Posts Tagged With: pasta

Turkey Salisbury Steak With Pasta

Posted on May 1, 2023 by pauldelancey

American Entree

TURKEY SALISBURY STEAK WITH PASTA

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INGREDIENTS

2 garlic cloves
2 eggs
1 cup bread crumbs
½ teaspoon rosemary
½ teaspoon marjoram
½ teaspoon thyme
1½ pounds ground turkey
1½ tablespoons olive oil

4 tablespoons flour
2 cups chicken broth
3 teaspoons tomato sauce
3 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

½ pound little-shell pasta (or another variety, if you prefer.)
brick for keeping this cook book open to this page

Makes 6 to 8 Salisbury steaks.

PREPARATION

Mince garlic cloves. Use hands to mix minced garlic, eggs, bread crumbs, marjoram, rosemary, thyme, and turkey in large mixing bowl. Form 6 to 8 patties.

Cook pasta according to instructions on package, or boil it for 5-to-7 minutes.

Meanwhile back at the range, pour oil into first of two frying pans. Add patties. Fry on medium-high heat for about 3 minutes on each side or until meat is no longer pink. Cover and keep warm.

While pasta and patties are cooking, add flour, chicken broth, tomato sauce, and Worcestershire sauce to another frying pan. Fry for about 5 minutes at medium-high heat, or until the sauce starts to boil. Stir frequently. Add cooked patties to this frying pan. Cook patties and sauce at low-medium heat for about 3 minutes.

Serve patties and sauce on top of cooked pasta. Yum.

TIDBITS

1) Salisbury steak was one of my favorites at the university cafeteria.

2) Liver and onions was my least favorite. They weren’t prepared well, so no one ever ate them. Well, maybe a few desperate vampires, but they usually dropped out of the university in their freshmen year due to most classes taking place in the daytime.

3) I rapidly learned never, NEVER, to eat the “Chef’s Surprise.” The only surprise about this dish is why people ever ate it. It was usually some gross dish that the chef had left over from the previous dinner. I owe my hold on sanity to forgetting the specifics of these meat masses.

4) On “Chef Surprise” nights, we usually ate at the University’s burger and hot-dog joint.

5) Pancakes at the university tasted well enough, but they were powerful hard to digest. I think some of them could have doubled as cannon balls.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Cheese Ravioli

Posted on January 7, 2023 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

CHEESE RAVIOLI

INGREDIENTS – PASTA

3 cups or more of flour (¼ cup more later in FINAL STAGE)
2 eggs
¾ cup or more water

INGREDIENTS – FILLING

¾ cup ricotta cheese
¼ cup grated, or chopped, mozzarella cheese
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon basil
½ teaspoon salt (Used 3 times for a total of 2 teaspoons)
1 garlic clove

INGREDIENTS – MARINARA SAUCE

6 Roma tomatoes
½ large white onion
2 garlic cloves
2 teaspoons basil
½ teaspoon marjoram
1 teaspoon oregano
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon thyme
1 6 ounce can tomato sauce

INGREDIENTS – FINAL STAGE

water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ cup flour

SPECIAL UTENSILS

rolling pin
cutting board

Makes about 40 ravioli.

PREPARATION – PASTA

Combine flour, eggs, and water. Mix with hands and make a ball of the mixture. It should just be able to come off your hand. If some of the ball sticks to your hand, then add a bit more flour, mix again, and try the new flour. If the flour ball is powdery, it is too dry. (If you suddenly feel like bowling, the flour ball is too heavy.) Add a bit more water, mix again, and try the consistency again. You might need to do this a number of times.

Sprinkle a generous amount of flour on your cutting board and rolling pin. Roll flour ball out until it is NO THICKER than ¼-inch. Frequently sprinkle the rolling pin to keep the dough from sticking. Let rolled-out flour sit for AT LEAST 4 hours. It should be nearly dry.

PREPARATION – FILLING

While rolled out flour dries, mince 1 garlic glove. Combine ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, and Parmesan cheese, basil, salt, (First use of salt.) and garlic in mixing bowl. Mix with hands. Put cheese filling in fridge.

PREPARATION – MARINARA SAUCE

Mince Roma tomatoes. Peel and mince onion and 2 garlic cloves. Add tomato, onion, garlic, basil, marjoram, oregano, salt, (Second use of salt.) thyme, and tomato sauce to sauce pot. Cook on medium-high heat until mixture boils, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes with the lid on. Stir occasionally.

