illdothedisheslater

(Homemade SpaghettiO’s!)

So here’s what happened: The marketing gods have decided that I’m old.  Like, really old.  Sometime in the last few years I made a purchase, clicked a website, or did something that landed me on the following junk mail lists:

Retirement planning

Hearing aids

Funeral pre-planning

Medicare Part B, whatever that means

Every week I get dozens of flyers, postcards, and ads basically congratulating me on my advanced age and offering me ways to deal with it more gracefully.  Since getting removed from a mailing list is near impossible (except my complimentary subscription to AARP – you’d best believe I shut that one down ASAP), I just ignore it.   I still don’t know what I could have done to imply advanced age to the universe.

My husband, ever helpful, makes suggestions:

“Do you think it might be those giant sunglasses you’re wearing?”

“Maybe it’s because you like Certs.”

(If you know a good divorce lawyer, please PM me so we can chat.) (And yes, I DO like Certs.  They remind me of my grandmother, okay? Restyn – yum.)

So okay, I’m not exactly “young”.  But teenage boys all have stupid haircuts, I mean that’s a fact right?  Dishes had a birthday this week guys, and while I’m not browsing online for scooter-chairs or emergency alert jewelry quite yet, I would like to take a step back into childhood with homemade SpaghettiO’s.  This is NOT a copycat recipe – I have no desire to unmask the secrets of the good folks at Franco-American – but I admit to liking those squishy little rings quite a bit as a kid.  Only the kind with the meatballs – not the plain, or with the cut-up hot dogs, or God forbid the cheesy ones.   Ick.   And I have no desire to replicate their pasty, dog-food like meatball thingies – I’m going with my own recipe.  (See “The Healthy Meatball” post.) Let’s face it – SpaghettiO’s are kinda gross.  This will not be gross, I promise.

But let’s be fancy shall we?   Today I’m making Anelletti con Polpettine. Ring-shaped noodles with tiny meatballs (polpettine).  The ring-shaped noodles are hard to find – while this isn’t exactly the most original idea (Google it – there are dozens.), most of those un-enterprising types use ditalini, shells, or some other decidedly non-SpaghettiO-shaped noodle, and I’m all about making things more difficult, so I have to order Anelletti online from Amazon.  No inexpensive, readily available noodles for me!

Also in the spirit of making things more difficult, I double my recipe because I’m some sort of psychopath and seemingly plan to eat this for the next three weeks.   Know how many tiny meatballs four pounds of meat makes?  A whole freaking lot.   And I’m concerned that the smaller size won’t hold up well to long simmering, so let’s add several more steps to an already complicated recipe!  Rolling tiny meatballs is boring.   My back starts to ache.   I get somewhere around 115 before I call it quits and make regular-sized meatballs with the rest of the mixture.  Then the balls get dusted lightly with flour and fried to brown and crisp the outsides.

These are around the size of gumballs – some in the one cent range, some more like the quarter variety.   Sunglasses included for scale, and out of messiness.

Looks like I made dog-food after all, doesn’t it?   (Heaves big sigh.)   This picture doesn’t adequately communicate the sheer quantity of tiny meatballs here.

Dump them into your sauce.  Oh wait – here’s my fancy-schmancy sauce:

Yep, even Dishes uses shortcuts from time to time.  There is so much meat here that I’m not fussing around with a scratch sauce.   If you use a decent jar (with no corn-syrupy Boyardee flavor) (Barilla, I’m looking at you.), this works out just fine.   Let it simmer for a couple hours and it will taste like nothing from a can, I promise.   Here are two little tricks to make a canned/jarred sauce taste not-like canned/jarred sauce: a little sugar is one – just maybe two tablespoons. Another is baking soda – but just a tiny little bit – maybe1/8 teaspoon for a pot of sauce will cut the acidity.  Too much and you’re left with sauce that tastes like nothing.

Then it’s a simple matter of boiling up the noodles, made more complicated by shocking the just-cooked noodles in icy water so they don’t turn to mush upon reheating.   Immediately mix in the sauce and meatballs.

And here we go – Homemade SpaghettiO’s!  They’re good too – just like my regular spaghetti and meatballs, but easier to heat and eat.

This meal will pair nicely with a Capri Sun, and may I recommend a Snack Pack for dessert?