CLAY POT MEATBALLS AND GANGSTER SAUCE

I’m calling this a gangster sauce because I stole it.  It came from a jar!  It came from a Rao’s 24 ounce jar of Tomato Basil sauce, to be exact.  And guess what, it was excellent.  Don’t get me wrong, I love to cook a red sauce in a big pot on the stove all afternoon.  The house smells amazing and nothing beats a slowly simmered tomato sauce.  But when you cook this sauce with meatballs in a clay pot for an hour the result is surprisingly authentic.  And this can work on a weeknight, so why not?  In this case, I used my left-over meatloaf mix, made meatballs, sauteed them, popped them into the pot with the jarred sauce and an hour later, I had a meal that was better than most restaurant spaghetti and meatballs.  The balls were so amazingly tender and flavorful, fit for a screening of The Godfather (1972) and that’s saying something.  And, no, they don’t look perfect.  Some of them are a little dark from the skillet (which frankly was delicious) and they are not all the same size.  One or two of them fell apart a little.  But home cooking doesn’t have to be perfect to be PERFECT.

This is a meal I would serve to King Charles, by the way.  I could make him a lovely spaghetti dinner.  If he would just come over.  He could put his feet on my coffee table and lounge on the new Jack Lenor Larson sofa that I paid too much for and no one else can sit on.  I think he would like Josephine and Zelda.  And I already have a tiara.