Guilty Pleasures
Posted
Fri, 05/02/03
For the last ten days I've been immersed in writing an outline for my next book, which has resulted in my husband's culinary neglect. The writing of an outline was an evil necessity because many characters and events are changing. Since the story is rather complicated, the outline was, too. While this was happening, my husband and I lived on cold sandwiches and TV dinners. It was a frightful state of affairs for someone who operates a web site about cooking.
So yesterday I set about to create a home-cooked meal. I thought about a broiled super-sub, but since we have existed on similar food for well over a week, I turned my focus to Italian. It's not really my favorite, but despite the fancy names and ingredients for Italian food, I find it the least complicated to prepare. I gathered together linguine pasta, sausage-flavored spaghetti sauce from Hunt's, button mushrooms, thinly sliced celery and carrots, minced garlic and onion and olive oil. The sauce was easy, of course, but the addition of the spices and vegetables gave it a more robust flavor.
For the meat, I mixed Italian sausage and a small amount of extra-lean ground beef, seasoned it with more garlic, egg, parsley and breadcrumbs. I shaped the mixture into meatballs. Rather than fry the meatballs, I cooked them in my Rival steamer. People can say what they want about steamers (that they somehow take away flavor from meat), but the method of cooking produces tenderness in meat that cannot be achieved via baking or frying. From my experience, the flavor is not lost through steaming, either.
Instead of having a regular "spaghetti" dinner, I combined the cooked linguine with the sauce, and added the steamed meatballs. I topped the dish with slices of mozzarella cheese. After the cheese melted, I stirred the entire dish together. Sides included garlic bread made using fresh French bread lightly smeared with butter and fresh garlic bits (garnished with sprinkles of paprika and parsley). We also had a bowl of steamed kernel corn, lightly buttered.
While shocked, Wilbert was delighted with the meal. My guilt over recent culinary neglect has nearly been erased.
Tags: Italy
Send Comment >
