It's Friday in Birmingham. It's 70 degrees, and the birds are singing manic tunes outside my window, flogging the life out of the few rain-free hours they're going to get today. The sky is still gray, but the clouds have pulled back a bit above the scene so that there's enough light for me to see just how green everything is beginning to get. Inside, it's hushed, as people tiptoe and murmur through the end of this quiet week that children and people who have children call Spring Break.

In short, it's nice. It's calm. Deadlines are on the horizon, but not just yet. There's a weekend of nothing-planned around the corner.

And I'm sick.

Well, let's be clear: I have a cold. A cold is more nuisance than illness. But it does mean that I feel a little more subdued than normal, ready for the clock to tell me I can put on flat shoes and wash my face. More than ready to stop punctuating the stillness around me with the sound of my honking nose.

The weather has been a little rickety in these parts lately, as it is in the South when the weirdest winter in recent memory gives way to an uncertain spring. And the spring tornado season! Yay! (Not to be confused with the summer tornado season or the winter tornado season or the fall tornado season. Pack your moving truck today!) What all that means is that this week we've had a 70-degree day and a hard freeze. And that can make a person feel a little (ahem) under the weather, if the old wives are to be believed.

It's not surprising then, that the Brussels sprout salad that had been noodling around in my head all week got a swift kick to make way for this big bowl of comfort food. I don't remember eating a lot of egg noodles in my youth, but somehow they still conjure comfort to me. They require virtually no effort, so that's a big part of the allure. But they're also slurpy and satisfying, and they cling to sauce like a dream.

I originally envisioned the meatballs as larger than I might normally make them, all the better to envelop bocconcini of mozzarella. But the bocconcini at my local market were much larger than I'd imagined they'd be, so I decided to go with this brand, which sells smaller bites, about the size of big marbles, marketed as mozzarella pearls. Oh and then I squidged some Romano into the meatball mixture because I had some in the refrigerator that needed using and because cheese makes you feel better. Trust me, I'm a doctor.

No I'm not.

It's best to pack the meatballs fairly firmly, so that the cheese doesn't ooze out, but if some manages to escape (see below), well all the better. This is comfort food, after all, and we are not aiming for perfection. Because they are a little more tightly wound than traditional meatballs, though, I really suggest searing them in a pan and then finishing them in the sauce—it keeps them nice and tender.

I sautéed fresh spinach leaves with garlic, salt, pepper, and dried crushed red pepper on the side, because I figured my immune system probably would like to make the acquaintance of a vegetable every now and again. But you can serve this just as it is, whenever you need a little comfort. Whether you're under the weather or just over it already. 

Enjoy! 


Mozzarella-stuffed Meatballs with Eggy Noodles

½ white onion, divided
1 pound lean ground beef
1 large egg
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
¼ cup fine dry breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
¼ cup shredded Romano cheese (optional)
4 ounces mozzarella pearls or chopped fresh mozzarella
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 cups fat-free beef broth
Kosher salt, to taste
Black pepper, to taste
Ground red pepper, to taste
16 ounces dry egg noodles
Garnish: flat-leaf parsley leaves

1. Cut onion into quarters. Grate ¼ onion on the fine side of a box grater into a medium bowl. Add beef, egg, next 5 ingredients, and Romano cheese, if desired; mix with hands until just combined. Place about 2 tablespoons beef mixture into the palm of your hand, pressing lightly into a small patty. Top with a mozzarella pearl, and form mixture around cheese to make a meatball. Repeat with remaining beef mixture and mozzarella.

2. Heat oil in a large, heavy bottom skillet over medium heat. Cook meatballs, in batches if necessary, until seared on all sides. (Meatballs will not be cooked through.)

3. Meanwhile, dice remaining ¼ onion. Remove meatballs to a plate, and add diced onion to skillet. Cook 2 minutes or until softened and lightly browned. Add garlic; cook 30 seconds or until fragrant. Add butter, stirring until melted. Whisk in flour, and cook 2 minutes. Whisk in beef broth until smooth. Season with salt, black pepper, and ground red pepper to taste. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until mixture thickens and comes to a boil. Return meatballs to skillet, cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook 20 minutes or until meatballs are cooked through.

4. Meanwhile, cook egg noodles according to package directions. Top noodles with meatballs and sauce; garnish, if desired. Makes 8 servings.

 

You know that warm, contented, even feeling you get when you do something for someone else? It can be anything—offering a ride to the airport, taking care of a pet, loaning your wedges when someone has nothing to wear with her new pants—but by far the fastest and easiest way to get there is by cooking. By and large, people love to have someone make a meal for them. It's comforting and stress-relieving and generous, and those are all wonderful feelings to both give and receive.

