Recipes: Meatballs -It's all wrong, but it's all right.

Of course, I THOUGHT I'd keep all the recipes as fresh and as unprocessed as possible, but when a rather last minute camping trip to the Catskills popped up last week, I was, well, ill-prepared.

I believe in cook days, whether preparing for a week's eating at home or preparing for a camping trip but with this particular jaunt, no such time was available. Instead it was a pronto run to the super market, devising a menu in the aisles, and that was that.

Considering these ingredients aren't my favourite -I prefer to use my own breadcrumbs, good quality parmeggiano and homemade tomato sauce- I took this on as a taste comparison experiment. And frankly, it works in a pinch and just about every step of the way, we were in something of a pinch.


Above we have all the main ingredients:

1/2 red onion -chopped
1/4 lb lean ground beef
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1 egg
1 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
3 cups vodka sauce
1/2 box penne
5 cups of water
olive oil
salt and pepper

Serves 2 with left overs.





In one bowl, combine the meat, egg, breadcrumbs, cheese, onion, salt and pepper. Use one hand and keep a paper towel, soap spray and a sport bottle of water handy to wash off.


Roll meat (still one handed) into golf ball sizes (smaller is cute too, but bigger is not so practical).

Pinch #2: I had to use our gas stove to cook the meat, because there was no grate on the fire pit and we hadn't brought one along...



Once the meatballs were browned on one side, I started to boil the 4 and 1/2 cups of water with some salt and oil. Italians would be mortified to see pasta cooked with such little water, and it's true that it doesn't do it justice, but with accurate timing (i.e. DON'T OVER COOK) you can still get good al dente pasta.

With the mutability of camp stoves and fires, taste testing is really the best way to go when cooking pasta. Using the package's time guide as a reference, test the pasta about 3 minutes sooner than the suggested cook time then you can judge how much more or less time is needed to follow.

Pinch # 3 presented itself with a dwindling gas stove. Luckily the meatballs were browned, but there wasn't enough burn to get the water boiling. With the little amount of gas left, I poured the 1/2 cup of water on the meatballs and covered the pan.

While that simmered, Ryan, wearing heavy leather gloves, transfered the pasta directly into the fire. Almost instantly it began to boil.

Once the water reduced from the meatballs, I poured over the tomato sauce, and in wondrous synchronised timing, the pasta and meatballs were ready.

Yum.