Main Course

Johnny Marzetti

“A delicious and simple meal made with elbow macaroni & ground beef in tomato juice sauce”

Johnny marzetti is a common dinner dish from the area I live. The original recipe when it was first served here in Columbus, Ohio was at Marietta’s Restaurant. It consisted of ground beef with tomato sauce, onion, mushrooms, macaroni and topped with cheddar cheese and baked into a casserole. There are a lot of variations of this dish, for instance my wife’s family uses egg noodles and topped it with velveta cheese. The variation I’m used to in my family usually consists of  elbow macaroni with ground beef in a tomato juice sauce, very simple and easy. I have found this can be somewhat bland simply because there just isn’t much in it. I found 3 different recipes in my grandmothers and great aunts collections. These recipes all had various different ingredients but the main ingredients were pretty much the same.

Remembering back to my mothers recipe she used to make, I decided to try a few changes of my own. First I made it with half ground beef and half sausage, just to add an extra layer of flavor. Another change I made was adding garlic along with the onions again for more flavor. I don’t usually keep tomato juice in the house on a regular basis, for this reason I ended up using whole peeled tomatoes since they were canned in tomato juice.

I stayed true to the johnny marzetti I was familiar with that my mother made by using elbow macaroni which is also used in the original recipe. The final dish had great flavor and reminded me a lot of my childhood. I hope you enjoy my version of Johnny Marzetti.

Also check out the original recipe at the link below:

http://ohiothoughtsblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/johnny-marzetti-recipe-and-history.html

It is wonderful and much different than my recipe. I highly recommend trying out both and maybe even come up with your own variation and share your favorite with future generation of your family.

Enjoy!!

Gather your ingredients, I don’t have the worcestshire sauce bottle because I added it after the pic

Brown meat, then remove and drain fat

Saute onions, pepper, celery, garlic in butter and olive oil

add dried herbs

add water and juice and tomatoes

add browned beef

add (uncooked) macaroni and parsley and worcheshire sauce

cover, reduce to simmer until pasta is tender

Serve and enjoy!!!!!!!

Old Fashioned Meatloaf

“The Best Ever”

Super moist and delicious with a thick tomato meat sauce

This is absolutely the best and most surprising meatloaf recipe ever! Now I grew up in southeastern Ohio eating meatloaf, the traditional way, with ketchup slathered on top of a mostly dry loaf of meat. Not the most edible thing. One day while sorting through some of grandmas main dish recipes I realized she had 3 separate and totally different recipes for meatloaf. At first I was a little apprehensive to make a meatloaf, especially one of these recipes. The last couple meatloaf recipes I made seemed to turn somewhat dry. My wife NEVER let me forget the turkey meatloaf I made many years ago that has been a sore point for both of us. I thought the turkey meatloaf turned out pretty good, but she still insists to this day that it wasn’t totally done in the middle. I kept telling her it was but I ended up putting it back in the oven and needless to say it didn’t have a drop of moisture any where to be found and was pretty darn dry when it came back out of the oven. Anyway my wife and I will continue to have different options about that for the rest of our marriage. Back to the 3 meatloaf recipes, one was your traditional meatloaf, the one that I was used to growing up with the ketchup on top which didn’t seem to exciting to me. Another one called for carrots, celery and cabbage ground! I think it was to be ground with the meat. Since I wasn’t going to grind my own meat I decided to look at the third recipe. That recipe seemed interesting because it didn’t have ketchup instead it was topped with tomato sauce and other ingredients including vinegar and brown sugar.

So I started to make this meatloaf one sunday afternoon that my wife had taken the kids to a birthday party.  I have to tell you that week I watched an episode of the barefoot contessa on food network and she had someone on that made a meatloaf that included panko bread crumbs and milk. With this in the back of my mind I looked over the recipe and decided to saute the onions and garlic in olive oil until softened. I went to grab Panko breadcrumbs from the pantry only to find out I was fresh out. Reluctantly I decided to use regular italian bread crumbs and added a little milk to help with moisture. I mixed all the rest of the ingredients just as the recipe had called for and formed it into a loaf. I place it in a glass loaf pan that had belonged to my grandmother just to help with the authenticity of the dish. Then I combined the ingredients for the topping. I was ready to pour over and realized it didn’t call for any salt. I took a taste and boy I was glad I did. It was sooooooo bland when the pinch of salt was added it made all the difference. I thought to myself, well there was a big disaster averted. Then I poured the sauce over the meatloaf and with my eyes bulging and my jaw hitting the ground I thought what have I done. The meatloaf disappeared under the red liquid. First I thought should I remove some of the tomato sauce, or should I start over. I took a deep breathe and decided to trust the recipe and put it in the oven with my fingers crossed, just for good measure.

Well, I was a little worried for the 1 hour and 15 minutes it was baking I kept checking on it as it baked away, and each time a little bit of the liquid was evaporating and I was slowly starting to see the top of the meat. When I removed the pan from the oven and allowed to rest for 15 minutes I was super surprised with what I found. After removing the entire meatloaf from the pan I was left with a thick meat sauce that was the perfect topping for this meatloaf. It was wonderfully moist and just melted in our mouths. My wife kept going on about how wonderful it was and I played it real cool by saying it turned out just as I had expected.

I hope you find this recipe as wonderful as we did since it has become my go to meatloaf recipe. Now the argument will continue to go on about the turkey meatloaf but for this one I’m happy to say we both will agree it is the best meatloaf either of us have ever tasted.

Enjoy!

Saute onions and garlic in oil

combine ingredients for topping

Combine ingredients for meatloaf

Gently mix together

Place in loaf pan

Now this is where you have to trust me and pour ALL of the topping over the meatloaf

Bake then remove loaf from pan

Pour sauce over meatloaf and devour!!

I know what your thinking this is just another meatloaf recipe, but trust me this is by far one of the most wonderful meatloaf recipes I’ve ever had and even my wife is still going on and on and on about how this is the best meatloaf she’s ever had and I’ve told you she not an easy person to impress with meatloaf. I hope you enjoy and can share this recipe with your family for many years to come.