Grandicap fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Apr 9, 2020

• Preheat oven to 425 F
  
• Grab two onions, set the larger of the two aside for the sauce. Remove the skin from the smaller. Make perpendicular cuts almost but not all the way through starting from the end away from the stem. Then turn it on its side and cut crosswise to produce a fine dice. (You'll be left with a bit attached to the stem, you can just chop that off and chop it up in cruder fashion... just make sure you don't have any really big chunks, for the sake of the texture of the meatballs.)
  
• Peel your garlic and mince it as finely as you have the patience for. Don't just crush it like a lazy loser.
  
• Toss the onion, garlic and dry ingredients (inc. 1/4 cup bread crumbs) to mix.
  
• Crack the egg right in there and add your tomato paste/ketchup, splash of vinegar and the meat. Knead with your hands until thoroughly mixed.
  
• Add more breadcrumbs as needed so that it's not too wet and sticky. Maybe have a helper within earshot so they can do this without getting a bunch of raw meat in your jar of breadcrumbs.
  
• Form into golf ball sized balls and place on a nonstick baking sheet.
  
• Cook for about 10-12 minutes, then roll them over and cook for another ten or so. They should be a good dark brown on all sides, though it's inevitable that they'll be more seared where they touched the baking sheet.
  
• If your sauce is ready at this point, add them directly to the pot. If not, set them aside and add them to the sauce when it's ready.
  

• Remove the skin from the larger of your two onions. Leave the stem on because this will hold it together.
  
• Grate the onion, using the coarsest side of your grater. Yes, it will sting your eyes and you will cry. Art is suffering. Try breathing through your mouth.
  
• Melt butter in a pot on medium-low heat. Add the grated onion.
  
• Let the onion saute for a few minutes. Don't let it burn or the butter get too brown.
  
• Add your seasonings, stir with the onion, then stir in your can of tomatoes and the honey.
  
• Simmer on low heat for a while, at least 10 minutes but more won't hurt. Add a little water from time to time if you're leaving it there a really long time.
  

• Fill a pot with water and stir in salt until the water is distinctly salty. Don't add oil.
  
• Bring to a boil.
  
• Add the pasta. If your pot is too small for the full length of the spaghetti, hold one end of the bunch and stir the other end in the boiling water to soften it until you can bend the noodles into the pot without breaking them.
  
• Cook, stirring frequently, for one minute less than the minimum listed on the package.
  
• Drain but do not rinse. (This is why you're cooking for less than the specified time; rinsing stops the cooking but also loses some of the pasta's flavor).
  
• Reduce the heat of the stove to its lowest setting and put the empty pot back on. Return the spaghetti to the pot.
  
• Spoon in sauce and toss the spaghetti in it. Add sauce until the spaghetti is covered with as much sauce as it can possibly hold, but not so much that you've got a bunch of wasted sauce in the bottom of the pot.
  
• Dish up pasta. Place 2-3 meatballs on the top of each plate. Garnish with parmesan, parsley and pepper, in that order. If you've got leftover sauce and meatballs, save them for another meal. They're perfectly good reheated, but it's better to boil new pasta each time.