half an hour before starting anything else.
With the starter aromatic, I placed the meatballs in, covered the mix, and prepped my tomato paste (canned, I'm lazy about this part), and rinsed by olives and chopped my mushrooms (I rinsed those already. should have done the olives and chopped the mushroom caps then, but oh well). After about 5 minutes, I flipped the meatballs, and preheated the oven to 400. A few minutes more, and I put the meatballs in a pyrex, turned the oven down to 200, and put the meatballs in, covered with foil. They'd cooked enough to let out some of their flavor into the pot, but still needed a little more to finish. I thought about slow cooking them with the rest of the sauce, but I didn't want to risk them falling apart in the sauce, and I wanted that seared flavor and texure on the outside.
Next, I drop in the ground beef, and mix until it is fully mixed in with the veggies, and then cover while I made myself a drink*.
Drink done, I pour in a little filtered water, to keep the mix from burning, and a tiny bit more olive oil. The meat was leaner than I'd anticipated. Then, I start adding in the tomato paste and water, until I've got a thick, but liquid, sauce going, and add in the olives and mushrooms. They go last so the shrooms still have a nice texture when I serve it up. More of that seasoning mix I put on the meat, plus some extra oregano, soy sauce, and red wine vinegar. Not a lot of any of it.
Lastly, I take the meatballs out, pour some sauce over them, cover, turn the oven off, and put them back in to keep warm and finish. (I should have started at a lower oven heat, or turned the heat off sooner. THey came out a little hard to fork-cut, but still extremely delicious, and not enough to need a knife or anything, or lose any flavor.)
So, the next day, I've got the meatballs in the sauce overnight in the fridge, so I take them out and cut them into smaller pieces, add them back in, put the whole thing in a pyrex and reheat in the oven, and toast some hamburger buns first on a buttered pan and then in the oven to finish. I laid the sauce (which is very thick) like "sloppy joes" onto the buns, put a slice of havarti on each sandwich, closed it, let them sit covered with foil just long enough to get the cheese melty (a minute or so, because the buns and sauce were quite hot), and then served with a couple dry apple ciders.
*I had dry ginger ale (lightly artificially sweetened with stevia extract, which for me has no aftertaste), squeezed half a lemon and a whole orange, and then added a shot of my vanilla bourbon (it's literally bourbon infused with vanilla pods and coffee grounds, so...as mcuh coffee vanilla extract as actual bourbon, at this point, but I used less vanilla than you would to make proper vanilla extract, so it's still enjoyable as a drink). It's an odd combination on paper, but it sings beautifully in practice.
The sauce was made by puree-ing soup starter mix (chopped onion, green onion, cabbage, broccoli, carrot, celery, rosemary) along with the stems of the mushrooms I would add later (the caps are good chopped, the stems make great flavoring by aren't as good in terms of mouth feel), and olive oil. I heated up olive oil in my big pot, dumped in the puree once it was ready, and stirred until it got aromatic.
Before that, I'd gotten 2lbs ground beef, and 8 meatballs of ground pork with mozzarella. I lightly soaked both in low sodium soy sauce and red wine vinegar, then rolled the meatballs and mixed the group beef with a ground mix of salt, pepper (red, white, and black), oregano, sage, italian seasoning, and a pinch of my chili seasoning mix (curry spices with cayenne, mostly) for a hint of a kick. I let both meats rest covered on the counter in that mix for half an hour before starting anything else.
With the starter aromatic, I placed the meatballs in, covered the mix, and prepped my tomato paste (canned, I'm lazy about this part), and rinsed by olives and chopped my mushrooms (I rinsed those already. should have done the olives and chopped the mushroom caps then, but oh well). After about 5 minutes, I flipped the meatballs, and preheated the oven to 400. A few minutes more, and I put the meatballs in a pyrex, turned the oven down to 200, and put the meatballs in, covered with foil. They'd cooked enough to let out some of their flavor into the pot, but still needed a little more to finish. I thought about slow cooking them with the rest of the sauce, but I didn't want to risk them falling apart in the sauce, and I wanted that seared flavor and texure on the outside.
Next, I drop in the ground beef, and mix until it is fully mixed in with the veggies, and then cover while I made myself a drink*.
Drink done, I pour in a little filtered water, to keep the mix from burning, and a tiny bit more olive oil. The meat was leaner than I'd anticipated. Then, I start adding in the tomato paste and water, until I've got a thick, but liquid, sauce going, and add in the olives and mushrooms. They go last so the shrooms still have a nice texture when I serve it up. More of that seasoning mix I put on the meat, plus some extra oregano, soy sauce, and red wine vinegar. Not a lot of any of it.
Lastly, I take the meatballs out, pour some sauce over them, cover, turn the oven off, and put them back in to keep warm and finish. (I should have started at a lower oven heat, or turned the heat off sooner. THey came out a little hard to fork-cut, but still extremely delicious, and not enough to need a knife or anything, or lose any flavor.)
So, the next day, I've got the meatballs in the sauce overnight in the fridge, so I take them out and cut them into smaller pieces, add them back in, put the whole thing in a pyrex and reheat in the oven, and toast some hamburger buns first on a buttered pan and then in the oven to finish. I laid the sauce (which is very thick) like "sloppy joes" onto the buns, put a slice of havarti on each sandwich, closed it, let them sit covered with foil just long enough to get the cheese melty (a minute or so, because the buns and sauce were quite hot), and then served with a couple dry apple ciders.
*I had dry ginger ale (lightly artificially sweetened with stevia extract, which for me has no aftertaste), squeezed half a lemon and a whole orange, and then added a shot of my vanilla bourbon (it's literally bourbon infused with vanilla pods and coffee grounds, so...as mcuh coffee vanilla extract as actual bourbon, at this point, but I used less vanilla than you would to make proper vanilla extract, so it's still enjoyable as a drink). It's an odd combination on paper, but it sings beautifully in practice.
