Spaghetti and meat balls

Wednesday 9 May
Yes, dear friends, sometimes nothing else will do. We still had half of the batch of previously-frozen tomato sauce, and, after pizza, what could be more American than spaghettinmeatballs? I ask you.
The basic recipe for meatballs is in New Joy, though they do some funny things that I wouldn't, like adding red wine and sprinkling your balls with onions (probably a result of that wine). Anyway, it's pretty simple: to a pound of ground beef in a big bowl, add a small onion minced fine, a big clove of garlic ditto, parsley ditto, a lightly beaten egg, a half cup of breadcrumbs (we used the last of Kathy's oatmeal bread), a couple of ounces of grated parmesan or romano, and a squirt of tomato paste - about a Tbspful. Season with salt, pepper, and a pinch of allspice, which brings out the meaty flavor. Smush the whole thing together until it's well mixed, and roll it into meatball-sized meatballs. We like to run them under the broiler rather than laboriously boiling and browning; put them on a slotted pan with a catcher, three inches from the ca. 450º heating element, until browned, about 6 minutes on one side, a bit less on the other.
Of course, you've been timing your spaghetti-boiling and sauce-heating and plate-warming so that it's all done at once (Ha! But it won't hurt the meatballs to sit in the turned-off oven for a little). Roll the spaghetti in the sauce, plate it out, adorn with as many meatballs as you want (we had 7 each out of the 22 we made), and dab with whatever's left of the sauce, plus more grated cheese. Damn tasty.