A Recipe for Meatballs in Creamy Portobelo Mushroom Sauce

First in a series of ridiculously stupid stories about my life and dating misadventures, with recipes.

It was April of last year and I was on a first date, one of way too many that didn’t evolve into anything last year, but that’s another story. We met at 3 Palms in Hudson where she lived. It was a Sunday afternoon.

About 15 minutes into the date there is a loud crash behind me. I turn and see a huge man, probably like 400 pounds lying on the floor. He was clearly drunk, fell and took out a couple tables on his way down. Two young men were struggling to lift him to his feet.

They got him up and began to walk him to the door. His pants were sagging in the front and back with an enormous butt crack showing in the back and his huge belly hanging over his pants in the front. (did I mention it was Sunday at about 1:00 PM?)

Now my date and I are sitting next to the window.

The two men, each with one of the drunk dudes arm around them exited the bar, and began dragging him down the sidewalk right next the window where we were seated.

As they passed, the huge drunk mans pants dropped to his ankles. Shockingly, no underpants, just manhood. The man stepped out of his pants and continued to be assisted down the sidewalk, literally half naked.

About a half block later they shoved him into a car leaving the fat man’s deserted pants on the sidewalk in downtown Hudson.

I turned to my date and asked, “Does this happen a lot in Hudson?” “No.” she said.

I ordered the Meatballs in Portobello mushroom cream sauce that day. It was fantastic. I tried to recreate it at home and here is what I came up with.

Meatballs:

½ lb of ground beef
½ lb. of pork sausage
1/3 cup minced onion
couple gloves of garlic (minced)
1/3 cup breadcrumbs
tbsp of basil
1 egg
Tbsp of Worcestershire sauce
Pinch of salt
Pinch of pepper

Portobello mushroom cream sauce:

½ cup of Portobello mushrooms chopped up
½ cup of onions sliced
More garlic
Handfull of spinach
½ pt of heavy cream
1/8 cup of Marsala wine
big glob of butter
3 strips of bacon cooked and chopped up
tbsp of stone ground mustard
2 beef bullion cubes smashed
pepper

Pour yourself a glass of wine. This is an important first step.

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees
Mix all the meatball ingredients together and make them into golf ball size meatballs.
And bake them for 18 minutes
Meanwhile…
Melt the glob of butter in a skillet. Add some olive oil. Add the spinach, onion, garlic and mushrooms and sauté till they are all nice and mushy.
Add the cream, wine and bullion.
Stir it around a lot. Add pepper but make sure the lid is secure before you do.
Make some rice. You don’t have to but it makes it look good and holds the meatballs in place.
Roll the meatballs around in the sauce for awhile until they are coated in sauce.
Put it all on a plate and make it look fancy. Then enjoy.