A few days ago my son asked for pasta and meatballs for dinner and I almost fell off the couch. You see, William who is five years old has always been a difficult eater. He eats a variety of foods but rarely eats any significant amount which leads to lots of time spent at the dinner table negotiating “number of bites”.
William has always struggled with food. He was born with severe heart defects that required open heart surgery as an infant. Like many cardiac kids, he had severe acid reflux and food aversion which made feeding him very difficult. For a couple of months when he was about 9-months old, William was also fed by nasal gastric (NG) tube which once again is common in the cardiac community. These feedings were a 24 hour job for both me and my mom who moved in with us for a while to help care for him.
Thankfully, the acid reflux is gone. William is an energetic kindergarten student and he rocked his last cardiac visit in May. The one thing that has not changed is the pressure that I feel to make sure William has had enough to eat each day. So when William asks for something for dinner (that is not chocolate or gummy bears), well mama gets cooking!
Here is our Pasta and Meatball recipe and I am so happy to report that it was gobbled up with zero fuss. Try it out on your picky eater.
Note that this recipe makes a large batch of pasta and meatballs. You can easily scale it down or just make extras to share with extended family or to eat as left overs!
- ⅓ cup olive oil
- 10 cloves of garlic
- 3 28 ounce cans whole tomatoes
- 2 bay leaves
- ½ cup basil leaves, packed
- Salt and pepper
- 2 shallots
- ½ cup parsley, roughly chopped
- 2 slices day old white bread, torn into pieces
- ¾ cup milk
- 2 eggs
- ½ teaspoon oregano, dried
- ¾ cup Parmesan cheese, grated plus more for serving
- 800 grams ground beef, lean
- 400 grams sausage meat, mild Italian is recommended
- Vegetable oil for frying of meatballs
- ***For the sauce
- In a large pot over medium/low heat, add oil and 8 cloves of garlic (make sure to smash them with your knife) and let the garlic infuse the oil for about 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, dump the tomatoes in a large bowl and use your hands to break them up.
- Using a slotted spoon remove the garlic from the oil and add the tomatoes, bay leaves and season with salt and pepper. Bring the sauce to a simmer and cook for about 45 minutes. Add the basil and continue to simmer for another 30 minutes stirring occasionally until the sauce reaches a nice consistency.
- ***For the meatballs
- In a bowl, soak the bread with milk for about 5 minutes. Squeeze out excess milk and place bread in a large bowl.
- In a food processor, finely chop 2 cloves of garlic, shallots, parsley, 1 teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon freshly cracked pepper. Add the eggs, oregano and Parmesan and pulse a couple of times till incorporated.
- Dump the food processor contents in the large bowl with the bread and add the meats. Mix with your hands till incorporated and start forming into balls (I like making my meatballs on the smaller side but this is just preference).
- In a deep pan, heat about ½ inch of oil and fry meatballs in batches till browned on all sides. Place cooked meatballs on a dish covered with paper towels. When done cooking all the meatballs, add them to the sauce and let simmer for a final 30 minutes. Serve over your favourite pasta!
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