If you have a baby, I will make you meatballs. I don’t know much about newborn babies or advice to give when my friends bring home their tiny little bundles of joy (it sounds like people are over-adviced anyways!), but I know how to cook and it seems to me that new mamas and papas don’t have much time for cooking in the first few weeks. So a home cooked meal is about the best I can do to help welcome all the new bambinos home. And many there are! Friends, neighbors, co-workers, family members – everyone’s joining the club and having babies and it makes me so happy to watch our friends turn into parents. Being Auntie Jackie is about the best thing in the world.
ALL THE BABIES!
Spaghetti and meatballs is a crowd pleaser that’s easy to store and can be frozen for eating at a later, more convenient time, so it’s usually my go-to choice for delivering a meal to friends. Lasagna is another good choice and I’ll share my favorite (easy!) recipe later. For the meatballs, I usually stick to all beef since some people aren’t too fond of pork.
You have to be okay with getting your hands dirty for making homemade tomato sauce and for making delicious meatballs. You could start with fresh tomatoes for the sauce, but I find it a bit easier to start with peeled whole tomatoes. Give those tomatoes a good squeeze!
These meatballs are super juicy and cheesy and delicious, the eggs, milk and cheese help to keep them moist as they bake in the oven. Alternately you could cook the meatballs in the tomato sauce as it’s simmering for a few hours, or you could brown them on the stovetop. I like to bake them, and then to box them up separately from the tomato sauce so that everyone can decide their own particular perfect meatball-to-sauce ratio (M:S).
Box up the meatballs, the tomato sauce, a package of uncooked pasta, and a bottle of champagne and you’ve got a lovely little ‘welcome to the world little darling‘ and ‘here’s a delicious dinner for the new parents so you don’t have to eat another granola bar for dinner‘ gift!
This weekend, I made meatballs and tomato sauce for two brand new babes and their hungry parents, and of course I had to make some for Mr. Swig and myself, so I used the recipes below but tripled everything to make three times the servings. Buon apetito.
Homemade Tomato Sauce
- Two 28 ounce cans tomato puree
- One 28 ounce can peeled whole tomatoes
- 2 cloves of garlic – I used more – love the garlic!
- 1 small diced onion
- 1 teaspoon basil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
- 2 tablespoons sugar – I like brown sugar so that’s what I used
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
Empty the whole tomatoes into a bowl and squeeze and crush them, then put them aside for a moment. Sauté the onions and garlic together with the olive oil in a large saucepan, probably for about 5 minutes or so until the onions and garlic are soft but not too browned. Add the crushed tomatoes as well as the other ingredients to the large saucepan and simmer for 3 hours. Add salt to taste and any other herbs to your liking and enjoy!
Juicy Beef Meatballs
- 1 lb. ground beef – I used half 93% lean and half 80% lean, just to get a little bit more fat and juiciness, particularly important when baking the meatballs.
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup milk – I used skim, it’s what I had in the fridge
- 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon oregano – I used fresh, you could also use dried
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese – I used shredded because I used all the grated cheese for the tomato sauce. Sometimes you just have to improvise.
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Combine all of the ingredients into a large bowl and mix together thoroughly with your hands – get them nice and dirty and really mash the ingredients together for the best outcome! Roll portions of the beef mixture into golf ball-sized balls and place on a baking sheet. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until they are fully cooked and to your liking.
Sauce and meatballs can be stored in the refrigerator and eaten in the next few days, or can be frozen and enjoyed much later – whatever is convenient for the new mamas and papas trying to sneak in a bite to eat between loving on their new little one!
BY Jackie
LOCATION San Francisco, California
