MommyTLC

What's more comforting than spaghetti and meatballs?  Nothing!  There's nothing like a hot plate of home cooked meatballs smothered in sauce on a mound of perfectly tender spaghetti.  Sound mouth watering?  Well, it is!

Tonight's menu is a little different than normal nights.  Since hubby has the night off, it's his night to cook dinner but whenever he cooks it's more like a 10 o'clock meal.  Too late for the kiddo so I decided she needed a little something special for her.  Whenever we go out to eat, she'll get 1 of 3 things: pizza, chicken fingers, or spaghettie and meatballs.  I can honestly name the places where she'll actually eat the meatballs on one hand.  Normally she'll just eat the spaghettie and maybe a couple pieces of meatballs.  I've tried giving her the frozen kind but that's a no go!  My husband came across one of Mario Batali's recipes for homemade meatballs and being such a Batali fanatic, I just had to give it a try.  Now, this recipe is not something that's easy to come by so I'm going to share it with you right here:

Ingredients:
3 cups basic tomato sauce (or marinara saunce)
freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
3 cups fresh bread crumbs (5 slices of bread broken up)
2 Tbsp kosher salt
2 cups whole milk
1 1/2 lbs ground beef
3 eggs
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup pine nuts (optional)
1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese

1. In a large, heavy-bottomed skillet, bring tomato sauce to a fast simmer.
2. Put the breadcrumbs in a medium bowl and pur the milk over.  Set aside
3. In a bowl of a countertop mixer fitted witha paddle or dough hook, combine the beef and the eggs.  Grate the garlic over the bowl with a microplane. (You can also finely mince the garlic)  Add in grated pecorino, toasted pine nuts, parsley and salt.  Mix briefly just to combine.
4. Add the milk-soaked bread crumbs to the meat mixture and mix for about one minute until it comes together, but still has some texture and moisture.
5. Form the mixture into 12 to 15 meatballs, each smaller than a tennis ball but larger than a golf ball.  Gently add the meatballs to the sauce and bring to a boil.  Lower heat to a simmer and cook for 25 to 30 minutes or until meatballs are cooked through.
6. Top the meatballs with parsley leaves, freshly grated pecorino and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.

This recipe is fast and super easy.  So easy that even a beginner like me is able to make absolutely delicious homemade meatballs from scratch!  My daughter loved her meal and best of all she ate ever piece of meatball on her plate, leaving a lot of the spaghettie behind.  There's very little that's more heart warming that having your child thank you for the meal you made.  It's always nice to hear my husband tell me he enjoyed my meal, especially with his background and expertise with food, but to have my daughter tell me my food is "yummy" and say "thanks mom", that goes right to my core!  If there's a recipe I could ever suggest to someone to try, it's this one!  If you do happen to try it, please, let me know what you think!