Yes, I can hear it already . . . spaghetti sauce and meatballs . . . how terribly bo-rrr-ing, you say? And don’t we all have such a recipe? I suppose, but not THIS one. It’s an oldie but goodie for me. I’ve been making this version of spaghetti sauce and meatballs since about 1966. And before I lose you, let me just say that what makes this version a bit unique is the fresh celery leaves and the freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano IN the meatballs. That’s not common, I know it’s not.

So hopefully you’ll continue reading about this recipe and maybe print out the PDF to try sometime. I’ve not shared this recipe before – I haven’t made spaghetti and meatballs in the 3+ years I’ve been writing this blog. I’ve been meaning to, but we don’t eat much pasta anymore, even though we love it. I do serve it now and then, but haven’t felt the desire to make this old tried and true recipe in a long time.

The recipe came from an old homespun Military Officer’s Wives’ Club cookbook I have. One I’ve referred to over and over, and have shared many a recipe from its pages. And it’s certainly not a 30-minute meal. You’ll want to do this when you have half a day to devote to the different steps. My daughter Dana is visiting and she helped me make it, thankfully. Otherwise I’d have been in and out of the kitchen for upwards of 4 hours. I hope that doesn’t scare you off from making this, though. I always make this in a large quantity so I’ll have some to freeze. I freeze the meat sauce and the meatballs separately – that way I know what I’m getting, quantity-wise – when I defrost both packages. This recipe is something I used to make frequently when our hungry teenagers were in the house. And I heard the other evening, from my daughter, as she slurped up her meatballs from this batch, “oh, this takes me back to my childhood.” Indeed.

So what’s involved? The sauce contains ordinary things like ground beef, onions, garlic, oodles of herbs and spices, canned tomato stuff (paste, sauce and puree). The meatballs are the different stuff: good, highly seasoned Italian sausage, some ground beef too, bread crumbs, onion, milk, eggs, garlic, some cheese and the minced celery leaves. And if you  happen to have ample celery leaves, add more. The new celery head I used only had about 1/2 cup of chopped leaves. Not nearly enough for my taste. The meatballs, by the way, are baked for 20 minutes, rather than fried. So much easier!

The sauce doesn’t require anything special, really. I’ve learned to wing it here and there, adding a bit of water sometimes if the sauce is spending too much time spouting medium-sized plops out of the pot. It all depends on the thickness of the tomato products – some are more watery than others, you know. So use your own judgment. Over the years I’ve made some changes to the recipe – different tomato stuff, less water, and a lot more seasonings. Originally the meatballs had that awful dry parmesan cheese in the green foil can. The addition of the real cheese made a huge flavor jump for me! I’ve made it with ground turkey (not as good, so I sometimes use half beef, half turkey) but I always add in the real pork Italian sausage. We buy our Italian sausage at a local Italian deli that makes their own. This batch had some of those and some Sicilian sausages (which contains mozzarella cheese) in it. Whatever I do, I never compromise, though, on the sausage. I buy good stuff. For many years I made this recipe exactly as written (using canned tomatoes with the juice) and the watery sauce always spread all over the plate. Once I changed to using only tomato puree, paste and sauce that didn’t happen any longer. I prefer thin linguine for this sauce, or regular linguine works too. But really, it doesn’t matter what kind of pasta – your choice.

This recipe is going onto my “Carolyn’s Fav’s.” It’s really good. Just ask my daughter. She’ll tell you.
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A year ago: Grilled Caesar Salad, a how-to
Two years ago: How to Pick a Peach (a foodie book)
Three years ago: Cream of Tomato Soup (sometimes I just crave this soup it’s so good)

Out in our garage we have a 2nd refrigerator-freezer. It’s a bottom drawer freezer, this model. And I’ve reserved the space for frozen meat. Stashed way on the bottom are a couple of packages of ground pork, I think, from the last 4-H quarter pig we bought about 18 months ago. But the freezer completely shut off about 6 months ago and most of what was left of that meat I had to throw out. It hadn’t spoiled, but it certainly didn’t taste all that good. It had been just packed in butcher paper (not plastic pouch sealed as we’d requested), so when the freezer did its shutdown (we didn’t find out until nearly everything had reached room temp), I piled ice in there (which then melted and the bottom layer of meat was submerged in water), and later some dry ice too, and the meat all refroze eventually. But, the freezer burn on that pork was very prominent.

