Spaghetti and Meatballs Weather

Lately, I’ve noticed that the weather has given me exactly what I need.  I know it’s snowing, and icy-cold for Seattle.  But it’s almost meditative to watch the snow swirling outside the window and the blanket-like sky surround the city with grey. With wedding planning and my classes in full swing, I’ve been craving a little time to relax. So, I’m thankful to curl up on the couch with some tea and grade papers by the fire. This last push of winter is giving me time to regenerate and hibernate before the rush of spring comes.

And what better way to welcome this reprieve from the dull 50’s, then to make something to embrace the cold?  As my fiancé says:  “It’s spaghetti and meatballs weather.” I couldn’t agree more.  I love the idea that there are certain foods that can embody the weather, and this recipe definitely does.  We made it from the new cookbook we received as a wedding present from our friends Adam and Negar Seumae (thanks, you two!). 

So, curl up with your honey, or your kitty; enjoy some meatballs, a movie, and the fact that the weather is giving you permission to take it easy. 

Italian Grandmother Meatballs

Adapted from: The Newlywed Kitchen 

By: Lorna Yee and Ali Basye

Serves 6 people

For the meatballs:

¼ cup milk

1 cup toasted cubed bread, crusts removed

2/3 lb ground pork

¾ lb ground beef

1 large egg

1/3 cup grated pecorino

¾ tsp kosher salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper

2 teaspoons oregano

2 cloves garlic, finely diced

Small pinch of red pepper flakes

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil for frying

For the tomato sauce:

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

¾ cup diced yellow onion

4 cloves garlic, crushed or finely minced

1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes

3 tablespoons tomato paste

¾ cup fresh basil leaves, torn

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Meatball prep:

1. Soak the bread in a small bowl with the milk for 2 minutes.

2. In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients for the meatballs (not including the olive oil) with the soaked bread. 

3. Mix everything together lightly and form into balls of desired size (if you over-mix your meatballs will be too dense).  I make mine about 1 ½ inches in diameter.

4. Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat and cook the meatballs until they are deeply browned on all sides about 8-10 minutes total.

Sauce prep:

-Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the onions and cook for 7-8 minutes, or until they are golden brown.  Add the garlic, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, and basil.  Season to taste with salt and pepper and bring the sauce to a simmer.  Place the meatballs in the tomato sauce and simmer for 25-30 minutes.  Serve the meatballs over penne pasta, and garnish with grated pecorino. 

P(atience)-Patch

Imagine Christmas Eve in Walla Walla, 1990.  The stockings were hung, Santa’s cookies and milk set out neatly on the mantle, and sugar plums were dancing through each of our heads as we slept.  Or so it first appeared.  On closer inspection, my brother, just dying to see the goods Santa brought him, decided to get up at 2 a.m. and race downstairs to check out his toys. Thrilled, he played happily until 3:30 a.m. when the joy wore off, and he realized he only had the rainbow-flicker of the Christmas lights to accompany him.  The only way to bring back the excitement was to wake me up so I could see my stuff, too. On it went again, the exhilaration rising and falling like a roller coaster before both of us ended up sorely disappointed that Christmas had ended by 5:00 a.m.

We learned our lesson.  It’s best to have patience and wait until the time is right both on Christmas Eve, and with bigger things too.  But I’m not always the most patient person. And this year I’m busy with a lot of projects that excite me as much as Santa did.  I’m planning wedding, working on a committee to get a P-patch going at North Seattle C.C., and writing my first blog.  As many of you fiancés, committee members, and bloggers know, these things require a lot of a certain virtue.

It takes planning and gumption to tackle wedding planning each day, and it takes the same stuff to write this blog, and to watch the P-Patch take shape at North. I watch the spike on the blog readership chart each Saturday, but then feel that familiar fall on Monday when the line touches down on the X-axis. I hear good news about the P-Patch, but can become disappointed by the seemingly long journey ahead.

Recently I’ve had some new perspective on the idea of patience. I went to a sustainability meeting a few days ago at North and, the Coordinator, Christian Rusby, framed the idea of patience in a way that didn’t make it seem like procrastination.  He said that it wasn’t the right time to go full speed ahead with the P-Patch, but it also wasn’t time to just sit back and do nothing.

Instead, he proposed that we be strategic.  We’ll start the momentum for the project in the spring when people are excited about being outside and want to plant things.  Once we have interest, we can get formal approval from the administration and work on a grant.  True, we probably won’t have a P-Patch at North until next spring, but by being patient we will have one sooner than if we jumped the gun and the plan was rejected altogether. 

