Family Meal Plan: Cloudy with a Chance of Spaghetti Un'Meat'balls+Fastest Tomato Sauce+Italian Peach Granita

Spaghetti Un'Meat'balls

Happy & Healthy Cooking,

Fun-Da-Mentals Kitchen Skills

• bake :

  to cook food with dry heat, as in an oven.

• drizzle :

  to trickle a thin stream of a liquid ingredient, like icing or sauce, over food.

• measure :

  to calculate the specific amount of an ingredient required using a measuring tool (like measuring cups or spoons).

• pulse :

  to process just short of a purée in smooth, rhythmic bursts of power with a blender.

• purée :

  to blend, grind, or mash food until it is thick, smooth, and closer to a liquid.

• roll :

  to use a rolling pin to flatten dough; use your hands to form a roll or ball shape; or move a round food, like a grape or a meatball, through another food, like sugar or breadcrumbs, to coat it.

• slice :

  to cut into thin pieces using a sawing motion with your knife.

• sprinkle :

  to scatter small drops or particles of an ingredient evenly or randomly over food. 

• stir :

  to mix together two or more ingredients with a spoon or spatula, usually in a circle pattern, or figure eight, or in whatever direction you like!

• taste :

  to put a bit of food or drink in your mouth to determine whether more of an ingredient is needed to improve the flavor.

History of Spaghetti and Meatballs!

• Spaghetti and meatballs is an Italian-American dish. Italian immigrants to the United States, especially New York City, in the late 1800s created the dish. It was inspired by dishes from southern Italy. 
• In Italy, meatballs ("polpette") are smaller than a golf ball and sometimes as small as an olive ("polpettine"). These meatballs are most likely to be served alone as a snack, in soup, or added to a baked egg-based pasta dish. 
• Because meat was more plentiful in the US, the Italian immigrants could more frequently add meatballs, and larger ones, to their pasta. They would top their spaghetti and meatballs with "marinara" (Italian for "seafaring") or "sailor-style" sauce because canned tomatoes were among the items available at local grocers. 
• A version of spaghetti and meatballs is found in almost every Italian restaurant in the United States. Parmesan cheese is often grated on top, and garlic bread is served with it.

Let's Learn About Italy!

• Italy became a unified country in 1861, only 150 years ago. It is sometimes called "bel paese" or "beautiful country."  
• Italians invented the piano and the thermometer! 
• In ancient Roman mythology, two twin brothers named Romulus and Remus founded Rome, Italy's capital city. The myth says the twins were abandoned and then discovered by a she-wolf before being found and raised by a shepherd and his wife. Eventually (and after many exciting adventures), they found themselves at the location of Palatine Hill, where Romulus built "Roma." The Italian wolf became Italy's unofficial national animal. 
• In the 1930s and 40s, Mussolini, Italy's prime minister, and dictator tried to eliminate all foreign words from the Italian language. How did he do that? He just changed them! For example, in soccer, "goal" became "meta." Disney character names changed, too: Donald Duck became "Paperino;" Mickey Mouse became "Topolino;" and Goofy became "Pippo." Although they're not banned anymore, these words and names have stuck. So now if you go to the Italian Disneyland, called Gardaland Park, you will see Topolino and Pippo! 
• About 60 million people call Italy home, and it is 116,350 square miles, slightly larger than the US state of Arizona. If you compare that to the United Kingdom, 67 million people live there, and it is about 94,350 square miles. So, the UK is smaller than Italy but has a bigger population! 
• The Italian flag is green, white, and red. These colors represent hope, faith, and charity.
• The average Italian eats close to 55 pounds of pasta annually. If you think about how light pasta is, that is a considerable amount! There are more than 500 different types of pasta eaten in Italy today. 

What's It Like to Be a Kid in Italy?

• Kids begin school at 6 years old. They grow up speaking Italian, but they learn English in school, so many become bilingual in Italian and English.
• The most popular sport for kids is football (soccer). The Italian word for soccer is "calcio," the same word they use for "kick." A favorite of younger kids is "Rody, the bouncing horse," a plastic horse that a small child can hop onto and bounce around the room. Rody was invented in Italy in 1984.  
• The family ("la famiglia") is a central characteristic of Italian life. Children have great respect for their older relatives. It is traditional to name the first male child after the grandfather and the first female child after the grandmother.
• If kids live close to school, they can go home and have lunch with their families! Lunch at school might be pasta, meat with vegetables, a sandwich, or a salad with lots of ingredients. Families typically eat dinner later (7 to 8 pm), so kids end up staying up later, too!
• Between lunch and dinner, kids often enjoy "merenda," which is an afternoon snack that translates to "something that is deserved." It is really a mini-meal that can include both savory and sweet foods. Examples of savory foods are a salami or mortadella sandwich, a slice of rustic bread rubbed with a cut, raw tomato, or "pizza bianca" (white pizza without tomato sauce). Types of sweet foods eaten during merenda are "gelato" (a lower-fat type of ice cream), any kind of cake, or biscotti dipped in warm milk.