I need to take everything out of that freezer and discard those last couple of packages. But otherwise, that freezer is full of all kinds of meat – mostly from our home delivery meat guy, all purchased since our freezer meltdown. And the Costco boneless skinless chicken breasts I use all the time. And little beef tenderloins. And some fish. A bunch of pouches of frozen shrimp. And lovely, lovely pork chops. But last December I bought one of those huge crown roasts of pork at Costco, and cut it up into 2-bone chunks. There may be one more of those left, but I decided we should have some nice pork for dinner. Some of the good pork, purchased after our freezer problem. And incidentally, the Sears repair tech couldn’t find anything wrong. By the time he got here (that took 3 days) the freezer had decided to work again. The unit was still under warranty, so we had to wait those several days for the appointment.

SO, now we get to the recipe. Sorry it took so long to get here. I pulled out a recipe that had intrigued me back in 2004 (out of Gourmet), for pork chops grilled and served with a tomatillo and fresh apple chunky sauce. It just sounded so unusual. The recipe does still exist on the Gourmet website, with all the comments from people who made it and loved it. The only recommendation from readers was to use less salt. Fine. I changed it in the recipe below.

This lovely piece of pork looks like a kind of small oblong roast. With the 2 rib bones sticking out. I could have sliced the meat in half and made two chops, but I hoped the pork would be more tender and juicy if I left it in a larger piece. It just took longer to roast on the gas grill, but that was okay. We planned for it. Dave grilled it over high heat for about 10-12 minutes, turning once to get nice grill marks, then turned off the middle burner and let it sit while it roasted at a medium heat until it reached 150. We let it sit (loosely covered with foil) for 10 minutes, then sliced it and served it.

Results? Fabulous. Dave oohed and aahed all over the sauce. He thought it was off the charts delicious. The good thing – the sauce goes well on other things like chicken and fish, so the leftovers will be used tomorrow night. The pork was oh-so-very tender, even though I didn’t brine it at all. Just put on the herb rub (that contains some salt) about half an hour before. Thank you Costco! Next November or December we’ll be hoping Costco will have those long roasts again and I’ll buy two of them.

One year ago: A true story about Corelle Dishes
Two years ago: BLT Smashed Potatoes
Three years ago: Chili Spaghetti

Oh my, was this ever sensational. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, then you’ll understand when I say this recipe is going onto my Carolyn’s Favs list. I’ve posted about 550+ recipes here on this blog – to date – and I have a list of about – oh, 40-50 of them that rank as 5-star, or blue ribbon worthy, or whatever superlative you’d like to use. This one, and it’s a simple one at that, is going onto the list.

This was the entree I served to friends who came to dinner a couple of nights before we left on this last 2-week trip. It starts with a pork tenderloin. Our Costco carries tenderloins and I usually bring them home, open up the package and seal them individually and freeze them. There were 5 of us for dinner that night, and two tenderloins were just enough.

Here’s another photo – I sliced the meat, a little bit on the diagonal, then pounded the pieces a little. Pork tenderloin is a very lean and soft piece of meat to begin with, so it took only a couple of flat pounds for each piece. Don’t make it super-thin, just thinner. Each tenderloin was cut into 6 slices (above) and pounded.

The sauce was SO simple. Since the pork did have to be cooked just before guests were served, I got everything all ready ahead of time – for the sauce – so once I cooked the meat I could make the sauce in a jiffy. Then it’s garnished with the sliced green onion. Everybody raved about this dish, me included. It had been in my to-try file since 2007 (Bon Appetit). I’m so glad I did. The only caution is about the red chili sauce – if you’re at all sensitive about spice-heat, reduce the amount. When I made it, I adjusted down the amount (to the tablespoon listed below) so it’s really spicy if you were to use the full amount. Taste as you go – that would be best!

