Pasta with Red Sauce, Meatballs and Bread

Fartfalle. I don't mean to soil the decorum of this blog, but part of me will always be a child who likes fart jokes. “Better out than it is in,” is what Granny Boots might have said.

Farfalle is not my favorite of the pastas—rigatoni is—but regular old spaghetti is not far behind. Penne is good, too, and I have a variety of pastas in the pantry as a result of a good sale awhile back, but last night I felt the tug of the farfalle and the pull of the meatballs again.

Before I started getting into cooking and learning about cooking cleanly (thank you, Kimberly) I was still preparing food products that I bought in boxes at the store. I probably would have purchased a jar of sauce and plopped that into the pan. Very uninspiring in flavor and effort. Now since I've had a bit more experience, I does it like this:

First I dice the onion and get it sauteing in olive oil. I peel a few cloves of garlic and toss that into the oil, too. Cutting garlic is something I don't do anymore. It will still impart its flavor if I just squash it a bit and throw it into the pan with some salt.

Last night, I diced the onions extra small to get them cooked down quickly. Next I added my meatballs to the skillet and allowed them to cook a bit with the onions and garlic. We're getting a seriously good smell in the kitchen by now.

I had some good quality ground beef that Ma White presented me, so we had beef meatballs! If I have sausage, I add a pound of sausage to the meatballs, as well. Two eggs, Salt and Pepper, Pasta Sprinkle, some Green-Can Cheese, and a few breadcrumbs now sat in the bowl. I took off my ring and started squishing the ingredients through my hands, which I washed, of course. Meatballs must be made by hand. I like my meatballs about the size of a ping-pong ball, so that's about how big they were. I have made them bigger, but that was only because I was too lazy to roll them any smaller.

After those balls browned a bit, I added a big can of crushed tomatoes and a big can of diced tomatoes. I like the chunk of the diced tomatoes; they add a bit of texture to the sauce. If I have fresh basil, I like to add it, but it seems that I rarely have fresh herbs, especially during this time of the year. So I add a fair amount of Penzey's Pasta Sprinkle (sweet basil, Turkish oregano, thyme and garlic), a product that enhances the flavor of this sauce quite a lot.

Salt and Pepper and she's ready to cook awhile, maybe half an hour to get those spices rehydrated some. But earlier, I decided to make bread, so I had to get some dough rising with a simple, simple recipe: flour, yeast, honey, and salt. This yeast was the most active I have ever seen. I stirred it with the honey and about a half cup of water, and when I came back, it had foamed itself in a frenzy. I could smell its yeasty pleasantness immediately.

I knead my dough by squeezing it in both of my hands and turning it over in the air. To me, it makes better sense than kneading it on a counter. Air kneading is more ergonomic. I do not have to bend, and I do not have to strain my wrists against the counter. Not to mention the rigorous workout hands and forearms receive with this method.

After I kneaded enough, I let it rise. Then I punched it down. Then I let it rise. Then I formed it into loaves. Then they rose. By now several hours have passed, and I am ready. I slit the tops, and I brushed the loaves very lightly with ale. I have some grey salt, and I sprinkled a few of the huge crystals atop the bread. In the oven she developed a crusty brown exterior and I knew it was time. I sliced off the heel, and it was perfect bread. It's warm and chewy and wonderful. Then I spread some fresh butter and cheese on it and toasted it in the oven, and dinner was served.