Meatballs!

Today is spaghetti and meatballs day at the Refuge, just because it hasn't been for a while. This is actually surprising given my affection for the Holy Noodle.

That's a joke, son. Lighten up.

My cooking is more about the combining of pre-prepared ingredients, most of them bought that way rather than prepared from raw ingredients, than it is about scratch-building. None of my recipes start out with "Slaughter the cow..."

My mother now, she was an old Nebraska farm girl and she makes everything from scratch. Heck, she even makes the scratch! That's just the way it was when she was growing up. We live in the time of convenience. But I digress.

My meatballs start out with ground Italian sausage, in the heat range most desired by those who will consume said meatballs. My own preference is hot, but I am regularly over-ruled. Barbarians, they are. Anyway, I combine the Italian sausage with an equal measure of ground meat, usually beef but occasionally pork, and once upon a time venison...mmmm, venison...

Sorry. Where was I? Oh yes, meatballs.

At any rate, combine the Italian sausage and hamburger, stir in eggs (one per pound) and enough bread crumbs (I use Italian) to stiffen the mixture back up. Roll into 1" to 1 1/2" balls between the palms of your hands and chuck them into a pot of boiling water (yes, I boil my meatballs, and I have occasionally been known to bake ribs when it's too damn cold to stand in front of the grille for an hour) for ten minutes or so, then transfer them to the pot of sauce you have bubbling on the side-burner for about an hour longer. Serve over freshly boiled noodles, and there you have it.

Today's ensemble was accompanied by steaks on the grille, because I had them thawed and didn't cook them yesterday like I was going to.