Back to it and old style Traditional Italian Gravy

So several people have been encouraging me to get back to blogging. With their support I'm going to give this a go again, though the format may be a bit more random.

Yesterday evening I was watching television and developed a sudden intense desire for pasta with a traditional meat sauce. I realized I hadn't had Italian in a long time and so when I got up this morning I decided to give it a go. I found an amazing recipe to adapt from  http://www.theblackpeppercorn.com

With that as a blue print I headed to the kitchen. First thing I did was half the recipe, my family is only 3 people after all and its really hit or miss on what the toddler will eat on any given day. I also realized I did not have the Italian sausages or ribs the recipe called for but what I did have was a couple of leftover Smokey Bourbon sausages from lunch a few days ago, and bacon. Let's be honest, everything is better with bacon. The last couple of substitutions I had to make were cream cheese in place of ricotta and since I didn't have any breadcrumbs some pulverized seasoned croutons took their place.

First up was the meatballs. These were quite flavorful with the Parmesan, fresh micro basil and cream cheese.

some lovely micro basil from my balcony

I mixed together the ingredients for the meatballs and formed 1in balls. I baked these on a parchment lined cookie sheet at 350 for 20min. I ended up with about 18 meatballs. 

Lovely delicious meatballs fresh from the oven

While the meatballs were cooking I started the sauce base. I mixed together 41/2 cups of curshed tomatoes with 1 cup of wine. (The trick to cooking with wine is to never cook with something you wouldn't drink.) To this mixture I added the sugar, chili flakes, and sea salt. When using sea salt remember that it has a much stronger flavor then table salt allowing you to get away with using less then half the amount. 

Pretty red sauce base

Once the meatballs were done I added them to the sauce on a gentle boil. I then started on the other meats. I cubed the sausages and fried them for a few minutes in a bit of olive oil, just long enough to get some color on the outsides. 

Sausage!

I added that to the pot with the meatballs and sauce and worked on cooking the bacon, which I chopped up prior to cooking. I cooked this till it was about 3/4 of the way done. 

BACON!

I added that to the pot and then set to work on the vegetables. The recipe called for one diced white onion, but here on Maui we are blessed to have easy access to the amazing Maui Sweet Onion which I used instead. The recipe also called a diced celery stalk and 2 cloves of minced garlic. Mincing fresh garlic has always been an annoying task for me but luckily upon moving here I found an amazing treasure. I found a small handheld grater at longs made especially for use with garlic, ginger and horseradish, and it only cost $3. 

Wonder of wonders.

I cooked the vegetable mixture in the bacon grease until soft and then added them to the pot of meats and sauce as well. I made sure to drain the grease off first as I didn't want it going into my sauce. 

mmm flavor makers right there.

Once everything was mixed together I brought the pot of sauce to a strong simmer and allowed to cook for 2hrs stirring occasionally. I made up some whole wheat linguine to serve it over and lunch was done. 

Lunch is served. 

Traditional Italian Gravy

• 1 pound ground beef
• 2 links smoked sausage, cubed
• 1/2 pound thick cut bacon, sliced 
• 1/2 cup cream cheese
• 1/4 cup parmesean cheese
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1/2 cup ground seasoned croutons
• 1/3 cup fresh chopped basil
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 sweet onion, minced
• 1 stalk celery minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 1/2 cups of strained/crushed tomatoes (2-3 jars or cans)
• 1 cups red wine or sparkling grape juice
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp crushed dried chilies (red pepper flakes)
• spaghetti noodles or other pasta

Instructions

1. For the meatballs, mix the ground beef, cream cheese, parmesean, ground croutons, egg, milk, fresh basil and salt together. Knead the mixture with your hands until thoroughly combined. Roll into 1 inch meatballs and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes.
2. In a large pot, pour in the strained tomatoes, wine/sparkling grape juice, sugar, dried chilies and salt. Bring to a small boil.
3. When the meatballs are cooked, stir them in the sauce.
4. In a frypan, heat the oil and cook the sausages until they are cooked mostly through. Stir them in the sauce.
5. In the same frypan, cook the bacon until mostly crispy, about 3/4 of the way done.  Stir tit in the sauce.
6. In the frypan, add the onions, celery and garlic. Also, after the veggies have cooked, this is a great opportunity to 'deglaze' the pan. There are a lot of great flavours on the base of this pan and they need to get in the sauce. Pour in a little bit of water (1/2 cup) and scrape the bottom of the pan to pull up all the bits that are packed with flavor. Once the veggies are soft, pour them and the deglazing water all into the sauce.
7. Cook the sauce at a low to medium simmer for about 2 hours, or longer. Serve with noodles.