A Thrown Together Lunch - 30 Minute Spaghetti and Meatballs

Charlie on his first day with us.

It's going to be one of those crazy busy weeks. I taught this morning until 1, played with Charlie, our lab, smoked a batch of bacon, and drove my daughter to ballet and back then went to rehearsal. I hadn't really planned on what to have for lunch and my time was limited.
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I had some ground chuck so I decided to make spaghetti and meat balls. I sauteed up some onions with some onions and peppers. I threw in some ground cumin and some celery seeds and a cup of cheap red wine.

Pretty darn tasty for something thrown together.

I toasted a couple of slices of sourdough and whirled them in the food processor. I mixed those crumbs with the chuck, more cumin, salt and pepper and some juice from the can of tomatoes I was using for the sauce.

I chopped a handful of parsley. I added the chopped stems to the sauce and the leaves to the meat balls.

There were three things cooking at once (pasta, sauce, meatballs) but they all take about the same amount of time.


Total cost for today's lunch: About 3 bucks.

Slabs of pork sides. It's like really meaty and smokey bacon

I also had the smoker going today and here is the result. I used to call this bacon but it's side pork which is like bacon but there is a lot more meat than bacon. Bacon comes from the bottom of the belly of the pig, side pork is from the side.

I lightly cure it then smoke it pretty heavily so the texture is not too dry and the smoke flavor is strong.

We like to use it as a garnish for soups and salads and sauteed vegetables. I made some onions and Brussel sprouts with bits of the smoked pork and even my kids liked it!

Now if you don't care about things like your aorta, you can cut the rind off the pork and cook it in a heavy bottomed frying pan with a light weight (like another pan) on it. You'll render out a lot of the fat and get crisp smoked pork rinds. So bad for you but sooooo tasty.