Not a NYTimes Recipe

All this week, the Dan-o and I are on child care patrol for our 3 grandsons, whose wonderful child care provider is on vacation in Mexico.  Jackson is 4, his brother, Beau is 22 months and their cousin Ethan is 2 1/2.  Fun times.  To our good fortune, all three still nap for at least an hour, often more, which gives the grandparents a brief respite mid-day.

Not that I don't love being Grandma and Grandpa Child Care, but you know the saying that child rearing is best done by folks under 65?  So true.

Today is also my only son's 37th birthday.  How he came to be 37 is way beyond me, but you know, life happens.

Consequently I invited him for dinner tonight, hence the subject of this post.  I am feeling quite proud of myself that in the middle of the lovely mayhem that is three little boys ripping the house apart, I managed to cook Stuffed Shells.

This is a handed down recipe from Florence Compobasso, my brother-in-law's mother.  She was loud, brassy, bombastic, huge hearted.  Florence taught me and my sisters how to cook Italian.  Until then, we made our mother's spaghettti sauce recipe* which was, I kid you not, as follows:

  1. 1 bottle of Open Pit Barbeque Sauce
  2. 1 can tomato paste
  3. 1 onion, chopped
  4. 1 pound of ground beef
  5. Salt and pepper to taste
  • Saute onion until soft.
  • Add ground beef and brown.
  • Add Open Pit Barbeque Sauce (make no substitutes).
  • Stir in tomato paste.  Add water if mixture is too thick.
  • Simmer for approximately 1/2 hour.  Serve over cooked Creamette spaghetti noodles (make no substitutes).
As you can see, we had a pretty steep learning curve when it came to Italian cuisine.

Fortunately for many, I have used Florence's recipe for red sauce (or gravy) since my high school days.  Unfortunately, if you want to follow it, preparation of the recipe has fallen into the domain of many family recipes.  I know what I do and how to do it, but the exact amounts of ingredients falls into how Clemenza showed Michael Corleone to make meatballs and sauce (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh13Xd2loto),  Give it a shot anyway (no pun intended).  To taste is probably the best instruction in cooking.

Florence Compobasso's Red Sauce/Gravy and Meatballs, at least as how I remember she taught me and have been making them for over 50 years
  1. 1 large yellow onion, chopped
  2. Handful of fresh parsley, chopped, more or less to taste
  3. At least 2 T of dried oregano, more or less to taste
  4. At least 1 T of fresh rosemary, chopped, more or less to taste
  5. At least 2 T of fresh basil, more or less to taste
  6. 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, more or less to taste
  7. 2 large cans tomato puree (I prefer Muir Glen Organic.  More expensive, yes, but I really taste the difference between this and other brands.)
  8. A good pour of dry red wine (see video above)
  9. At least 2 tsp of garlic salt, more or less to taste
  10. At least 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper, more or less to taste
  • Chop the onion as finely as you prefer.  Hold out some for the meatballs. 
  • In a large pot, saute the onion in olive oil.  As onion softens, add in other spices until the entire thing smells ridiculously fragrant.
  • Add both cans of tomato puree.  Rinse out each can with warm water in order to get all the puree; add to sauce. Mix thoroughly.  
  • Pour in the wine to thin the sauce.  You can add water in this step if you don't want to add wine but why wouldn't you?  Get the sauce to a consistency that you like.  It should be thick enough to stick to whatever form of pasta you cook.
  • Add garlic salt, red pepper, black pepper.  Bring to a low boil, then reduce heat to simmer for at least two hours.
  • You can add cut up Italian sausage links to the sauce at this point to cook.
Meatballs
  1. 1 lb. ground beef.  Over the years I've used a combination of ground pork, ground veal and ground beef as well.
  2. The leftover onions.
  3. Whatever spices you prefer similar to what you put into the sauce.
  4. 1 egg
  5. 1 piece of bread, can be the heel from a loaf of bread.  Pour enough milk on it to soften it up.
  • Mix all the ingredients together.
  • Form the mixture into meatballs.  Put on a cookie sheet.
  • Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.
  • Pour the meatballs and any fat formed during baking into the sauce so that it all cooks together.
Stuffed Shells
  1. 1 carton Ricotta cheese.  Please, for the love of God, do NOT use cottage cheese.
  2. 3 eggs
  3. 2 good handfuls of grated Romano cheese.  Please, do NOT use cheddar cheese.
  4. At least 2 T chopped fresh parsley, more or less to taste
  5. At least 2 tsp dried oregano, more or less to taste
  6. 1 tsp garlic salt, more or less to taste
  7. 1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
  • Mix all ingredients together.  Set aside.
  • Cook 1/2 box Jumbo shells.  If you want to cook the entire box, double the ricotta recipe.
  • Remove shells from heat, drain, liberally rinse with cold water.  Shake the strainer to remove excess water.
  • In a 9x12 pan, spoon a layer of red sauce on the bottom.  Do not include meatballs or sausage.
  • Put approximately 1 T of ricotta mixture into each shell.  Place shell into the pan.
  • When pan is full, sprinkle shells with grated Parmesan or other cheese such as Romano or a mixture of Italian cheeses.  Ladle another layer of red sauce, top again with cheese.
  • Cover with foil and bake approximately 30 minutes at 325 degrees.


* The sharing of this recipe is by no means intended to speak ill of my wonderful mother.  She made some incredibly delicious dishes.  Spaghetti sauce just wasn't one of them.

Comments

  1. It was very yummy! Thanks for cooking and providing amazing grandparent daycare!

    ReplyDelete

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