FINAL PREPARATION

Dust cutting board with flour. Use knife to cut 1½-inch wide strips in the flour. Cut these strips into rectangles every 3-inches. (Don’t use these rectangles while reading. They make disappointing bookmarks.) Dust strips with flour. Put a ½ teaspoon or so of the filling on the right side of the 1½-inch by 3-inches flour rectangle. Fold the left side over the filling. Push down on the open sides with the tines of the fork to seal the ravioli.

Fill pot with enough water to cover ravioli. Add salt (Third use of salt.) and olive oil. Boil water. Add ravioli and cook for 20 to 30 minutes. Ravioli should float to the top and the dough should be completely soft. (Now you know why restaurant ravioli are expensive.)

Meanwhile back at the range, cook pasta sauce in pot on medium heat until it is warm. Put ravioli in bowl and add pasta sauce.

TIDBITS

1) The singular form of “ravioli” is “raviolo.”

2) Scarcely anyone eats ravioli for breakfast.

3) But there is a ravioli burrito.

4) Oh my gosh, there is a lutefisk burrito.

5) Why?!! Why?!! Oh the humanity, oh the culinary carnage!

6) Horrors! There is such a thing as a lutefisk ravioli!

7) I think I need to sit down and have a nice, tall frosty mug of root beer.

 

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Meatball in Pasta Nest

Posted on December 8, 2021 by pauldelancey

Italian Appetizer

MEATBALL IN PASTA NEST

INGREDIENTS

6 Italian pasta nests*
6 premade meatballs
9 tablespoons Alfredo sauce
½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
1½ cups mozzarella cheese
2 teaspoons parsley

* = Found in supermarkets with a large pasta section or online.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

sonic obliterator, how have you gone so long without one

Serves 6. Takes 20-to-40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cook pasta nests according to instructions on package. Cook meatballs according to instruction on package Place nests on plate. The nests might need some gentle reshaping to look like a nest again.
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Spoon an equal amount of Alfredo sauce into the middle of each nest. Place a meatball in center of each pasta nest. Sprinkle an equal amount of Italian seasoning over each meatball.

Add mozzarella to pan. Heat at medium heat until it becomes gooey. Spoon 1/6th of the mozzarella over each meatball. You might need to reshape the mozzarella so that it totally covers the meatball and not much else.

Sprinkle an equal amount of parsley over each egg. The whole thing should look like a speckled, white egg in a nest. Use sonic obliterator to zap any oafish guest who says your cheese-covered meatball doesn’t really look like an egg. You don’t need negativity in your kitchen.

TIDBITS

1) The photo for this recipe is a Rorschach test.

2) Do you see a bird’s egg or only a meatball covered with Alfredo sauce?

3) Or did you see a space alien with two small eyes, one large pointy ear, a big nose, a slightly open mouth, a shoulder, part of a chest, and a glorious mass of tangled blond hair? Me neither.

 

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Makawoni Au Graten (macaroni and cheese)

Posted on June 28, 2021 by pauldelancey

Haitian Entree

MAKAWONI AU GRATEN
(macaroni and cheese)

INGREDIENTS

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1 pound rigatoni or penne pasta
1 garlic clove
1 small onion
1 red bell pepper
3 tablespoons butter
1 12-ounce can evaporated milk
⅔ cup mayonnaise
1½ cups grated Parmesan cheese
1½ cup grated Edam or Gouda cheese
1 teaspoon seasoned salt

SPECIAL UTENSIL

9″ * 13″ casserole dish

Serves 8. Takes 1 hour 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cook rigatoni according to instructions on package. Drain and set aside. Mince garlic clove, onion, and bell pepper. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Add garlic, onion, bell pepper and butter to pot. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until garlic and onion soften. Add pasta and evaporated milk to pot with sautéed onion. Mix with spoon until well blended. Add mayonnaise, Parmesan cheese, Edam cheese, and seasoned salt. Mix with spoon until well blended. Ladle ingredients in pot into casserole dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes or until top turns golden brown.

TIDBITS

1) Albert Einstein, the great mind of the 20th century, theorized that time slows as you travel at speeds closer and closer to the speed of light. He also postulated that as you zip along at velocities near the speed of light, that things get heavier and heavier.

2) So if you were in a spaceship traveling closer to closer to light speed, the time required to make Makawoni au Graten would go from 1 hour 15 minutes to hours and hours or even years. The weight of your macaroni would gradually increase from perhaps four pounds to four tons.

