Pasta and Sauce

Friday Night Pasta

One week at school and I’m already looking on the calendar for my next day off.  That will be in precisely one month from now on September 4th when we commemorate Labor Day.  What do you think?  Should I leave my 4th of July bunting up one more month and take it down after Labor Day?  I’ve never left it up this long.  The ladder is so unwieldy.  That’s my excuse anyway.  However, tonight I made pasta.  It was wieldy and delicious. (Note: that may be the first time I’ve ever used wieldy in a sentence.  I took a vocabulary test online and scored lower than Olivia.  Now, I’m trying to up my game.  Wieldy pasta should count for something, I’m thinking.)

Why I like Friday Night Pasta

Spaghetti was one of the first dishes I learned to make when I was but a youngster in college.  Back then I used that revolutionary new sauce in a jar called Ragu and cooked my meals in the basement kitchen of my dorm. We huddled together in front of the one tiny little tv in the dorm in a black-walled room and watched Dallas and ate our authentic Italian cuisine.  Where were you when you found out “Who shot JR?”  I was in Payne Hall at UGA. My room was over the P in Payne Hall.

My dorm looks the same now except we didn’t have air conditioners back then.  We just opened our windows to catch the lovely breeze wafting over the beautiful Oconee River.  That’s a poetic way of saying that we were stinkin’ hot most of the time.   However, if you were lucky enough to date a football player, you could hang out in their brand new, plush and expensive dorm on the other side of the campus.  But for most of us plebeians, we had to be content with ancient dorms and paltry puffs of air for relief from the Georgia heat.

Back to Pasta

After all these years, I still find pasta to be an easy dish to prepare.  So, tonight after a looooong week of meetings and more meetings in preparation for the kiddies to come on Monday, I was looking for something quick to make for dinner.  I absolutely love this recipe for meatballs.  I have spent years cooking meatballs in a skillet and as a result, they always come out triangular as I flip them from side to side.  This recipe bakes in the oven and they are a little bit dome-shaped, but round enough to call them meatballs and not meat-triangles.  I no longer use Ragu, but I still make spaghetti when friends and family are looking for a quick and hearty dinner.

Back to Dallas

I watched every episode of Dallas back in the day.  Didn’t you just want to be Victoria Principle (Pam) and be married to Patrick Duffy (Bobby) and eat in your polyester fancy dresses every night in their formal dining room?  Nowadays, my family and I come all scraggly to the table in whatever we have on and we slurp our pasta with gusto.  In contrast, the Ewings dined slowly and elegantly each and every night.  It makes me want to find my Candie’s mules and a polyester belted dress of my own to grace my next family dinner.  I could even feather my hair back in wings and put on some glossy strawberry-scented lip smackers.  Gracious living indeed.

Oven Meatballs

1 pound ground beef

1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs

1 egg

1/4 cup minced onion

1/4 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line a cookie sheet with foil and grease with shortening.  Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl.  Use a scoop to make 24  1-1/2 inch meatballs.  Place 1 inch apart on cookie sheet.  Bake uncovered 18-22 minutes or until no longer pink in center.

 

Easy steps

Place all ingredients in a large bowl.

 

I used one of my many tools to mix the ingredients together.  I’m not a fan of using my hands.

See?  Worked like a charm.

I use a scoop to make the meatballs. Again, not a fan of using my hands. If you’re counting, you will see that I got 22 meatballs tonight, but you can make them smaller for an even two dozen.

 

Last, bake and eat!

 

Pasta fit for the Ewings.

 

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6 Responses to Friday Night Pasta

  1. Beth Widener August 4, 2017 at 11:20 pm #

    Julie, I am really enjoying your blog and witty outlook on everyday life. It is creative, helpful AND hilarious (hopefully those are all the elements you are striving for 🙂 You are just as smart and as much as an individual as I remember you being in high school!

    • Julie August 5, 2017 at 10:47 am #

      Thank you! I’m so glad we are able to connect on the blog. That’s what makes doing the blog so fun for me.

  2. Gina August 5, 2017 at 10:36 am #

    What a flashback! I was at an ATO “Who shot JR” fraternity party at UGA. They didn’t serve dinner. That’s for sure!!

    • Julie August 5, 2017 at 10:48 am #

      Ha! When was the last time you said ATO and party in the same sentence???

      • Gina August 6, 2017 at 10:44 am #

        Probably 1983!!

  3. Barbara Murphy August 5, 2017 at 7:18 pm #

    Really enjoyed this article. I am going to make your meatballs. Looks delicious.

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