The fitting part, is that I realized that my other goal for the year, growing food, also takes this same strategy, and the same willingness to be actively patient.  You have to wait for the right season and temperature before you can plant certain things, and then you have to tend to them while they slowly grow.  If you try to plant basil in winter it will surely shrivel.  If you try to write a popular blog in four weeks, it will most likely parish too.  So, I’m going to practice a little patience in the weeks to come, and see what sprouts in the spring. 

For more information about the North P-Patch Project, visit: 

http://nsccsustainablefood.wetpaint.com/page/NSCC+P-Patch

How I Fell for a Beet

When I was in fourth grade I was wildly jealous of my friend Sara.  Not only did she have a secret passage in her house, but she also had an au pair named Julia.  “On her first day,” Sara told me, grinning wickedly, “Julia brought me this!” She pointed at a beautiful fan-like hair decoration that was from Ukraine.  It was pink and had long ribbons hanging from it.  We spent hours imagining what it must be like there, with all the little girls wearing these gorgeous fans on their heads and twirling their ribbons.  

It was also at this point in my life that my hatred of beets reached its apex. Eating them seemed unnatural; they were the color of Barbie shoes!  The taste was like perfumed dirt: scented but earthy. My mom always bought them canned, so the texture was mushy and reminiscent of the cranberry jelly that came out each Thanksgiving.  The worst part? They were impossible to hide.  If I slyly stuffed them under my mashed potatoes or rice, they always betrayed me with their hot pink juices.  “Eat ‘em” my parent’s would say. 

“Bleck!” I would shout back.  “I’d rather eat mud.” 

So, you can imagine my horror when I found out that the lovely Julia not only loved beets, but she was going to make beet soup for our special weekend lunch. I immediately had to adjust my idealized version of Ukranian girls, to a bleaker one that included them slurping  borscht, a traditional staple in Ukraine and Russia.  Little did I know, it was about to become my favorite. 

We smelled it all afternoon as we played Clue with our flashlights in the secret passage, and wondered what it would taste like.  Once Miss Scarlet had killed Colonial Mustard with the rope in the carriage house, and we were settled down at the table, I stared into my bloody-looking bowl, preparing to force it down.  I may have been a child who told my parents what I really thought of their cooking, but I didn’t want to offend Julia.  So, I took my spoon in hand and decided to bite the beet. 

Amazingly, the soup was good.  Tangy, tomatoey, with a little crunch from the cabbage, carrots and celery.  It was also slightly honeyed and tasted sweet, sweet and earthy, in a good way.   I ate my bowl and asked for another.  Julia smiled with all her teeth.  I smiled back, with most of mine.

It’s been 20 years since that day at Sara’s table, and in the years in between I have mastered my own borscht recipe.  I make it nearly every Sunday and usually have some waiting in the freezer.  It’s a quick winter lunch, and it’s great ice cold in the summer with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of fresh dill.  What’s more is that borscht reminds me that what they say about first impressions isn’t true. Sometimes they don’t match our initial expectations, and sometimes they surprise us and we fall in love.

Julia's Borscht

Adapted from Moosewood Cookbook

Ingredients:
1 beet (about 1 cup)
1 Yukon Gold or Red Potato (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 medium onion (about 1 1/2 cups)
3 cups cabbage
1 large carrot
1 stem celery
1 15 oz can crushed tomatoes, or chopped tomatoes (depending on what you like)
1 tablespoon, plus 1 teaspoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon, plus 1 teaspoon honey
4 cups vegetable broth
2 tablespoons butter or olive oil
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1/2 teaspoon salt (or more to taste)
Slice the potatoes and the beets and cut them into triangle shapes.  Put them in a small pot with 4 cups water and crumbled vegetable bouillon cubes.  Cover and turn on high.  Chop the cabbage, and onions, slice the carrots and celery.  While the beets and potatoes are coming to a boil, pour the olive oil into a soup pot, and add the chopped onion, salt and caraway seeds.  Saute on medium, stirring regularly, until the onion is clear and soft.  Next, put in the cabbage, carrots, celery and stir to coat with oil, salt, caraway, and onion.  Stir regularly so everything starts to cook, and when the beets and potatoes and stock are boiling, pour all of it into the soup pot with the cabbage etc.  Add the can of tomatoes, the vinegar, and the honey.  Bring to a boil.  When it's boiling, cover it and simmer on low for 30 minutes.  Serve with a spoonful of sour cream, or enjoy just as it is.