My father, an Italian, was a spaghetti expert. “Meatballs,” he said, “need to be as big as your fist.” On spaghetti nights, he’d watch with his arms crossed as I dug into one of his homemade meatballs, which, back then, were almost the size of my head. “A meatball has to sit on the spaghetti like an egg in a nest,” he continued. No matter that it looked like a bowling ball squashing the last breath out of every noodle on my plate. The meatball was always the main attraction. Spaghetti was secondary.

In my childhood, a meatball’s most familiar place was on top of a mound of sauced-up noodles. As I got older, these meaty nuggets made appearances at cocktail parties swathed in barbecue sauce, between tiny hamburger buns as sliders, even as massive floaters in soup (albondigas, anyone?). The meatball’s versatility knew no bounds, gracing the plate in large and mini versions, spicy or sweet, sometimes made with a combination of meats and spices. Even with all these possibilities, a meatball in its simplest form is just meat, some seasoning and something to bind it all together. The spices, the exotic-sounding ingredients – those all stem from the same, basic recipe. Once you have that, you’re free to experiment to your heart’s content.

Tuck this basic meatball recipe into your back pocket so it’ll be at the ready when you need some easy meals and appetizers. Though it calls only for ground beef, don’t be shy about trying other meats, like pork and chicken. For a little heat, sub out some of the ground beef with spicy sausage. You can also experiment with herbs and spices while you’re at it. I’ve included some suggestions for serving at the bottom of the recipe.
BASIC MEATBALLS
Yield: 22 to 24 meatballs

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup onion, minced
• 1/3 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
• 1/3 cup milk
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 egg
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Procedure:
1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking pan or cookie sheet with parchment paper.
3. Shape mixture into the size of golf balls and place on prepared pan about 2 inches apart. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until cooked through and slightly browned. Remove from oven and serve alone, or in the following variations.
Cocktail-style: Grab a bottle of your favorite barbecue sauce and empty its contents into a pot. Simmer meatballs in barbecue sauce until hot. Pour all into a serving dish, and serve with cocktail forks or toothpicks.
Hawaiian sliders: You’ll need a package of Hawaiian rolls, pineapple rings and apricot jam. Split Hawaiian rolls in half and toast on a baking sheet in the oven for a few minutes. Empty jar of apricot jam into a pot or microwave-safe bowl, and heat until jam is pourable. Brush each meatball with apricot jam and place on Hawaiian roll. Top with pineapple and serve. You can also grill the pineapple rings.
Meatball sandwiches: You’ll need 4 French rolls, 8 slices of provolone cheese and 2 cups of marinara sauce. Simmer about 16 of the meatballs in marinara until hot. Split French rolls in half lengthwise and place on a baking sheet. Line each half with slices of provolone cheese, and toast in the oven until cheese is melted. Spoon in 4 meatballs per French roll and serve.
Spaghetti and meatballs: Simmer meatballs in marinara sauce until hot. Spoon over spaghetti noodles and toss.
Soup: Whenever a recipe calls for meatballs (like Italian wedding soup, or albondigas), drop these in.
To store: Cooked meatballs can be kept in an airtight bag or container for up to two months. This is convenient if you plan to make spaghetti or soup in the coming weeks. Just take a few out of the freezer and pop into the sauce or broth to heat through.

If you’ve been around long enough, you may have noticed things are getting a bit green in here, what with a salad and a broccoli rabe-heavy spaetzle as my last two recipe posts. Green just seems like the thing to do in the middle of February. Maybe it’s a subconscious thing to counteract all that V-day red we’ve been seeing, or maybe I’m jumping the gun into March. Either way, it just feels right.

These recipes were inspired by the simple pear, basil and parmesan salad I made for L.A.’s Stir It 28 event for Haiti last weekend (that of which I adapted from Leite’s Culinaria). People really seemed to like the combination of pear and basil.

For those not familiar with Stir It 28, read the rundown here. A handful of dedicated and super-friendly food bloggers, caterers and chefs descended on Greg/SippitySup’s lovely Hollywood Hills kitchen in the name of Haiti. (I’m compelled to mention here that Greg has excellent taste in knives. Shun, baby.) We cooked for an estimated 75 guests, all whom donated to the Stir It 28 Haiti fund. For more coverage of the L.A. event, visit the Duo Dishes, The Food Addicts, Uncouth Gourmands, South Bay Rants n Raves and Domestic Divas. (I’ll add more links as they come in!) If you didn’t attend the event, you can still donate to the cause by visiting Flanboyant Eats or CocoCooks and clicking on the logo. All proceeds benefit Share Our Strength and Yele Haiti. Donations will be accepted until Feb. 28.

So back to the recipe: The pesto portion of these recipes can be doubled, tripled – quadrupled even – to suit your needs. And if you have more than an hour on your hands, I suggest cooking the onions down until they’re really browned — not just a golden brown. The darker they are, the sweeter they will be.

PEAR AND PESTO CROSTINI
Yield: 2 to 3 servings (or if you’re me, 1 serving)

• 1/2 loaf French bread
• 2 cups packed basil leaves
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1/4 cup Pecorino Romano
• 3 tablespoons your best olive oil
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 Bosc pear

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice French loaf into 1/2-inch-thick slices, and brush (or spray, if you have one of those nifty Misto things) with olive oil. Place slices on baking sheet and toast in oven for 10-15 minutes, or until edges are a deep golden brown. Remove from oven and set aside.
2. While those are in the oven, make your pesto. In a food processor, combine basil leaves, garlic clove, pine nuts and Romano cheese. Pulse until pesto is coarse in texture, like coarse sand. Add in olive oil and process until fully incorporated. Taste. Add salt and pepper, if needed. Scrape pesto into a serving bowl or dish and set aside. (You should have about 3/4 cup.)
3. Cut pear into thin slices and place on a platter with crostini and pesto. To assemble: Spread pesto over crostini and top with pear and fresh ground black pepper, if desired. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for skirt steak/caramelized onion recipe.)

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Dear readers, I am in a funk. And not the good kind that allows you to wear a sequined gold dress and your sunglasses at night. The kind where everything you cook burns or tastes weird and everything you write reads cliché. It’s not a good place to be.

But onward we go, because cooking and writing is what we do here, however cringeworthy or awesome either turn out.

In the span of one week, four out of the five dishes prepared by my hands ended up as spectacular trainwrecks – ones that made microwaved frozen meals look like five-star food. The sole saving grace was this pasta with meat sauce, which is made annually at the first sign of winter’s chilly weather. It’s a hearty sauce thicker than blood, like an Italian chili almost, that goes well with garlic bread and even eaten alone in a bowl with a large spoon, should you be so bold.

In this case, it’s paired with a fresh pasta recipe adapted from Michael Ruhlman’s “Ratio,” using just the basics: flour and eggs. Nothing else.

I’ve been making this meat sauce for years, and thus it’s a recipe built on intuition. It’s a sauce that does its job and does it well, and with all of the flops I’ve been cranking out lately, it also helps to remind me that success, however little or large, is very, very sweet. And filling. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipes)

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