The Yum Yum Factor

So, recently, I finally made  Marcella Hazan's buttery tomato sauce and, unlike the other 98% of the food world, I didn't totally fall in love with it. I found it a bit too rich and buttery (if that can even happen) and missed the olive oil taste in my marinara. I didn't dislike it, I just didn't love it beyond all other sauces. What I did like was the silky texture the butter gave it and the ease of preparation and I wanted to try it again with less butter and some olive oil replacing the lost butter, finally settling on a ratio of 2 tbls butter/3 tbls of olive oil. This mix gave me the rich, silky texture but the olive oil flavour I was missing so much. Shack woke up on Sunday morning with a craving for cabbage rolls but, unfortunately, he didn't share that with me until early afternoon. Cabbage rolls are not something you can just whip on on a whim. My mom, who was famous in our family for a couple of dishes, made a mean cabbage roll and I miss them treme...

I don't think I have ever met a meatball that I didn't like. In this house we are all about the lovely balls of meat. Whether it's swedish meatballs, spaghetti and meatballs, my vietnamese bbq pork meatballs, sticky meatballs, saucy meatballs, spicy korean meatballs or lamb and mint meatballs - any meat that can get jammed into my meat grinder ends up as a meatball at some point, so watch your step when you visit.