3) Who would ever want to wait years to eat this entree? Who would want to eat four tons of it? Certainly no American astronaut. This is why NASA never serves Makawoni au Graten on its space missions. Not to worry, though, it’s perfectly safe to eat here down on Earth. Darn tasty, too.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., critic

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Noodles With Poppy Seeds

Posted on April 15, 2015 by pauldelancey

Polish Dessert

NOODLES WITH POPPY SEEDS

INGREDIENTSPoppyPasta-

8-ounce bag egg noodles
¼ cup poppy seeds
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons honey

Takes 15 minutes. Makes 4 bowls.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

spice grinder

PREPARATION

Cook egg noodles according to instructions on bag. While noodles cook, melt butter. Grind poppy seeds thoroughly with spice grinder. Drain noodles. Add ground poppy seeds, melted butter, and honey to noodles. Mix ingredients with fork until well blended.

TIDBITS

1) I was tempted to write, “Toss ingredients,” but I recently saw a football movie and I kept picturing someone tossing the poppy pasta down the length on the kitchen.

2) Pasta football almost caught on during World War II. Real football production had ceased in 1942 due to wartime restrictions. Real footballs became harder and harder to find.

3) Professional football merged to conserve the nation’s dwindling supply of real footballs.

4) But the fans in the cities that lost their teams still wanted to see professional football. Patriotic Polish-American chefs came up with the poppy pasta football. It was enough for the football starved fans. In 1944, the PPPFL, Polish Poppy Pasta Football League was formed.

5) The league was comprised of franchises from: St. Louis, Poway, California, Keokuk, Illinois, Madison, Wisconsin, Taos, New Mexico, and Biloxi, Mississippi. The league did not thrive. The poppy pasta football kept disintegrating in the rain.

6) Then on November 17, 1944 with Keokuk losing to Poway 44 to 13 and three minutes left, Keokuk quarterback, Chris Gashud ate the last football. No football, no more playing. There were no rules to cover this. The game was considered to be the same as a rainout. Losing teams took their cue from this incidents and ate the pasta ball in the final minutes of game after game. The league folded in late December.

7) Isn’t Gashud Swedish for “gooseflesh?” Yes, it is.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Pasta Sauce

Posted on March 8, 2014 by pauldelancey

Italian Appetizer

PASTA SAUCE

INGREDIENTSPastaSauce-

2 garlic cloves
2 pounds Roma tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon marjoram
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon savory
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon thyme

makes 2 ½ cups

SPECIAL UTENSIL

blender

PREPARATION

Mince garlic cloves. Puree tomatoes in blender. Add remaining ingredients to large saucepan. Bring to boil on high heat, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for about 45 minutes or until sauce thickens. Cool.

TIDBITS

1) It’s helpful to know whenever you’re at an anagram convention that pasta sauce is an anagram for: cause a spat, a cat’s pause, sautes a cap, and cue ass pat.

2) A pat is a small slice of butter. A stick of butter is much longer than a pat.

3) When German soldiers invaded the Netherlands in 1940, they confiscated the locals’ butter. Culinary historians suspect the main impetus behind Germany’s patently unpleasant wars of aggression was a massive butter shortage in the Fatherland. The Netherlands has ample stocks of butter, so it was overrun by its larger bread-spread lacking neighbor to the east.

4) Sure, Germany invaded other nations as well, but that was mainly from inertia. Once you start invading other countries, it’s kinda hard to stop. Besides, Belgium had fries, France had cheese and baguettes, and Russia had beef stroganoff.

5) Eight nations met in Toronto, Canada in 1953 to sign the Ample Butter Supply Treaty (ABS.) To remove all temptation for aggression, signatory countries pledged to main large supplies of butter. America maintains its emergency butter supply in a climate controlled cave near Butte, Montana.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Crunchy Tuna Casserole

Posted on January 26, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Entree

CRUNCHY TUNA CASSEROLE

INGREDIENTSCrunTuC-

8 total tablespoons or a stick of butter
(You will be using butter four times.)
8 ounces bow-tie pasta
1 stalk celery
1/2 medium onion
1 clove garlic
2 5 ounce cans solid white albacore tuna
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon Seafood MagicTM spice
2 tablespoons bread crumbs
1 2 ounce bag barbecue potato chips
1 cup shredded Four Mexican cheeses
3 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Coat a medium baking dish with 1/2 tablespoon butter. (First use of butter.) Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add bow-tie pasta. Cook for 9 minutes or al dente-firm but not hard. Drain.