A year ago: Blueberry Lemon Drop
Two years ago: Sopa de Calabacitas (a Southwestern style vegetable soup)

It’s been years since I even thought about this meatloaf recipe, but I had about a pound of leftover ham roast in the refrigerator that needed using and this ham loaf popped into my head. It goes back – way back – in my culinary history. It came from my mother’s friend, Nan, who served this for dinner one night when we visited her home. This would have been back in the early 1960’s. I was a young adult then and just getting into a bit of cooking, and once I tasted it, I asked Nan all about it. Nan gladly gave me the recipe.

The mixture is ham (I ground up my leftover pieces in the food processor), some very lean hormone-free ground beef and I had a package of organic ground pork. It’s mixed with a couple of eggs to hold it together, and some saltine cracker crumbs (minced up in the food processor also) plus a bit of pepper (the ham was salty enough). I made one larger loaf (put into a bread pan) and 3 smaller loaves that I put into small ramekins (that’s what you see in the photo above). Before putting it in the oven you baste it with a brown sugar/vinegar mixture, which definitely gives the meatloaf a sweetish taste. Nan always served it with a sour cream/horseradish/mustard sauce that takes all of about 30 seconds to make. I used low-fat sour cream, which works fine.

It’s delicious. A good old-fashioned kind of comfort meal. Serve with mashed potatoes (I served the Green Potatoes I posted yesterday) and a bright vegetable. It reheats well, and can also freeze (uncooked) for awhile too. If you want to make it easy to freeze, prepare the basting mixture too, and put it in a small plastic bag and insert it IN the larger freezer bag holding the meatloaf before you freeze it. Then all you have to do is defrost it, bake it and make the sour cream sauce.

A year ago: Cabbage Patch Stew (one of my fav’s)
Two years ago: Pumpkin Praline Custard (easy, low calorie too)

The recipe came from a December, 2008 issue of Bon Appetit, in an article about the foods from the Fairmont le Chateau Frontenac in Quebec. I’m sure that’s why I stopped to read this recipe, because it came from that hotel – le Chateau Frontenac.

I remember, oh so well, the first time I saw that beautiful hotel, standing right above the river, the St. Lawrence. I was about 15 and my parents and I were on a long weekend trip from where we lived for a couple of years in Newport, Rhode Island. We didn’t stay in the hotel in Quebec– oh my goodness, no – way beyond our budget, but we were properly impressed with the place. (Back then it wasn’t owned by the Fairmont.) I never forgot seeing the hotel. I wrote a story for my English class some time after that, with a little history of Quebec and the hotel. That I remember too, plus the slight markdown I got on my report because I failed to put the le in front of the Frontenac. I remember that, and other humiliating things like losing a spelling bee in 7th grade because I didn’t know how to spell chrysanthemum. You can bet your bottom dollar I never forgot how to spell it after that! 

Sorry, I got sidetracked there. Anyway, this very French-style meat pie just sounded interesting, with an Italian twist perhaps, using Italian sausage instead of deer meat or elk or whatever would be appropriate for a wintertime meat pie. But mostly it’s chicken thigh meat, mushrooms, shallots, and garlic in a nicely thickened flavorsome brown gravy with some Madeira wine in it. I do think the Madeira makes this dish – it adds a background character to the sauce that you just can’t quite identify. Browning the mushrooms and shallots also provides a real flavor depth too. Not just cooking them, but browning them.

This made a very impressive company dinner – it’s way too much work to make for a weeknight family meal. It will serve more people than the original recipe suggested ( I think 8, rather than 6) too. It was delicious. Next time I think I’d just use puff pastry on top – a whole lot easier. I didn’t care for the pastry crust – maybe it was too thick for my taste. Am not sure, but it wasn’t as light and flaky as I would have hoped. But even with that, the entire dish was special. Deeply flavorful – kind of like a chicken & sausage stew – really that’s all it is – but with a pastry top crust. And definitely don’t eliminate the Madeira – it’s essential!

