Grandma's Meatball Pasta Sauce

This is for all you people who like to cook. This is a how to make your own pasta sauce from scratch. It's a fairly simple recipe that I have eaten for my entire life. It was shown to me by my parents who learned from their parents.

Step 1
It begins with diced garlic. If you've ever seen "Good Fellas" there is a scene where they are making dinner in the "hide house". You see them cutting the garlic as fine as possible. This is what you want. So that it will slightly melt when you put it in the heated oil.

Step 2
Turn on you oven and in a large pot start heating some oil (mid to high or 6-7 on the knob). Back to the copping board and dice up some onions. Again the finer the better. Also chop up 2-4 stalks of celery (approx. 3/4" thickness)

Step 3
Garlic in first for about 1-2 min. This is to let it soften up. Toss in the onions and celery and stir up.

Step 4
Let this simmer for about 4-6 mins. Then add 1-2 cans of tomato paste (I use two cause I usually make a shit load of sauce). You want this to cook too for about 2-3 mins while constantly stirring.

Step5
Now dump in your tomato juice. Homemade is the best but the can stuff works as well. Once you've dumped in about 2 liters (serious amount of sauce here) I also like to add a can or two of diced tomatoes (whole too if you like) and stir it up until evenly mixed throughout.

Step6
Let simmer for 1-3 hours depending on how hunger you are. Now that the sauce is simmering you have some time. During this time I like to make the meatballs. Meatballs are easy and make the sauce have a unique and robust flavor. Things that I usually always put in my sauce:

• Meatball combination of pork, veal, and ground beef (your choice here how much you want of each)
• Neck bones - I don't really use these for the meat but more for the flavor of the bone.
• Sausage - any type here is good (I would advise against honey garlic though it gives the sauce to much sweetness)
  

Meatball Recipe:

Step7
Purchase some meat. I like equal parts of pork, veal, and ground beef. If one is not available improvise. That's what cooking is all about. Make due with what you have. If they have to be all beef then so be it.

Step8
Put all the meat into a fairly large bowl. This bowl is where you will be mixing it all together in so consider this when deciding the size of the bowl.

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• Fresh chopped parsley (dried is fine as well)
• Diced garlic (about 2-4 cloves for 1 pound of meat)
• 2-3 ounces of milk or cream
• 1 1/2 teaspoon of salt and pepper
• Equal amount by volume of break crumbs (you want unseasoned here since you are seasoning the meatballs yourself)
• Parmesan cheese (about 5-8 tablespoons play with this amount here)

Step9
Now with your bare hands (make sure their clean) mix the ingredients together thoroughly. You want to soften up the meat as you mix it. Squish between you hands in an aggressive manner. You'll know you have enough seasoning when you grab a piece of meat and can see black pepper, green parsley and white garlic.

Step10
Let the meatballs sit out of the fridge but cover with plastic wrap. Bring them to room temperature before you place then in the sauce. Why? You ask, not to sure but I apply the same reasoning to how you let your steak get to room temperature before you cook it. I think when you throw the cold meat into boiling sauce it shocks the meat or something and it doesn't taste the same. Try and let me know what you think.

Step11

Your sauce has been cooking now for some time. You have been stirring it throughout this time as well to agitate it (IMPORTANT don't forget to do this). It’s time to make the meatballs and toss them into you simmering sauce (as well as any other meat you'd like). You can make them any size you like. I prefer about half the size of a golf ball. That way they are bite size and they can still be cut for meatball sandwiches. Mmmmmmm good!

Step12
Ok, you’re almost done here. Final step is to add the herbs to flavor you sauce. These spices are great for pasta sauce and have never failed me. Although I never actually measure the amount it always seems to work well.

Herbs:

• Sweet basil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Oregano
• Bay leaf (1-3 full leaves break them up if you like as well)
• Fresh parsley

After that the meatballs should take about 20 mins to cook. If you're not sure there done yet take a sample. Cut it in half and try it.

One last thing pasta sauce tastes most wonderful the following day so never throw it away!

Ciao

-Chef