While waiting for the pasta to be ready, cut the leafy top and white bottom off the celery stalk. De-vein the celery. That is, remove the thin green threads, or veins, that run down the length of the outside. It is easy to get a start on these pesky threads if you first snap the stalk in half. The alternative to de-veining is living with thready celery or not having celery. (Both choices put the entire cosmos in its own alternative universe, perhaps resulting in Armageddon tomorrow. Choose wisely.)

Metaphorically destroy (mince) the garlic, celery, and onion. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in saucepan over low-medium heat. (Second use of butter.) Stir in the onion, celery, and garlic for seven minutes or until tender. The mix really should be tender. You have been warned.

Melt 3 1/2 tablespoons butter in another saucepan. (Third use of butter.) Add milk, mayonnaise, and flour. Stir with whisk. Cook for 5 minutes until sauce is smooth and thickened. Add tuna, onion-celery-garlic mixture, and bow-tie pasta. Mix. Pour all of this casserole into baking dish.

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in yet another pan. (Last use of butter.) Mix in bread crumbs. Sprinkle mixture over the casserole. Top with grated four cheeses and Parmesan cheese.

Bake casserole 20 minutes in the oven at 375 degrees. Take casserole out of the oven and sprinkle potato chips on top. Bake casserole for another 10 minutes or until it is bubbly and lightly browned. This dish is crunchy and yummy.

You generated lots of dishes for your companion to wash. Be sure to say thank you.

TIDBITS

1) My grandmother always said the outstanding chef would have everything cleaned and put away by the time the meal was ready to be eaten.

2) I actually did this for this meal. My grandmother would have been proud. My mother would have been astounded.

3) This is not a good meal to make if your dishwasher doesn’t work as happened to me. Grr!

4) 75 percent of all fish eaten comes from the ocean. Within a generation the percentage will drop to 50.

5) Only 1 percent of all tuna is sold fresh. The rest is canned.

6) “Tuna” spelled backwards is “a nut.” It is also an anagram for “aunt.”

7) Tuna can cruise up to 55 miles per hour and never stop moving. Cars in the heart of the world’s big cities move at an average of 8 miles per hour and are often stopped.

8) Most of the world’s oil supply comes from OPEC nations. Most of the world’s tuna is caught off California.

9) Tuna in France is canned in water, vegetable oil, tomato juice, and lemon juice.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Pasta Salad

Posted on September 12, 2012 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

PASTA SALAD

INGREDIENTS

6 ounces tri-colored Rotelle pasta
1/2 head iceberg lettuce
1 green bell pepper
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup mayonnaise

PREPARATION

Cook pasta according to instructions, or boil pasta for about 7 minutes. Shred lettuce. Dice bell pepper. Do not drain diced tomatoes. Drain pasta. Let it cool. Add all ingredients to large salad bowl. Mix ingredients.

(Almost as simple as cooking a Pop TartTM but with the virtuous feeling that can only come from eating fruits and vegetables.)

TIDBITS

1) Apparently a Roman general saw a goat eating lettuce. He said, “Like lips, like lettuce” and burst out laughing for the only time in his life.

2) My Roman History professor in college laughed for the only time over this one as well.

3 My friend and I tried to get a t-shirt made for the professor, with the apparently hilarious joke written in Latin.

4) But it cost too much money, so he didn’t get the shirt.

5) I had a superstition about tests.

6) If I studied enough, I would get an “A.”

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pasta With Spicy Peanut Sauce

Posted on September 9, 2012 by pauldelancey

Thai Entree

PASTA WITH SPICY PEANUT SAUCE

INGREDIENTS

1 pound pasta, not multicolored
1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup water
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons peanut oil
5 tablespoons sesame oil
1/4 tablespoon TabascoTM sauce
7 tablespoons smooth peanut butter

2 tablespoons butter
2 cups Asian vegetables: carrots, bell peppers, watercress, snow peas, etc. Try to get more than one color.

PREPARATION

Prepare pasta according to instructions on package or boil pasta for about 7 minutes

Note: put a thin coating of vegetable oil or some other plain-tasting oil on your measuring spoon before measuring something sticky like peanut butter or honey. This will make getting the peanut butter off the measuring spoon easier. (If you try to remove the p.b. by flinging it off the spoon it will go everywhere. And peanut butter can be so hard to remove from a stucco ceiling.)

