Meatballs and Spaghetti

Another day - another dinner.  Last night - meatballs and spaghetti.  I tried a new kind of pasta since I wasn't able to get to Whole foods to buy my normal GF spaghetti - brands like Schar or Tinkyada.  I used instead Hodgson Mill's brown rice pasta.  I found it to be very good with the sauce, but it definitely took longer to boil and was higher in starch than the ones I've used in the past.

I did also mix the ground beef with some Alesia's bread crumbs and one egg to make the mixture more flavorful and moist.

First I pre-heated the oven to 325 degrees.  Then I combined the meat, breadcrumbs and egg in a bowl and heated a skillet on the stovetop with a tablespoon of vegetable oil. Once it was hot I rolled the beef into balls and added to the skillet.  After a few minutes (until they were brown on one side) I turned them so they browned evenly on all sides.  Next I prepped them to go into the oven.  I like using a cookie drying rack that sits above a broiler pan so the meat drippings would fall through the grates, but the meat would not stick to the bottom of the pan (and also the meatballs remain round).

While the meatballs were cooking (about 20-25 minutes) I cooked the pasta on the stovetop and heated up the sauce.  My husband likes to make his own sauce (he is Italian) so we added onions, garlic to the skillet that I browned the meat in, then added it to a small saucepan on the stove with some tomato paste and red wine.  Added in some fresh tomato chunks and some canned sauce to give a good consistency.

Topped it off with some Parmesan and voila!