A year ago: Roasted Stone Fruit Olive Oil Madeleines
Two years ago: Marinated, Grilled Provolone

The day I made this soup it rained nearly all day. Last Saturday. A kind of day when we lit the fireplace, turned the thermostat up, and kept watching the drain lines around our house. We managed to get by without any flooding in the house, but we stayed on top of it all day. And I stayed close to the kitchen nearly all day too, working on this soup.

A hearty meat-laden and vegetable soup was what appealed to me. With a big chunk of pork shoulder from the freezer and cabbage as the mainstays, it wasn’t hard to make this, although it does take some chopping and mincing. And some slicing and sautéing. The recipe started from James Peterson’s book, Splendid Soups: Recipes and Master Techniques for Making the World’s Best Soups. Really making this began with the fact that I had not one, but two cabbage heads in the refrigerator. I had onions, celery, carrots and sauerkraut. From that, though, I weaved a bit off track with a few extra additions.

The pork (actually the original recipe called for beef, but Peterson said in his after-notes that he often makes it with pork instead) I cooked up in the crockpot for about 5 hours, until it was fall-apart tender. Once that was done I used the broth from the pork (strained of all its now spent vegetables) to start the soup. It comes together in a jiffy – you just have to chop everything (mushrooms, more onion, celery, carrots, turnips, and the cabbage). And at the end you add in some fresh sauerkraut, the cubed pork and some spicy sausage of some kind. I happened to have some imported Spanish dry (salami-type) chorizo which I cubed up to add flavor. But you do NOT want to put the sausage in earlier because it will give up all of its flavor to the soup and not have any taste.

The recipe is based on an old-world everyday soup from Russia. It’s called shchi in Russian. I went online hunting for how to pronounce the word. Some say it’s something like she, others sh-chi. But any way you want to say it, it’s a cabbage soup. With sauerkraut added in at the end too. And full of flavor. And healthy with all the veggies. It is mostly veggies. The pork I used was very lean and produced almost no fat whatsoever. You can see some of it in the photo, but I probably didn’t have 2 1/2 pounds as I’ve indicated in the recipe. Probably more like 1 1/2 pounds. But, you know, soup is very forgiving that way. I needed to add more liquid to the soup, so I added water and a dollop of Penzey’s pork soup base (a broth concentrate). You may remember that I’m a big fan of Penzey’s soup bases (I have small jars of beef, chicken, turkey, pork, ham, seafood and vegetable) that I use very frequently. You could substitute chicken broth granules or canned broth too. The soup can be made ahead – maybe even tastes better the next day.

What I will tell you – beyond the fact that the soup is downright scrumptious -  is that you don’t want to omit the sour cream (I used light) and fresh dill for the garnish. As good as the soup was, it made it over-the-top, as far as I’m concerned, with the dollop of sour cream and a bit of dill in every bite. Eventually, as we ate the soup, the sour cream dissipated throughout the broth, and the dill floated on top. So, for me, just remember the sour cream and dill, okay?  I think this likely serves more than 10 people – more like 12 – in 2-cup servings. I froze dinner-size portions (two of them), gave away another two-portion container, and still had enough for us for another 2 meals. So, however you pronounce shchi, just make this, okay? Hearty, healthy and comforting.

A year ago: Chicken a l’Orange
Two years ago: Borscht with Andouille Sausage

If you’re looking for a low calorie, but special kind of dinner, this is it. Pork tenderloin is a very low-fat meat – do note that there’s only 6 grams of fat per serving. And some of that comes from a single slice of bacon. But do read on. This was from a Phillis Carey cooking class for lighter and healthier meals. Phillis hit the mark here. I don’t know about you, but when I’m really trying to cut fat and calories, what often is lacking is flavor. But this dish has plenty of flavor. And is certainly colorful and tasty enough to serve to guests. And they’d never know it’s healthy. You don’t need to tell anybody about that part.

