Sunday Night Football Sunday Night Dinner

Hello Friends! I don't know about you, but I am PUMPED about the football season. Football and hockey are my favorite sports. To commemorate the beginning of the NFL season, I went with a football friendly menu: Meatball subs! The Mister and I are trying to be reasonably healthy, so instead of fries or other bad for you starch, we had an arugula salad with the subs, which was pretty nice because the peppery arugula cut through the heavy main dish.

Aiight start with your tomato sauce. The longer you simmer a tomato sauce, the better it gets.

Mince a yellow onion, and toss it into a preheated saucepan with a four count of olive oil. Sweat the

onions over medium heat for about ten minutes. I added a good pinch of red pepper flake at this

point, but use your discretion. If you don't want any heat don't add it. Next add four cloves of chopped

garlic and cook for one more minute, then add 1/2 cup or so of your favorite red wine - a chianti

would be nice. If you don't have any red wine, white will work too - try not to use a riesling or really

sweet wine because it will make this sauce too sweet. Cook the wine down for 3 minutes or so, then

add two fifteen ounce cans of tomato puree. You can use crushed tomatoes if you want more texture

in your sauce, but I prefer a smooth tomato sauce. Taste for seasonings and add salt and pepper

accordingly, as well as a teaspoon of dried oregano. Turn your heat down to medium low and simmer

the sauce whilst you make the meatballs, stirring occasionally. Cover if you wish so your stove doesn't

get covered in tomato splatters. Add some chopped fresh basil at this point too - 10 leaves I'd say.

Now for the meatballs! Mince a medium-small yellow onion and brown in in an oven safe frying pan over medium heat

with a handful of chopped parsley. Once the onion is browned, scrape it out of the pan into a mixing bowl

to cool. Once cooled, add 1/2 pound of ground pork, 1/2 pound ground beef (85/15 people - it's SND), one egg,

a little less than 1/2 cup of dried bread crumbs (I use Panko), and a good amount of salt and ground

pepper. Time to get dirty (with clean hands)! Combine all of the ingredients using your hands, but don't

over work the meat (heh). Once the ingredients are combined, start forming your meatballs and set

aside on a plate. Make them however big or small you'd like. I went with medium-ish to fit in

the sammiches. Preheat the same pan you cooked the onions in with a two count of olive oil over

medium heat, then start browning the meatballs. Don't over-crowd the pan, if they don't all fit,

you can cook them in batches. You want them to get nice and browned on all sides, and don't

worry that they are not cooked through. They are going in the oven! Oooh that reminds me, preheat

your oven to 350 degrees. Gah, I'm the worst at that, sorry.

So once your meatballs are all browned, turn the heat off, put them all back in the pan and ladle some

of your tomato sauce (which you've continued to stir over low heat this whole time, tasting for

seasoning of course). You don't want to smother the meatballs with sauce, just ladle some around the

meatballs so that the bottom of the pan is covered. Now it gets really good: Cut some slices of

fresh bufalo mozzarella to about the same size of your meatballs and place the slices on top of the

meatballs. Dude. I know. Put the pan into the oven and cook for ten to fifteen minutes. The meatballs

will cook through and the mozzarella will melt and get bubbly and delicious. DUDE.

Prepare your bread whilst the meatballs are in the oven. We went with little ciabatta loaves, but use

whatever you like. French bread would work well too. Just don't use sliced bread, that doesn't make

any sense. Cut open your rolls, but don't slice all the way through. Put some of your tomato sauce

into the roll, then meatballs to fit. If you're like me, you'll add a little more mozzarella on top

as well as some Parmesan. Yup. I did it.

Side note: Adam put some black olives and chopped pepperoncinis on his meatball sandwich, and loved it.

Give that a try if you'd like!

Put your rolls on a sheet pan and throw them into the oven for another five to ten minutes -

melt the new cheese and get the rolls nice and toasty.

And you're ready to enjoy! Serve with your choice of sides - go for the fries or have some spaghetti

with more of your tomato sauce if you'd like. Like I said, I really liked the arugula salad, but ya'll

should Sunday Night Dinner it up as you see best.

Kisses!

D

PS Clearly I need to figure out this new fangled blogging thing. I apologize for the weird format, I don't know why

it did that and I can't figure out how to fix it. C'est la vie!