Pasta Box Gift Set and Bobby Flay's Meatballs

For B's birthday, our good friends S & S gave him a wonderful gift box filled with delicious pappardelle noodles, two bottles of sauce and a matching set of kitchen pot holders.  They know how much B and I love to cook together so this was a perfect gift for us.

Although this gift box can last for awhile, we were eager to get into it and use the ingredients right away.  Since the preparation of the sauce and the pasta are pretty straightforward, we decided to make some meatballs to go with our dinner.  We decided to use a Bobby Flay recipe that we had previously used for a big family-style Italian dinner for my friends over New Years Eve weekend.  It had been a big hit and we hadn't made these meatballs since then.

First we put the tomato basil sauce on a very low simmer.  Because it tasted really flavorful, I opted not to add any sauteed garlic or onion to it like I usually do with bottled pasta sauce.  I did add a bit of crushed red pepper flakes and oregano to add a bit more spice to the sauce.

While the sauce was on a low simmer on the back burner, we got to work on the meatballs.  First, B minced and sauteed eight small cloves of garlic.  We doubled the amount called for in the recipe since we both really like garlic.

After the garlic was sauteed, B took it out of the pan and set it aside to cool.  While the garlic was cooling, we began to prep our other ingredients for the meatballs.  I whisked up two eggs.

I also got a generous quarter cup of bread crumbs and set it aside.  Normally I like to use Italian bread crumbs but we were all out and I stuck with just plain bread crumbs.

B also chopped up a few handfuls of flat Italian parsley.  We only needed a quarter cup and anything extra went into our pasta sauce.

Then came the fun part, mixing all of the ingredients together with 1/2 pound each of pork, veal and beef.

This resulted in a lot of delicious looking meatballs:

By this time, the sauce was sufficiently hot so when the meatballs were ready, we dropped the meatballs in the sauce to cook.  I also began boiling the water for the pasta with a little bit of salt.  When the water was ready, I dropped the pappardelle into the water.  I kept an eye on the pasta and giving it a stir from time to time.

I wanted to make a simple side salad to go along with our pasta, so I looked through our fridge to see what ingredients we had.  B picked up our go-to salad - Olivia's Organics Spring Mix.

I also chopped up one tomato we had left in the fridge and crumbled up pieces of the herb goat cheese that we had snacked on during the proposal picnic.

The salad looked really fresh and healthy and was a perfect side to our pasta.  We also made some simple garlic bread using a small baguette, garlic powder and butter but somehow that never made it into the photos!
I will say that our kitchen smelled so delicious with the aromas of the meatballs, garlic bread and the pasta sauce.

To go with our dinner, I poured two glasses of Kung Fu Girl Reisling.  Even though red wine would have been more appropriate, this was a leftover chilled bottle from B's birthday celebration and I wanted to put it to use!

I've tried this wine before from Best Cellars and I absolutely love the label.  Isn't it adorable?

But back to the meal - the pasta was cooked to a perfect al dente (if I do say so myself) and topped with the delicious tender meatballs.

Although the recipe recommends searing the meatballs first before adding it to the sauce, I actually like the meatball to be a bit softer with pasta so we opted to drop it right into the sauce.  I think you can really go either way with this depending on your preference.

We had so much leftovers that we both brought some pasta for lunch today and froze the rest of the meatballs for one of those lazy meals - to make pasta again or for meatball sandwiches.

Thanks to S & S for their amazing pasta box gift set and for inspiring us to make such a wonderful meal!