Spaghetti and Meatballs

For the tomato sauce:

Heat a medium size pot over medium heat. Add your olive oil and minced garlic. Allow the garlic to soften, but not brown, for just a minute or two. Add your salt, pepper, and red pepper. Add your tomatoes and cook them down a little. Add the basil. Cook on low heat for 30 minutes with the pot covered, occasionally stirring. You can start the meatballs when you start the sauce simmering.

For the meatballs:

Crumble the beef in a mixing bowl. Add the breadcrumbs, Parmigiana, ricotta, parsley, basil and garlic. Beat the egg with the salt and pepper in a small bowl. Pour this over the meat. Mix the ingredients with clean hands just until blended. Do not over mix! If you over mix, you will get really hard, tough meatballs. We don’t want that!

Shape the meatballs into your preferred size balls. You can make them as big or small as you like, but make them roughly the same size so they cook at the same speed.

Heat your olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Put the meatballs in the skillet and fry. Turn them when they are golden brown on one side, at around 10 minutes. Cook them for around 20 minutes total. As I said, I prefer my meatballs well done.

Heat a large pot of salted water over high heat.

Pour half of the tomato sauce over the meatballs. Cook meatballs for an additional 30 minutes in the sauce as the water boils. You will want to cook the meatballs until there is no pink in the center.

Once the water is boiling, add the spaghetti and stir. Cook the noodles according to package instructions for al dente, then drain the pasta and add it into the remaining tomato sauce.

Serve a portion of the pasta with the meatballs and sauce over it. Buon appetito!