You may note in the photo above that the meat is still just slightly pink. It was perfect – baked to about 155, and was absolutely tender and still juicy when served. You could make this with traditional succotash (lima beans and corn). The above, and Phillis’ recipe calls for the Trader Joe’s edamame succotash frozen mixture (edamame beans and corn) which was delish. Either one is fine. The one slice of bacon has a double-use: (1) you cook/render the bacon all by itself in a big skillet and the meat is sautéed in the fat, to brown it only; and (2) the bacon is crumbled up and put into the succotash at the end. But really, one slice of bacon for 4 servings – great for flavor, and very low on the fat scale.

The meat – the pork tenderloin – does need to be slit down the middle (but not all the way through) and flattened into a thin, flat single piece (oh, about 6” x 13” is a guess). That provides a perfect bed for the red bell pepper, chipotle and cheese filling. It’s rolled up, tied, browned, baked, and meanwhile you make the edamame succotash side and add a bit of cilantro, red onion and jalapeno chile and a little bit of white wine. The meat is sliced into wide coins (one pork tenderloin serves 4) and placed on or alongside the veggies. With a salad this would make a complete meal. Delicious.

A year ago: Ginger Crème Brule
Two years ago: Wild Rice Salad

As you can see, we’re using our Spode Christmas china. I keep those dishes stored in a closet and they’re all part of the Christmas decoration boxes (too many to number), so when I haul out the decorations, those dishes are unboxed and begin their 30 days of use per year. And in those 30 days they’re used a lot – every day. Even for breakfast. We’ll be long gone and those dishes will live on in the home of one of our children, so why not use them every day? Place settings for 8.

I finally got the dining room table decorated. But for the last few days we haven’t been able to eat in the dining room because I had decorations strewn everywhere. We eat in the dining room most nights, except in the summer when we eat outside on our patio. The other night I really felt like cooking. Not some throw-together thing (yes, I do that too), but a nice meal. I’d purchased a rack of pork ribs at Costco. Did you know they only carry the long roasts in December? So if you want some, now’s the time to get them. They’re amazingly inexpensive – about $17 for 8 ribs. I cut the ribs into 4 small mini-roasts. Two ribs per “roast.” Froze 3 of them, and ate one. I prepared the ribs as a roast, and only when it was done did we slice it into two pieces, so each of us had a rib. As I’m writing this post, we had a big storm yesterday. It was gosh-darned cold, for us. The thermometer registered 39° on our patio at dinnertime. Our mountains are covered with snow. We had the family room fireplace going for many hours yesterday. Even though we had on winter types of clothing, seemed like we couldn’t quite keep warm, even with the thermostat turned up. Anyway, back to pork.

First I brined it. I have a jar of seasoned brining salt (not specifically for poultry, but for anything). So I soaked the roast in the brine (in a Ziploc plastic bag) in the refrigerator for about 5 hours. Drained it, allowed it to sit out for about half an hour, then seasoned it up. I turned to one of my barbecue cookbooks, The Barbecue Bible by Steven Raichlen, and after looking at numerous different seasoning mixes and rubs, I settled on the Memphis Rub. A bit of sugar, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, dry mustard, celery salt, cayenne among other things. No herbs, just spices. There you can see the combo in the picture at left.

After drying off the roast with paper towels, I packed that rub all over the roast. Every place I could put it. I didn’t quite use all the rub, but it will keep for a month or so. You know, of course, that once spices are combined, they tend to lose their flavor much more quickly than if stored individually. That’s why a month or so and you need to use it up. Anyway, then I browned the roast in olive oil. Because of the sugar in the rub, it blackens quickly, so be careful of the heat level. You can see the photo right – the redness is from the rub, not from the inherent red color of the meat.

