So I am playing like I stay home all the time and Husband1 goes off to work, even though he works in an office 20 paces from the backdoor. The first three days of this staycation I barely managed to get dressed. But now, I think I can stay awake for more than four hours at a time.
Witness this dinner: spaghetti and meatballs from scratch (with a small romaine and avocado salad) and strawberry shortcake.
[Okay, so I lied. These are actually from two different days. The strawberry shortcake was dinner for the Fourth of July for color reasons, and the spaghetti was yesterday for no reason.]
On strawberry shortcake. The cake shouldn't be too sweet or cake-y, in contrast to the sweetness of the strawberries. Hence, the biscuit approach, which is from "The New Basics Cookbook," written by those SilverPalate gals Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins before Julee's father had a heart attack and she got religion and published A Fresh Start.
DISAPPOINTMENT. I am measuring flour for the slightly sweet biscuits and Husband1 says, "You know what would be really good? If we used Twinkies instead," and he is serious. Based on this alone, I don't think we will ever be featured on the eharmony.com commercial.
Anyway, I didn't go all out with the whipped cream from scratch because I didn't want the calories. I used reduced fat Cool Whip. But if you came over, I'd use the real stuff because food = love and I love using beaters anyway.
I did use half wheat/half white flour for these (the flour already comes this way), which I think makes them taste better but those same teensy weensy flecks of wheat that I love only make my family suspicious of anything I set in front of them. Oh, and shake up the baking powder. I read it on the can.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT MEATBALLS. Meatballs are serious to an Italian girl, and I make them from a recipe {if you call it that} from my mom along with some tips from the Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook by Ina Garten. Ina is fat, so it makes sense to trust her with stuff that tastes good.
Things I have learned: I didn't realize that you only have to brown the meatballs; for years I thought they had to be cooked through at this stage. Nope, that's what the simmering all day is for, and a crockpot works well for this. Meatballs should not be the size of baseballs.
They should be smaller than pingpong balls but bigger than marbles. If you go half-sies with ground turkey and ground round, no one will know. If you use fresh breadcrumbs (couple of spins in the food processor), the meatballs are a lot fluffier and do not resemble small rocks or turds. When making the sauce, you might saute a little onion, right? Well, I sautee a little onion, celery and carrots in a little olive oil and garlic, and I do this because, you guessed it, I didn't have a damn onion, but I DID have one of the those frozen meal-starter veggie groupings, and it worked great. When everything was softened, I added a little merlot (or any red wine alcohol) and after it boiled off, I threw it all in the crockpot along with a 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes, some kosher salt, pepper and a smeck of nutmeg.
PS: {If you think I should include actual recipes here, tell me and I will, but I can't really believe someone would be that interested so I haven't done it.}
Today I might use the vacuum cleaner or take clothes to the cleaners. Then again, I could fold clothes and put them away. It's all so new!