Put vinegar, soy sauce, water, ginger, sugar, peanut oil, sesame oil, TabascoTM sauce, and peanut butter in blender. Blend using “liquefy” setting.

Cook pasta according to directions on box or bag. Spoon out pasta with pasta spoon–-curved with holes in it.

Dice or mince Asian veggies. Try to have multiple colors. Don’t puree them or you might end with an unappetizing yellow plop. Put butter, minced garlic, and Asian veggies in sauce pan. Saute for about 6 minutes on medium high heat. Stir frequently.

Top pasta with sauce and Asian vegetables. Yum.

TIDBITS

1) Years ago, my wife and I went to a future mom’s party. We brought this dish. Other parents-to-be arrived with fancy dishes or meals picked up at stores. No one touched our dish for a while. It was plain with a bit of diced bell peppers.

Later though, an especially astute man, in my opinion, tried our dish. He loved it and walked around telling everyone that it was great and must be tried. Well, this dish was the first one to be completely eaten. Bliss.

2) It wasn’t eaten at first because it looked boring and that I had used marginally more effort than pouring CheeriosTM into a bowl. Use more than one color with your Asian vegetables.

3) Ice cream was invented by the Chinese. Marco Polo brought this recipe back to Europe. The ice cream was entirely eaten before he got back to Venice.

4) Frozen vegetables are usually frozen right after picking and so might have had less time to lose their nutrients than fresh ones.

5) The Romans thought raw peas were poisonous and dried them before eating.

6) The 17th century French restored the pea to culinary favor.

7) This recipe can be dish intensive. Don’t try it if your dishwasher isn’t working. Just saying.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, food, history, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Spaghetti And Meatballs

Posted on August 16, 2012 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

SPAGHETTI AND MEATBALLS

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 pounds of ground turkey meat
2 big garlic cloves
1 cup of sourdough bread crumbs
2 jars of spaghetti sauce
12 ounces of spaghetti

COOKING THE SPAGHETTI

Follow the instructions on your bag of spaghetti. Different sizes and types of spaghetti have different cooking instructions.

PREPARING THE MEATBALLS

This dish is relatively forgiving. If it’s too spicy, add some water or tomato sauce. If it isn’t spicy enough add some more. If it’s too “liquidy”–-“liquidy” is a legitimate cooking term–-cook the sauce a little longer. If there isn’t enough sauce add more.

Begin defrosting the turkey meat overnight. This way saves electricity and is better for the environment than defrosting by microwave. Sometimes, however, you just don’t have the time. It’s a good idea to take the meat out of the microwave and remove the defrosted outer meat. If you don’t, you will end up cooking the outer part of your block of turkey meat, making it extremely difficult to make meatballs.

Mince the garlic cloves. Take a slice of sourdough bread and make crumbs out of it. I suggest a food processor as it can make smaller crumbs than you can and it won’t get bored doing it either. Sourdough is the chosen bread in this recipe as it goes well with the garlic and spaghetti sauces.

Mix the meat, cloves, and crumbs together. Make meatballs that are at least 1 inch in diameter and less than two. Meatballs that are more than 2 inches across stand a good chance of resembling a model of the Earth–-a hard crust on the outside, gray in the middle with a reddish core.

Put the meatballs in the pan. Actually, this recipe will make two pans worth, giving a huge, delicious meal or wonderful leftovers that your kids will eat the next day before you get up.

Cook on medium heat. Gradually add spaghetti sauce until the medium balls are covered. Reduce heat to low and cover. You won’t have to turn over the meatballs more than a few times as the sauce atop will keep the moisture in.

You’re ready with your sauce at this point. However, if your noodles are not, if you can’t get your kids to log off Wizard 101 or if your sweetheart is in the middle of a Wii Fit session, it is an extremely good idea to set the heat to warm at most or even shut it off. Stir occasionally and gnash your teeth. Your anger will evaporate with the compliments your hungry brood or guests will give you for this meal.

TIDBITS

1) Pasta was eaten by the Chinese seven-thousand years ago.

2) Cortez brought tomatoes back to Spain from Mexico in 1519. So his conquest of Mexico, while bad for the Aztecs, was a positive boon for the culinary world. No tomato sauces for spaghetti noodles for 5,500 years! Ugh.

3)Pasta was not brought back from China by Marco Polo. Ancient Romans ate this food as well. Dang, yet another example of how boring history can be.

4) Pasta was considered to be peasant food by Italian nobility until around the 19th century.

5) Pasta is an anagram for “pa sat.”

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, food, history, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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