Sunday Red Gravy and Pasta: Marathoners Treat

When my friend Dan asked me to cook for his family who were to run the Champaign Marathon, I readily agreed.  Dinner for 8?  No problem, even for a Friday night.  Little did I know that dinner for 8 would morph into dinner for 20.  But what to cook?  What do you feed people the night before a 26 mile run?  Pasta.  Of course, pasta.  But pasta for 20 in a small kitchen?  So, I decided to go with something tried, true, healthy and delicious.  Red gravy, or red sauce, depending on who you are talking to.

Do you know red gravy?  That meat based red sauce so ubiquitous, so easy to do terribly.  I don't know about you, but red gravy is the bane of my restaurant existence.  Rarely is it anything but too sweet.  So my personal rule of thumb is to not order anything with a red sauce in an Italian restaurant.  But I love a good red gravy, like the one my former father-in-law taught me how to make some 20 years ago.

The recipe below is tried and true. It is rich, but not sweet.  The flavor of the sauce comes from the meat used, so the better quality sausages you can get, the better your sauce will be.  There is nothing here that should intimidate you.  Yes, it takes all day, but most of that time is completely hands off.  I used ground turkey and turkey sausages because I was feeding runners and wanted to keep the fat content of the food I made as low as possible.  You, of course, could substitute beef or a combination of beef and pork.  I hope you will make this recipe. It is simply delicious and goes beautifully with any number of pastas.  It can easily be frozen and saved for a later date.

Meatballs:
1 lb. ground turkey
2 slices white bread
1/4 c. buttermilk
1 onion, finely minced
4 cloves garlic
1/4 cup parsley
1 t. dried oregano
1/2 t. fennel seeds, bruised in a mortar and pestle
1 t. salt
1/4 t. crushed red chiles
1 egg
Directions:  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Pour the buttermilk over the bread and let sit while you make the rest of the meatballs.  Mix the onions, garlic, parsley, oregano, fennel, salt, red chiles and egg in a medium sized bowl.  Mush up the bread and add it along with any remaining buttermilk to the vegetable mix. Gently mix in the meat.  At this point, cook up a bit of the meat in a frying pan.  Taste it and adjust your seasonings as needed.

Roll your meatballs into golfball sized balls.  Place them on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 1/2 hour.

Sunday Red Gravy:
1-11/4 lbs. Italian sausage (sweet or hot depending on your preference)
1 T. olive oil
2 c. onions, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 c. green peppers, finely chopped
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
1 small can tomato paste (about 1/4 cup)
3 28 oz. cans tomato sauce
1 28 oz. can whole peeled tomatoes, crushed in a food processor or blender
1 bay leaf
salt to taste

Directions:  Heat olive oil in a large, heavy bottomed Dutch oven.  Add the sausage and brown on all sides.  Remove the sausages to a plate.  Add the onions, green peppers, and mushrooms.  Saute, scraping up the bits (fond) on the bottom of the pan as the vegetables sweat.  When the vegetables are all soft (about 10 minutes), add the garlic and cook for one minute.  Add the tomato paste and continue to stir and cook until the color of the paste becomes a rich, deeper red, about 7 minutes.  Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, bay leaf, sausage, and meatballs. Add 3 cups of water and stir.  Bring this to a simmer, and simmer for 4-6 hours, stirring every once in a while to prevent sticking.  Add salt as needed.

Serve your red gravy with fettucini, angel hair pasta, penne, cheese or meat ravioli, or lasagna.
Enjoy!