Grape Jelly-Chili Meatballs

My mom and I discuss this odd dish frequently. This is one of the few all-American (kind of) meals she makes--with a twist. The meatballs (which have morphed from being made with ground beef to ground turkey over the years,) are then served with pasta--preferably bow-tie/butterfly shapes (farfalle)--and covered in a delicious stovetop brew of grape jelly and chili sauce. EWW, right? Wrong--these are so good. As soon as I get the recipe from my mom, I'll post.

And now, a challenge. Readers, I've been lacking inspiration in the kitchen as of late. (As you guessed by my infrequent posting.) I haven't made anything new and exciting, instead running through the usual kitchen staples: chili, stir fries, pasta. It's just a passing phase, and I'll be back to trying new recipes, but I'd love to know if you have a food challenge for me in the meantime. Ideas?

Lots o spaghetti, oh!

A week has flown by without much posting. What can I say--will you forgive me? Still, I have been eating, as usual. Weird aches and pains ail me, but nothing stops me from loving food. It's a sickness.

At any rate, in the past few days I've been mixing it up with spaghetti. What is "it"? Turkey meat sauce, broccoli, chicken sausage, cheese. Uhmm-mmm. Only the tastiest of salty treats for my spaghetti (excluding one favorite--prosciutto).

Thursday I took in a spaghetti crust pie, a delicious dish from my childhood, made straight from Better Homes and Gardens Step-by-Step Kids' Cookbook. And tonight I made spaghetti with meat sauce (ground turkey), only the turkey didn't look "normal;" it seemed almost fluid, liquidy, and didn't break up into big chunks, and almost smoothed out entirely into the tomato sauce. WEIRD. Still, it's hard to go wrong with garlic, tomatoes and meat. At least it all tasted good!

Spaghetti Crust Pie
6-8 oz spaghetti
2 tbsp butter
2 eggs, whisked
1/3 c parmesan cheese
salt
pepper
tomato sauce (your own/store bought)
cheddar cheese
additional toppings of your choosing

Cook and drain pasta. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine pasta, butter, eggs and cheese. Stir until well mixed. Pour into a buttered 9 or 10" pie pan and press gently into sides so that it forms a pie "crust." Pour sauce and toppings on top (except cheese) and bake in oven for 20 minutes. Then add cheese and let cook for 5-10 minutes more, until it starts to bubble, but not burn. Let cool 10 minutes, then serve. Enjoy!

Che Buona Pasta!

In Italian, pasta means lots of things, from what we think of as pasta (spaghetti, rigatoni, etc.) to dough, to a general "good guy" (“è una pasta d'uomo,” literally translates into: he's a good dough of a man). However, one pasta dish that Italians might not know about, or care for, is the kind that is transformed into a cold salad. I learned this before speaking the language or having met any Italians myself. My mom made this dish as I grew up, and she always likes to tell the story about how she adopted it from her Italian-American friend, who first made it for her Italian relatives (taken from a Bon Appetit recipe many years ago). Apparently, it didn't receive much of a warm welcome from the Italians, well, mostly because it wasn't, uh, warm. That's us Americans, right? We like to create a new spin on what’s old. We can make warm pasta? Then we’ll make cold pasta too, please. And so "cold spaghetti salad with fontina cheese" was born!

This dish is easy to make and serves many, making it excellent for casual dinner parties. Extra ingredients like roast chicken or sausage can easily be added to the finished recipe if desired.

Recipe for Cold Spaghetti Salad with Fontina Cheese:
1 1/2-2 lbs spaghetti
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 lb mozzarella, chopped into pieces
1/2 lb fontina cheese, chopped into pieces
2 cups cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
6 roma tomatoes, diced
20 leaves fresh basil, washed, cut and dried
olive oil
salt + pepper, to taste
parmesan to taste

Bring water to a boil in a large 1 gallon pot. Salt the water just as it begins to boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente, then drain. While pasta is cooking, add 4 tbsp olive oil to a skillet and add garlic when pan and oil have warmed. Over a low flame, allow garlic to infuse in oil for 2 minutes, then extinguish flame. Once pasta has been drained, return to pot that was used to boil it in. Add garlic and oil to pasta and stir. Add cheese to pasta in pot. It will be very clumpy and difficult to mix. Turn on a low flame and begin stirring pasta. It may take about 15 minutes for the cheese to melt and break up. (Avoid letting the cheese remain in one large clump.) Continue stirring until cheese is largely melted, with smaller clumps of pasta adhering throughout pot. Add tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste, and stir. Turn off heat and remove pasta from stove. Add basil and let pasta cool to room temperature. Serve at room temperature or chill it in the refrigerator and serve cold. Add parmesan to taste, and enjoy!