Last Night's Dinner

It's almost Fall!!  I'm crossing my fingers as I write this, hoping not to jinx anything, but it's been a fairly lovely August so far.  Nothing at all compared to the stifling hot June and July we just had.  Right now, the temperature is a beautiful 61 and my sliding door is open.  On Saturday, I ate my first "pumpkin thing" of the year...a fabulous pumpkin spice cookie brought back from Amish Country.  Today, while getting my coffee, I noticed that the pumpkin spice flavoring is now available.  And, last night, I made a heavy-duty, from-scratch dinner that would've been unthinkable if the temperature had been in the 80s or 90s.

I made Smitten Kitchen's meatball subs with carmelized onions.  Please, please, you need to check this out and add it to your recipe repertoire!  I mention it's intense and from scratch, and it is when you think about how meatballs subs are traditionally made or eaten (swinging by Subway and picking one up or dumping frozen meatballs into jarred pasta sauce and eating them on plain rolls) but it is absolutely worth it!  Plus, from start to finish, it only takes an hour to prep everything and have it ready to eat.  And that includes making a sauce from scratch, rolling the meatballs and heating them up AND carmelizing two onions.  Plus, this makes enough for a crowd.  My husband and I will be eating leftovers tonight and possibly tomorrow.  It'd be ideal to whip up for people coming over to watch football in the fall or just for a gathering in general!

Please click on the link above to see Smitten Kitchen's fabulous photos of this meal.  I added some tweaks to the recipe to make life easier on myself, which I suggest:

First, instead of browning the meatballs in a separate pan, I just cooked them in the sauce.  What I did was make the meatballs first; I rolled them and put them on a foil-lined pan and then stuck the whole pan in the freezer while I got started on the sauce.  This allowed the meatballs to firm up before I threw them in the hot tomato sauce, where they might fall apart if they hadn't been hardened in the freezer.  

Next, I roasted grape tomatoes to throw in the sauce.  Here's the simplest way to do it:  grab a pint of grape tomatoes, slice them in half and lay them on a foil-lined cookie sheet.  Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Roast them in the oven at 350-400 for about 20 minutes, or until they're bursting.  I did this earlier in the day and set the roasted tomatoes aside in a bowl until I needed them for my sauce.

Finally, I made my own sauce.  This is SUPER SIMPLE and way better than buying jarred tomato sauce.  Here's what you'll need:

~1 onion, finely chopped
~4 or 5 garlic cloves, minced (we love garlic in our house and usually always double the amount required in recipes...if you aren't as huge of a fan, use 2 or 3 cloves!)
~2, 28oz cans pureed tomatoes
~Red pepper flakes
~A glug or two of wine (optional)
~Your roasted tomatoes from earlier in the day (or sauteed mushrooms, peppers, whatever)

Begin by sauteeing the onion in olive oil for about 8 minutes, until translucent.  Add the garlic cloves, then add the wine to deglaze the pan.  Dump in the pureed tomatoes.  Season heavily with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes (sometimes I get creative and throw in any other spices I think will work in a sauce...rosemary, thyme, whatever).  The key is, season heavily. You're making a giant pot of sauce, so the more seasoning, the better.  Let everything come to a boil over medium heat and then reduce to a simmer for 20 or so minutes.

At this point, I took the meatballs out of the freezer and gently plopped them into the sauce.  While they were cooking, I made the carmelized onions.

I have to say, this recipe was DIVINE.  The carmelized onions on top of the meatballs made all the difference in the world.  It made the whole dish gourmet rather than standard.  

Smitten Kitchen never lets me down...follow Deb's blog if you don't already!