Ricotta Meatballs with Ziti

Two weeks until surgery. The countdown has begun, and it ticks in the background of everything — behind breakfast, behind work, behind bedtime stories, behind the smile I wear for Mason and Lily that is 90% real and 10% structural engineering. I am holding myself together with discipline and routine and the Dawson family tradition of refusing to fall apart when falling apart would be the most reasonable response.

I went for pre-surgical testing on Monday. Blood work, EKG, chest X-ray, more forms, more signatures, more moments of sitting in waiting rooms wearing paper gowns and reading magazines from 2014 and wondering if the other women in paper gowns are also pretending to be calm. I've decided that hospitals are designed by people who have never been patients. The fluorescent lighting alone is enough to make you sick even if you weren't when you walked in.

Scott is trying. I will give him that. He's been home every evening this week — no garage disappearances, no buddy's houses, no third beer. He took Mason to T-ball practice on Thursday, which is normally my job. He bathed Lily on Wednesday, which usually ends with more water on Scott than on Lily, but he did it. He's doing the things that need to be done, and I appreciate it, even as part of me wonders how long it will last. Even as part of me knows that it took cancer to get him to show up consistently, and that is not a sustainable motivation.

Mom called every day this week. Every single day. This is unprecedented — Diane Dawson is a Sunday caller, a once-a-week woman, a believer in the idea that people don't need to talk every day because if something important happened they'd call. But cancer changes the rules. Cancer makes your mother call you every day and ask, "How are you?" and mean it in a way that goes so far beyond the words that you can feel it in your teeth.

Brett came over Saturday and we sat on the porch and he said, "I looked up the survival rates." I said, "Don't." He said, "They're good. Stage II, five-year survival rate is —" and I said, "Brett. Don't." Because I know the numbers. I've looked them up at 3 AM on my phone in the dark bathroom while everyone sleeps, the blue light of the screen making my face look ghostly and the numbers blurring through tears. I know the numbers. I don't need my brother to recite them. I need my brother to sit on the porch and drink a beer and tell me about Claire and be normal. And he did. He switched topics so smoothly that if I didn't know him I wouldn't have seen the effort. But I know him. And I saw it.

I spent Sunday batch cooking for the surgery recovery. I know I won't be able to cook for weeks — maybe longer, depending on how the recovery goes and when chemo starts. So I cooked all day: beef stew, chicken pot pie filling, enchiladas, meatballs in marinara, soup. I portioned everything into freezer containers and labeled them with dates and reheating instructions, like a woman preparing for a siege, which is exactly what I'm doing. The freezer is full. The pantry is stocked. The house is clean. The children are cared for. Everything is in order. I am as ready as a person can be for someone to cut her open and take something away.

The meatballs in marinara were the last thing I made that Sunday — the anchor of the whole batch-cooking day, the one I knew the kids would actually eat without negotiation. There’s something about a pot of meatballs simmering on the stove that makes a house feel cared for, and I needed that feeling as much as my family did. I portioned them into four containers, labeled each one in my neatest handwriting, and stacked them in the freezer like a small act of faith — proof that I’d be back to refill it.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef (85/15)
1/2 lb ground pork
3/4 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
1/3 cup grated Pecorino Romano, plus more for serving
1/2 cup plain breadcrumbs
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 tbsp olive oil
1 jar (24 oz) marinara sauce (or homemade)
1 lb ziti pasta

Instructions

Mix the meatballs. In a large bowl, combine ground beef, ground pork, ricotta, Pecorino, breadcrumbs, eggs, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Mix gently with your hands until just combined — do not overwork the meat or the meatballs will be dense.
Form. Roll the mixture into balls about 1 1/2 inches in diameter (roughly the size of a golf ball). You should get 24–28 meatballs. Place them on a parchment-lined sheet pan.
Brown. Heat olive oil in a large, deep skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Working in batches, brown the meatballs on all sides, about 4–5 minutes per batch. They don’t need to be cooked through at this stage. Transfer browned meatballs to a plate.
Simmer in sauce. Pour marinara into the same pot, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom. Nestle the meatballs into the sauce, cover, and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes until meatballs are cooked through and the sauce has thickened slightly.
Cook the ziti. While meatballs finish simmering, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook ziti according to package directions until al dente. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup pasta water.
Serve or store. Toss ziti with a ladle of sauce, then plate and top with meatballs and additional sauce. Finish with grated Pecorino. To freeze: Cool meatballs and sauce completely, then portion into airtight containers (separate from pasta). Label with date and reheating instructions. Freeze up to 3 months. Reheat sauce and meatballs covered in a 350°F oven for 25–30 minutes or on the stovetop over low heat.

Nutrition (per serving)

Ricotta Meatballs with Ziti — The Batch I Made Before the Surgery