Sexy Meatballs!

For this week's Craving Ellie in My Belly recipe, Oddball Oven Mitt chose Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs in Spicy Tomato Sauce. To be honest, I wasn't that excited about this one. Ground turkey. Whole wheat pasta. Snore. However, good little Ellie-ista that I am, I tried the recipe, and I have to say that I was pleasantly suprised. The sauce had a sexy little kick, thanks to chipotles in adobo, fire-roasted tomatoes, and a whopping 6 cloves of garlic. Plus, I got to use the gorgeous bouquet of basil I got at the farmer's market this weekend. So thank you Miss Oven Mitt for nudging me to try a recipe I would've otherwise overlooked!

I always use a little trick I learned from Sally Schneider when cooking with ground turkey. She advocates soaking a piece of stale bread in milk rather than just using dry bread crumbs in your meatball mixture. Lowfat milk adds negligible extra calories and the extra moistness is unparallelled. SS has a lot of great tips, if you like Ellie's full flavored yet healthy recipes, you'll love Sally's A New Way to Cook.

But on to the main event!

Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs in Spicy Tomato Sauce

adapted from The Food You Crave, by Ellie Krieger

Sauce:
1 tbsp olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup grated carrot

3 tbsp tomato paste

one 28 oz can crushed fire-roasted tomatoes

1 tsp fincely minced chipotles in adobo

2 tsp dried oregano

1 tbsp red pepper flakes

6 leaves basil, roughly torn

a glug of wine, if you happen to be drinking some

Meatballs:

1 lb lean ground turkey

1 slice stale bread, soaked in milk, wrung out and torn up

1/4 cup grated carrot

1/4 finely chopped onion

2 cloves garlic, pressed in the garlic press

2 tbsp minced parsley

1 tsp dried thyme

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp salt

freshly ground pepper

Spaghetti:

1/2 box whole wheat spaghetti, cooked according to package

1/3 cup grated parmigiano reggiano

minced basil for garnish

To make the sauce, saute onions in olive oil for a few minutes, add garlic and saute another minute, and finally add carrots. Stir in tomato paste and can of tomatoes, including all their juices, as well as chipotles, oregano, red pepper flakes, optional wine, and salt and pepper. Cover partially and simmer away while you prepare the meatballs.

To make the meatballs, combine your ground turkey, garlic, beaten egg, milk-soaked bread bits, carrot, onion, dried thyme, parsley and salt and pepper in a large bowl. Remove all jewelry and squish away until your stress level is down to zero, or your ingredients are fully combined. Preheat broiler. Roll meat mixture into 1 1/2-2 inch balls and place on a baking sheet sprayed with cooking oil. Broil for 12 minutes, flipping halfway.

To plate, combine a lovely tangle of noodles, a heaping ladle of sauce, a few sizzling meatballs, garnish with parmegiano and basil, and enjoy!

1 quart tomatoes, 1 bunch basil, 1 baguette, fresh mozzarella

I love tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella and like to buy them in bulk when I make the trek to Trader Joe's. Here's how I ate the same thing for 3 days without getting sick of it.

Day 1: Purity

Combined equal handfuls of tomatoes, basil, and bocconcini(the little fresh mozzarella balls), topped with balsamic and olive oil, then salt and pepper. Ate standing up, alternating bites from end of baguette.

Day 2: Breakfast

Fresh mozzarella omelettes are really good, especially with hot sauce and a little basil on top.

Day 2: Lunch

Made a BLT sandwich, but not. Bacon, basil instead of lettuce, tomato, plus avocado, all on sliced baguette with mayo.

Day 2: Roast Chicken Dinner

Chopped basil and parsley, combined into softened butter along with salt and pepper to make herb butter! Rubbed that under the skin of chicken before roasting, then proceeded with usual recipe.

Day 3: Dinner

Accidentally left baguette out, thanks to AZ climate it is one giant crouton. So...panzanella! It always amazes me how the bread doesn't get soggy in this. If you live somewhere with an average humidity over 7%, maybe you should toast the bread as well just to be safe. Anyway, cut the baguette and 1/2 a cuke into bite sized chunks, toss with thinly sliced red onion, cherry tomatoes, mozzarella if you have it, drizzle it all with olive oil and red wine vinegar, and let sit for 10-15 minutes.

I also saved the last bits of the baguette ends and the crumbs from cubing the bread to make pasta, which brings us to...

Day 4: Dinner

Pasta with Garlic and Breadcrumbs loosely based on that TV show with the pretty big head lady

(and sounds better in Italian=Spaghetti all'Aglio e Olio con Mollica)

1/2 pound spaghetti

4 garlic cloves

splash dry white wine

big handful basil, coarsely chopped

1/2 pint whole cherry or grape tomatoes

1 teaspoon crushed red chili

1/4 cup breadcrumbs

Warm slight bit of olive oil in a pan, add breadcrumbs with salt and pepper to taste. Stir constantly so they don't burn and when they are uniformly golden, remove from pan and set aside. Add more oil to pan and saute garlic until it turns just gold, then pour in the wine and chili pepper. Add the tomatoes and let cook until white wine is reduced by half. Using a fork, press the tomatoes against the side of the pan to pop them so they release their juices. Remove the pan from the burner and set aside. Cook spaghetti, drain and toss in pan, return the pan to the burner over moderate heat and add the reserved breadcrumbs and basil shreds. I had run out of mozzarella by this point so I topped it with grated parmesean.