Before and After

 I rarely take pictures while I'm cooking (so kudos to all those bloggers who do step-by-step tutorials), mostly because I'm up to my elbows and don't want to make more of a mess than I'm already making. But I happened to have these photo pairs and glancing back at them made me so happy.

This first pair is a lovely lemony meatball from Ottolenghi. I loved how orange that egg looked with the meat and seasonings. These were really delicious -- very light and juicy. I made a quick substitution of frozen edamame for the fava beans called for, and that made this a very simple weeknight dish. However, it ended up only somewhere on the mid-level of the Lucas Thumb Scale. I did much better subsequently with an adaptation of a kofte dish that was served with a tahini-yogurt sauce and a sauce of roasted peppers and pomegranate molasses over pita with caramelized onions.

The set below is a fabulous slow-roasted pork shoulder I did after reading a very enjoyable romantic comedy called Out to Lunch by Stacey Ballis. The novel is about a caterer who is mourning the death of her best friend and business partner while trying to pursue a romantic life, and it's peppered with delicious-sounding food. I was pleased when I reached the end of the book to find a collection of recipes for the dishes described. This pork sounded so good, and it was. After cooking it over all those vegetables, including fennel, the vegetables and pan juices are blended to make a delicious sauce. I served it with another dish from the book, a fennel-green apple-green cabbage slaw with a ginger soy dressing. This one got unanimous thumbs up. I wish I'd gone for an even bigger pork shoulder, because I could have eaten those leftovers for a week straight if I'd had them.

Right round, baby, right round

Yes, the theme of this post is "round." Round, as in the shape of the little tiny meatballs I made for dinner. Round, as in the circumference of each strand of spaghetti. Round, as in the shape the tomatoes were before they were pounded into submission. Round, as in the shape of my distended belly after I ate a gigantic bowl of the stuff.

Here is how it went down: my friend, Mr. X, organized the purchase of a side of grass-fed beef, and invited me to participate. The dividing up took place over the weekend, but as I was otherwise occupied drinking too much and eating foie gras bread pudding with Meg and Pam, I had to pick mine up from Mrs. X last night. And what a haul -- all the meat that's fit to eat, all delicious and nicely wrapped for the freezer, about 40 pounds of it. One pack of hamburger started to thaw on the way home, so I set that aside to eat today. At first I thought I'd make just a Nice Juicy Hamburger (as my mother would say, when she was trying to sell us the concept of going out for a nice simple dinner on the nights she'd worked and didn't feel like cooking when she got home). But as we were out of buns, ketchup, tomatoes, onions, and probably a million other things, I decided to do meatballs and spaghetti.

These are good -- they're based on Nigella Lawson's recipe. Of course, she makes her pasta by hand, which will happen around here approximately when hell freezes over. They're a little fussier than my usual midweek cooking, but somehow I managed to get it done, even with Mr. Gateau at work late and the mini-Gateaus (Gateaux? cupcakes?) engaging in their usual chaos. I happened to have in the freezer a couple of Ziploc bags of roasted tomato puree I made last summer after I bought a ridiculous amount of tomatoes at the farmer's market, so I was able to use up one of those. There is something incredibly appealing about a bite-sized meatball, even if they are kind of a pain to make.

Delicious as these are, I've been craving sweet-and-sour meatballs of the sort this friend of my parents used to make when we'd go visit them in Philadelphia. I suspect that they won't taste quite right until I break down and use grape jelly as the sweetening agent. Stay tuned -- there is a lot of meat in my house and I intend to use it.