Red Sauce Success, but a Food Challenge Failure!

For starters, I have been off-line for way too long and am so glad to be back, sitting her typing a new entry!  I spent a little time last week in Phoenix for work, so blogging just had to go on hold for a bit.  Let me just say, coming from the Portland, Oregon area, Phoenix was a nice change!  I'm one that loves the rain and the gray days (I know, call me crazy!), but the 65 degree sunny days were pretty darn nice!! 

While there, I enjoyed some fabulous food moments!  One evening, I dined on some very, very delicious butternut squash ravioli.  I love all things butternut, and I was not disappointed.  Additionally, for the first time ever, I went to a Greek restaurant.  I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to find something that I would like.  Oh, silly me!  I ate the Pastitsio, which is a ground lamb and ground beef mixture with a bechamel sauce over pasta.  I thought it was very tasty!! 

So, upon my return home, one task I had at hand was related to a challenge I had signed up to participate in with other bloggers.  My assignment was to find a red sauce recipe (i.e. for spaghetti) on another blogger's site and make it, then highlight that blogger in my own blog.

Kids, an important thing to keep in mind here:  Always carefully read the rules and pay attention to what you are being asked to do! 

In my mind, I had to just come up with a recipe and blog about it, so I made my own sauce using my own recipe and didn't bother with following the rules of what I was supposed to do.  It's unfortunate because doing this disqualified me from the challenge, and on top of it all, I really wasn't in the mood for spaghetti tonight. 

Oh well.  Sometimes ya just gotta roll with it.  Right?  Right.

So, this is what the final product looked like when I combined my leftover sauce with the pasta before storing away the leftovers.  My red sauce with meatballs, and I think it tasted pretty darn good! 

So, here's what I did to get this divine dish!

First, I made the meatballs.  I combined 1 pound of ground beef with 1 pound of ground pork (not sausage - just plain ol' ground pork) with about 3/4 cup of bread crumbs and 1 egg, then salt and pepper. 

Combined it with my clean hands.  I then used a cookie scooper to form meatballs.  This made about 30 meatballs that were a little smaller than golfball-sized. 

I then took my trusty dutch oven and heated a drizzle of olive oil in the bottom on medium-high heat and put 1/2 of the meatballs into the hot oil. 

Browned 'em on both sides.

You don't have to cook them completely through, because they'll finish cooking in the sauce.  Just get a nice browning on them.  Remove the first batch from the pan and then put the remaining meatballs in the pan to brown them in the same way.  Once the second batch is browned, remove them, placing them with your other meatballs for now.

While the meatballs were browning, I diced up 1 small onion very finely and about 4 small bell peppers of varying colors.  I love these little things.  They're pretty and they have a lovely mild, sweet taste!

I reduced the heat slightly, down to about medium, and added the finely diced veggies to the drippings and sauteed them until soft. 

For this batch, I also added a pint of coarsely chopped mini-portabella mushrooms, but I'd say that this piece is purely optional.  I just love mushrooms, so they were definitely destined to be in my sauce!

Once the veggies were adequately cooked, I added 1-29 oz can of tomato sauce, 1-12 oz can of tomato paste, 1/2 - 3/4 cup of chicken broth, 1 1/2 tsp of dried Italian seasoning, 1 Tbsp sugar and a couple of splashes of Worcestershire Sauce.  Oh, and salt and pepper to taste.  I always forget that whole salt and pepper part, but it's actually quite important!

 I let this cook for about 10 minutes over medium heat.  I then reduced the heat to medium-low and then added the meatballs back into the sauce being careful not to break them apart. 

Stir gently to coat the meatballs, cover with a lid and let simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring (gently, gently!) occasionally. 

When completed, make spaghetti noodles to use as a lovely delivery system for this delicious sauce and meatballs!

And there you have my disqualified cooking challenge recipe!!  Yay me. 

Next blog...  a new lemon cake recipe!  I can't wait to try it and share it, so definitely stay tuned!! 

Thanks, again, for your support and for taking the time to read my blog! 

Enjoy!

"With the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible."- Julia Child