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Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2016 9:04 pm
by GORDON
So I've been canning tomatoes for the last month, whenever they have piled up. One can got botulism, built up pressure... and leaked all over my server's UPS while we were in the UP. Blew the whole circuit. I've never had a can go bad before. I'm going to have to rearrange that canned goods/demarc setup.

And one can didn't vacuum seal itself, so it went into the fridge.... and tonight it turned into marinara.

I simmer the whole jar of tomatoes for an hour... yes, I should make it lower and slower, but to be honest I like the fresh-tomato-y taste it has before you completely sauce it out. I add dried, diced onions, oregano, and if there's no fresh garlic for the press, garlic powder. Again, it's still a little runny after an hour, so if that bothers you simmer for two+ hours. Follow the "keep stirring it!" advice from Goodfellas.

But then meatballs.... I use 2:1 ground beef/ground pork. I also add a couple eggs from my hen house, some italian bread crumbs, and a little more diced onion. Out of that 1.6ish pounds of meat I roll up 12-16 meatballs... 12 meatballs they are a tad big.... and bake them in an olive-oiled coated cooking pan at 375 hour 60 minutes.

Boil up some noodles.... SALT THE WATER... maybe microwave a can of spinach if you like your pasta Florentine style... and eat that shit.

Then throw the Soylent away.

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2016 9:22 pm
by TheCatt
GORDON wrote: Then throw the Soylent away.
And the noodles, otherwise sounds delicious.

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2016 9:36 pm
by GORDON
I skipped the pasta, ate the meatballs with 3 big tomatoes on the side. Everyone else had the spaghetti noodles.... but I've bveen using the "Hidden Veggie!" style noodles that are made of carrots, squash, and something else.... like a serving of vegetables in and of themselves. That's what the box says, I've never looked at the numbers at all.

here
http://muellerspasta.com/our-products/hidden-veggie/

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2016 12:46 am
by Malcolm
GORDON wrote:Then throw the Soylent away.
All the hassle you just described has renewed my faith in that product.

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2016 9:53 am
by GORDON
But seriously, no wife, no kids, no lawn to mow, what the hell else do you have to do?

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2016 12:32 pm
by Malcolm
GORDON wrote:But seriously, no wife, no kids, no lawn to mow, what the hell else do you have to do?
I have an apartment to clean and reorganize, a job to find, a desktop to modify and tweek, a mountain of Steam games and vinyl left unplayed, football season kicked off, and I might be hitting four concerts in a row starting tonight. Even if all those things were off the table, I'd still find other uses for my time before I went full-on House rehab and launched myself into cooking.

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2016 12:51 pm
by GORDON
SO, basically, you have nothing better to do. ;)

Self improvement is a gift to yourself.

You can play vinyl while cooking, too.

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2016 12:57 pm
by Malcolm
GORDON wrote:SO, basically, you have nothing better to do. ;)

Self improvement is a gift to yourself.
I could get a pickup truck and obsess over it, but I'd like to get more than 10 miles to the gallon.

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2016 1:10 pm
by GORDON
Was that like a personal dig? If so my truck gets 20. Never mind, keep eating powder.

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2016 1:29 pm
by Malcolm

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2016 1:31 pm
by TPRJones
Don't you know that the things that are important to one person should be the same things that are important to everyone, and if you aren't taking those particular things to be important in your life then your life is sad or a failure?

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2016 2:59 pm
by GORDON
You stunted bitches are going to be even more jealous if I ever convince myself I have enough land to raise a cow and then my meatballs will have grass-fed beef that I raised myself.

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2016 11:19 pm
by Alhazad
GORDON wrote:You stunted bitches are going to be even more jealous if I ever convince myself I have enough land to raise a cow and then my meatballs will have grass-fed beef that I raised myself.
Would you recognize a yew if you saw one?

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 8:37 am
by GORDON
I don't think yew trees are native to my area, but that would be neat. I would be making so many bows out of them.

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 1:39 pm
by Alhazad
My point was more along the line that if you want to raise cows, you need to know nature survival and surveying and find a grazing area where toxic-to people plants and mushrooms and shit won't get eaten by them and stored in the meat and fat.

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 2:53 pm
by GORDON
Ahhhh.

Yeah, I know everything that grows on the acre I would graze a cow, except for the mushrooms that grow up near the Apple tree. I'd eat them myself but taxonomy of shrooms is difficult and the consequences for error too extreme.

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 1:44 pm
by Leisher
GORDON wrote:garlic powder Again, it's still a little runny after an hour, so if that bothers you simmer for two+ hours. Follow the "keep stirring it!" advice from Goodfellas.

But then meatballs.... I use 2:1 ground beef/ground pork. I also add a couple eggs from my hen house, some italian bread crumbs, and a little more diced onion.
Garlic powder? I feel like I need to bitch slap you.

Simmer it all fucking day. Coming to my house for spaghetti? I started cooking 4-5 hours ago.

Good mixture on the meatballs. All beef meatballs tend to dry out. You could live without the onions.

Want your flavors to gel more? Throw those meatballs into your sauce. Let them simmer and get even more tender. Throw your pasta into the same pot 5 minutes before serving.

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 1:50 pm
by GORDON
I like to have fresh garlic on hand, it really makes a huge difference, but it is always a crap shoot as to whether or not I will use it before it dries out.

I should grow garlic. Hmmm.

I even have an awesome garlic press.

I always have powder on hand though because it it easy to use when I am whipping up some garlic bread with real butter, which almost warrants its own thread.

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 2:00 pm
by Leisher
It is convenient, but damn is it flavorless. Nothing is like fresh garlic.

Re: Home made meatballs and marinera

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 4:15 pm
by Alhazad
Leisher wrote:It is convenient, but damn is it flavorless. Nothing is like fresh garlic.
Alton Brown suggested that it's flavorless because people mostly fail to rehydrate it properly before adding it to recipes. He also suggested HBI (high bulk index) garlic powder on his show because the processing method gives the granules much more surface area and thus more permeating power, but apparently it's getting harder to find.