Italian Meatballs

I made up this recipe based on several different ones found online when searching for a way to add meet to the pasta alla vodka meal.

The one that sounded most appealing was made with ground turkey. I replaced the turkey with a combo of ground beef and Italian sausage. I also doubled the recipe simple because I didn't want to store the leftover beef and sausage. Instead, I froze the unused meatballs and will use them later in life. :)

Here's the root recipe:
1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 lb Italian sausage
1 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
1/2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper

From the get go I had to make some substitutions simply from lack of ingredients. I didn't have enough plain bread crumbs so I used the rest of the Italian bread crumbs I had on hand. That with the Italian sausage led me to leave the Italian seasoning amount at 1 Tbsp (instead of doubling it to 2). PS- I used my home-made Italian seasoning.

Cast of characters.

After dumping it all into the bowl, I quickly realized only hand mixing would do!

I rolled them out into 1 1/2 inch balls- this was completely random. I just made them about the sized I picture meatballs as being. I baked them in the oven on parchment paper at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes, turning them halfway through.

The remainder went onto another lined baking sheet to sit in the freezer just long enough to set up firm. Once I knew they wouldn't mash all together I dumped them into a freezer bag and sealed them up right.

The freezer tray was not nearly as neat and tidy as the baking tray.

 

 

I will admit that my first meatballs could have baked about less 5 minutes less than they did. With the sauce and pasta though, they were delightful! I can't wait to use my frozen ones for some meatball subs. Yum!

PS- this made about 36 meatballs.

Pasta alla Vodka

This post is going to have to happen in pieces.

The root of my desire was some pasta alla vodka that I always order at a local Italian restaurant. They serve their's with cheese tortellini and I decided to try my hand at making my own. I think it needed to have something good and meaty to go with it. The final result was Italian meatballs with cheese tortellini in vodka sauce. Yum!

The sauce recipe I found was from the Pioneer Woman. She's pretty handy in the kitchen so I figured I could trust her. Here's the root recipe:

1 medium diced onion

3 clove garlic, finely diced

3/4 cup vodka

1 can tomato puree

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 tsp salt

pinch red pepper flakes

1 Tbsp butter

pinch black pepper

I sauteed my onion and garlic before adding the vodka to simmer and reduce.

First error here- I'm a teacher and I cook on a shoestring budget. I used cheap vodka. Cheap vodka has stronger flavor and therefore needs to simmer and reduce longer to remove the vodka-ness of the taste. In the future I will honestly just use less vodka. I'm too cheap to shell out money for better stock although that would be the ideal solution.

Next I added the tomato and cream and did the summer and reduce thing some more.

This is much more "red" than the sauce was in reality- my bad flourescent kitchen lighting is not kind to photographs. And no, there isn't a window in my kitchen from which to utilize natural light.

Finally, because Pioneer Woman said so, I added the butter and adjusted the seasonings. A little longer on the simmer and reduce routine finished off the sauce.

I had made my meatballs beforehand and cooked my noodles while making the sauce. I used the pre-made fresh noodles you find packaged in the refrigerator unit at the store. I wasn't a huge fan sadly. I will probably try a couple of different varieties before giving up on convenience tortellini but I have kind of already decided to just use cheese ravioli next time. The sauce though was delicious.

Despite the changes I will make in future editions the meal was still delicious. And pretty!