But as it turns out, you can (and I would argue, ought to) achieve the same sense of happy, self-high-fiving bliss when you cook for one.

There are a lot of rules out there that are alleged to improve the lives of single people: Eat at a proper  table. Don't eat in front of the TV. Don't dip pretzels in the tub of cream cheese and call it dinner.

I break all of those rules. Stop judgin' me, Internet advice columns. I like my couch and my Big Bang Theory and my sleeves of saltines, and I shan't apologize for it.

But the truth is that there are a lot of perks to being the only one in the house who brings home the bacon, shall we say. No one else gets to say, "I don't like mushrooms" or "Do you have to put avocado on everything?" or "Sweetie, I love you and I love turkey sandwiches, but I think this is bordering on obsession and we might need to call in some medical professionals if you don't eat something else."

It also means that, because you aren't trying to please vast numbers of all manner of people, every now and again even your recession-strained budget will let you indulge a little.

So yes I did buy this $14 filet mignon on a Tuesday night. I ate half of it with this pretty little wedge of iceberg and then turned the other half into a steak salad for lunch the next day, which technically makes this a $7 steak dinner, which technically makes this worth every penny.

The steak is loosely based on Ina's method: hot pan, sear, roast, rest. Grills are great if that's your bag, but I'm unlikely to fire up some charcoal on a weeknight when I'm just cooking for me. (Or ever, really. Fire is hot and I am clumsy.)

When I decided to make this a Caprese steak, I forgot one teensy little detail: It's late October. I took a chance and got super lucky with what has to have been the absolute last of the good late-summer tomatoes. I didn't have high hopes for it given that it had lost some of that plump cheerfulness you like to see in an Alabama mater, but when I sliced into it it was absolutely perfect.

There's a decent chance I stood at the stovetop and seared the steak with one hand while I jammed slices of juicy tomato and cold fresh mozzarella into my mouth with the other.

Reducing the balsamic is just the easiest thing in the world to do; you leave it to bubble away in a pan and let your nose tell you when it's syrupy and thick. (Wait for things to smell sweet and smoky, but do keep a half an eye on the pan so it doesn't burn!) I could even have let it reduce a bit further in this case, but I was hungry. You can see that it cascaded off the hot, melty cheese, but pooled into a dark, sticky puddle around the steak. Ain't nothin' wrong with that.

I was lazy with my wedge salad, because that's exactly what a wedge salad allows you to be. A hunk of iceberg, a drizzle of dressing, and a smattering of store-bought bacon bits were all I needed. A proper wedge salad would benefit from thick chunks of blue cheese, crispy pieces of real bacon, and bits of chopped tomato, but I had piled so many layers of goodness onto my steak that I wanted to keep things simple.

A simple salad. A splurge on a steak topped with gooey, salty cheese and sweet, lightly roasted tomato. Big, bold flecks of freshly ground black pepper all over everything. Make it for you and yours some Tuesday soon! 

Or, better yet, wait until they're out of the house and make it all for you.

Enjoy!


Seared Filet with Tomato and Fresh Mozzarella

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

1 (10-ounce) filet mignon
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

1 tomato slice

2 fresh mozzarella cheese slices

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat a grill pan or cast iron skillet over high heat 5 to 7 minutes or until very hot.

2. Meanwhile, pat steak dry with a paper towel, and sprinkle with kosher salt and black pepper on all sides. Cook steak about 2 minutes on all sides or until evenly seared (about 10 minutes total).

3. Top steak with tomato and mozzarella; place pan in oven, and cook until a thermometer inserted in thickest portion of the steak reaches 125 degrees (for medium-rare).

4. Remove steak from pan, cover loosely with aluminum foil, and let rest 10 minutes.

5. Place balsamic vinegar in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vinegar has reduced by half. Drizzle over steak before serving. Makes 1 serving.

 

Have you ever had dinner with a food blogger?

There's no question in my mind that if I had limitless funds, energy, and time, I would blog every single day.

Despite my affinity for all manner of rich foods—primarily fried potatoes and melted cheese—I feel equally strongly that there has to be something to break up the heaviness (a vegetable, some shocking spiciness) so that you don't end a meal with a brick in your stomach and a vaguely queasy feeling.

I like fresh tomatoes on my pizza and spinach in my dips and happy, crunchy cabbage in my fried rice. I'm not going to eat an Alfredo sauce unless it has 17 tablespoons of dried crushed red pepper in it.