Hearty Monday

Monday, the cafeteria had their "Texas Pot Roast" for lunch. I decided to give it a shot, as I was fairly hungry after my light Sunday eating:

I discovered fairly quickly what made it a "Texas" pot roast ... one of the things it was cooked in was jalapenos. Luckily, it wasn't too overpowering, and gave a nice robustness to the flavor. The potatoes were pretty well done that day, but they still needed help from the gravy.

For dinner, I fried up some ground beef, Italian sausage, then doused it in some Prego meat sauce and simmered it for a while. I boiled some penne pasta up then drowned it in some of the sauce and had some crescent roll rounds to fill it out:

The sauce was more meaty than saucy, and the penne just sucked up even more of the sauce, so it was more like a beefy mac. That said, it was still really tasty, and only could've been better if it was a chilly night, instead of in the beginning of summer.

Meatballs, Pt 3

Well, third time's the charm, is how the old saying goes. And in this case, it was correct. This was my third attempt at making meatballs, and they turned out great:

I did a pound of Italian sausage and a pound of ground beef, a bunch of garlic powder, some onion powder, panko bread crumbs, Italian seasonings, salt, pepper and an egg. Mixed that all together for a while till it seemed pretty homogeneous, then balled them up and stuck them in a pan that I had spread olive oil and some garlic powder into. I then doused them in Prego Meat Sauce and tossed them into the oven on 335 for about an hour and fifteen minutes. Now, that's a fairly sweet tomato based sauce, if you like your "gravy" not as sweet, feel free to use some other brand or make your own. I'm not that comfortable yet to make my own. Oh yeah, fair warning, these suckers fill the house up with the most amazingly tasty aroma as they're cooking.

As they were finishing up their cooking, I tossed what was left of the ziti I had into some salted boiling water and once they were done, I tossed some meatballs and sauce on top of them:

That meal was amazing, some would even say "amazeballs".

Meatballs!

Not the movie, the food. My grandfather was from Venice, Italy. He was a butcher and a cook. He served on the USS Alabama as a cook, in fact. One of his favorite things to make were meatballs. Unfortunately, he passed on before I got old enough to fully appreciate working in the kitchen, so I never got his recipe, so I decided to start stumbling through trying to make them myself. This was attempt #1. It didn't turn out so great. I went with the skillet method:

I don't think I let them cook long enough, they weren't as tender as I would've liked. The flavor was ok, but I still have a ways to go.

Attempt #2 I didn't take a pic of, but I tried a different sausage for the mixture, and instead of frying it in the skillet, I baked them in the oven, drenched in sauce. The sauce was OUTSTANDING, and the meatballs were only ok. I blame most of that on the sausage I used, yet again. Hopefully the third time will be the charm. I'll probably be trying it out again within the month. One thing I will say was really good in that first attempt was the bread you see there on the plate. It was Pillsbury loaf in a can, and that stuff is great! I buttered and garlic salted it before putting it into the oven, and then a bit more butter as it came out and I now love this stuff. Nice crust on the outside and soft and good on the inside.