A meat thermometer went into the roast and into a 400° oven it went. Took about 15 minutes, I think. Maybe 20, for it to reach 150°. Once removed from the oven it rested, tented with foil, while I finished up the dinner. Next time I want to take it out at about 145° I think. Any bad bugs in the meat are zapped at 138°, so you’re perfectly safe at 145°. If you like your pork medium, then the 150 is just right.

The aioli was part of the risotto cakes I made to go with the pork. If you want that recipe, click over to my post about those.

The meat was tender, juicy and very tasty. I liked the aioli with it, although I don’t suppose that’s very traditional. The Memphis Rub was just right in its degree of heat. Raichlen suggested a range of heat (cayenne) and I chose the lesser amount. I didn’t want to overwhelm the nice roast with too much chile pepper heat – it would have masked the flavor.

Two years ago: Chocolate Steamed Pudding

Lately I’m sounding like a broken record – seems like every recipe is a winner. Five star. This one is no exception. And it’s another one of those recipes that has nothing but ordinary food in it. Italian sausage, onion, garlic, canned tomatoes, broth, canned cannellini beans, orzo, then some fresh basil and Parmesan cheese. With the exception of the beans and orzo, it’s a lot like spaghetti sauce. But don’t forget that anything you make is only as good as the ingredients that go into it. That means, in this case, using good quality Italian sausage. Fresh garlic. Oh yes, there’s a bit of bacon in this too.

It doesn’t take all that long to prepare this soup, either. The recipe is yet another Phillis Carey one. Wow, that gal is one stupendously good cook. I liked this at the cooking class, and liked it almost more so when I made it myself. I used Niman Ranch no-nitrate/nitrite bacon. I used Italian specialty meat market sausage. I used high quality frozen beef broth and some of Penzey’s concentrated pork broth. Trader Joe’s canned beans. Muir Glen fire-roasted canned tomatoes. Real Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Fresh basil leaves. I made a double batch – made enough for entertaining friends, and two portions for freezing, and some for another meal this week. If you make this as a main course, you probably won’t get 8 servings. You’ll have no trouble getting rid of it, I guarantee.

A year ago: Chicken Hamburgese
Two years ago: Heavenly Cream Cheese Brownies (yum, makes my mouth water, guess I need to make these again soon)

Pork tenderloin is a favorite of ours. It’s lean. Tender. Quick to cook. Not as much flavor as some of the more fatty cuts of the pig, but good if prepared correctly (read: not overcooked) and usually with some kind of sauce on top or a salsa/relish on the side.  Phillis Carey prepares it often in her cooking classes. This recipe is a keeper. It meets all the criteria – lean, quick, flavorful, and has a sauce/gravy to go with it. An easy pan sauce using apple cider vinegar and maple syrup.

Soooo, here’s what you do: rub a bunch of Dijon mustard on the pork tenderloin, along with some salt and pepper. Into a hot pan it goes – to brown on as many sides as the tenderloin seems to have. Here’s a picture of that step.

Once browned, insert a meat thermometer in it, kind of angled in so the tip of the point is – hopefully – in the center of the thickest part of the meat. It goes into a very hot (425) oven to roast for a very short time – like 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile get the ingredients together for the sauce – some cider vinegar, more Dijon and some good (real) maple syrup. You remove the pork when it reaches 150 (for pink). If you like it cooked more, then continue until it reaches 155. The meat rests briefly (tented with foil) while you deglaze the pan with the vinegar. Then you add the mustard and maple syrup. Be SURE to use a whisk to break up the mustard – if you don’t you’ll have bunches of cooked clumps of mustard in the sauce. Not good! Slice the meat and drizzle the sauce on top.

My friend Cherrie prepared this dish a few nights ago and she made a couple of changes to the sauce – she added a bit of cream to the sauce and also a touch of arrowroot, which thickened it. I also think that when I make it again – which I will – I’ll make half again more sauce. There wasn’t quite enough, I thought, so I increased it in the recipe below.

A year ago: Dinner at Bistro 33 near Folsom
Two years ago: Pumpkin Cake in a Mold (pumpkin shape)