Six large meatballs are tucked under a
blanket of smooth tomato sauce. Photo by
Faith Tomases | THE NIBBLE.

The Flying Meatballs is a side business established by an elegant restaurant in Whippany, New Jersey, Il Capriccio. The restaurant’s meatballs have been a perennial menu favorite, with patrons always asking for orders to go.

The Grande family, owners of the restaurant, decided that the meatballs were ideal for selling directly to consumers—that they would literally “fly off the shelves.” Hence the brand name.

Made in small batches, the meatballs are now sold direct-to-consumers at TheFlyingMeatballs.com). They’ll also be at a growing list of deli counters, currently at Balducci’s and King’s (listen up, Fairway!).

Six meatballs, blanketed in sauce, include a choice of:

Everything is made from scratch, including the breadcrumbs. Just as at the restaurant, prime, natural cuts of meat and premium ingredients are combined into a dense yet tender texture. You get lots of great meat for the money.

Chef Grande has a degree in engineering, which enabled him to design and build a proprietary meatball extruder. The technology creates a replicate a perfectly hand-rolled meatball, just like his grandmother makes.

The meatballs are flash frozen after being made and keep their flavor and consistency until thawed and cooked.

“We’re bringing the comforts of Nonna’s kitchen to customers’ doorsteps,” says chef Natale Grande. The recipe, handed down through generations, rocks. We must give a shout out to the wonderful sauce. A velvety purée, more a gravy than a conventional chunky sauce, it is so good we would like to buy buckets of it and put it on everything.

Pasta

The company also sells premium imported pastas from Rustichella d’Abruzzo:

 
Grating Cheeses

For a primo pasta experience, there’s a choice of six aged Italian cheeses:

 
You can see that it’s not all about Parmigiano-Reggiano. The next time you make pasta, consider one of the others. Check out our article, Italian Grating Cheeses.
 
Pasta Sauces

The same is true with the sauce. Much as a tomato sauce is beloved on pasta, consider other favorites from the Grande family, including:

 
Along with some fine olive oils and a mac and cheese (a blend of Gruyère, provolone and marscopone with a touch of nutmeg over imported gemelli pasta—we can’t wait to try it), TheFlyingMeatballs.com is a treasure trove for delicious Italian comfort food.

For a treat or a gift (the packaging is quite attractive), order a slew of meatballs. All are delicious, although our personal favorite was the complex layering of Three Meats.
  

Yes, it’s colder here than in Fargo!

So some warming comfort food is required. We recommend hot chocolate made from scratch.

No matter how much you enjoy hot chocolate from packets—even the pricier ones—making it from scratch produces a far superior product. It’s richer and more chocolaty, with a sweetness level you can adapt and your choice of milk (lactose free, nondairy, whatever).

EASY HOT CHOCOLATE FROM SCRATCH

Unwrap a bar of your favorite good-quality chocolate (or leftover solid Valentine chocolate) in a mug of steamed milk. Like hot chocolate on a stick, you stir until the chocolate melts.

If you don’t have a steamer, just heat the mil

Mora Iced Creamery, on Bainbridge Island outside Seattle, serves something like this called a Submarino” in a glass mug. The chocolate “submarine” melts and turn the “oceand” from white to chocolate brown.

In Columbus, Ohio, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams serves a variation called Hot Chocolate Soup: hot chocolate in a café au lait bowl, served with animal crackers and a handmade marshmallow.

Art Pollard of Amano Artisan Chocolate in Utah favors a Chocolate & Cream, a preparation of 2 ounces of his delicious chocolate bars melted into a mug’s worth of whole milk combined with 2 tablespoons of heavy cream.

The City Bakery in New York City adds two tablespoons of butter instead of the heavy cream. (Try it if you like things really rich.)

When you use actual chocolate, including ground chocolate (often labeled as drinking chocolate) instead of cocoa powder, you are making hot chocolate. Here’s the difference between cocoa and hot chocolate.

RECIPE: HOT CHOCOLATE FROM SCRATCH

Ingredients Per Large Cup/Mug

 
*You can substitute lowfat or nonfat milk. The drink will simply be less rich. Similarly, you can substitute light cream or half and half for the heavy cream.
 
Preparation

2. HEAT 3/4 cup whole milk plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream (or 3/4 cup milk plus 2 tablespoons of water) in a small, nonreactive saucepan. If using the cream mixture, stir frequently, preferably with a small whisk, until the mixture is steaming hot. If using water, the mixture should be almost at a boil.

3. ADD the processed chocolate mixture. Whisk in well until it is dissolved and the mixture is steaming hot.

4. GARNISH as desired and serve immediately. Yields one large or two more reasonable servings
 
Here are 30 different ways to alter the recipe.
 
MORE HOT CHOCOLATE RECIPES

Heading out to the liquor store to pick up a bottle for Valentine’s Day? Here are some tips:

Don’t purchase a vintage year Champagne. Vintage champagnes typically need to be laid down for 10 or 15 years to reveal their glorious nuances. Knowledgeable people who buy them don’t plan to drink them anytime soon. Instead, you’ll save money and have a better taste experience with nonvintage Champagne.

Do look for rosé Champagne, as “real” pink-hued Champagne is called. Fuller in body with a deeper flavor, it’s our personal favorite. (It’s also pricier due to the extra steps required to extract the pink color. Taittinger Brut Prestige Rosé is a beauty, with the greater roundness that rosé Champagnes have. It’s priced in between the nonvintage and vintage Taittingers, around $65.00.

Don’t buy anything called “Pink Champagne.” It is not French but inexpensive wine, carbonated and colored pink. Authentic rosé Champagne (and other natural rosé wines) get their color by extracting it from the grape skins into the white juice.

Do look for non-Champagne rose sparklers. Two of our favorites: [yellow tail] Bubbles Rosé from Australia (yes, it’s spelled lower case and in brackets) and Martini Sparkling Rosé Wine from Italy. Both are not much more than $10 a bottle, but don’t let the price fool you. They’re delicious! Another favorite, Chandon Rosé, from California is about $22.00.

If you don’t want sparkling wine, buy rosé, a pink still wine.

MORE VALENTINE WINE IDEAS

Here are some of our favorite Valentine wines.

More of our favorite rosé Champagnes.

Whatever is in your glass, have a delicious Valentine’s Day.

 
*While sec means “dry” in French and demi-sec means “half dry,” as the terms refer to Champagne, they indicates sweetness.

Buy a plain, iced store-bought cake and add your own decorating touch. It combines store-bought with “homemade.”

While you can buy a Valentine cake at any supermarket, most have tacky plastic decorations. You can do a much nicer job by adding your own delicious decorations to a plain frosted cake.

BAKING YOUR OWN CAKE

If you want to bake, you don’t need to make layers. Buy a box of cake mix (chocolate, red velvet, white or yellow) and toss a bundt cake, loaf cake or single-layer mini sheet cake into the oven.

About the icing:

The bakery section of your supermarket may sell tubs of buttercream (CK Products makes it). It’s not as good as homemade, but it’s far better than canned frosting.

Or, take 10 minutes to make real buttercream. All you need is a stick of butter, a cup of confectioners’ sugar, 1/4 cup whole milk and the flavoring of your choice: 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, 4 ounces chocolate or 1 teaspoon instant coffee. Just blend them together and ice away!

Here’s the recipe.
  

[2] Look for the reddest raspberries you can find. They’ll give more red color to the cake.

Here’s another delicious Valentine recipe from Annalise of Completely Delicious, sent to us via Go Bold With Butter. Everyone thinks they’re getting a conventional chocolate cake, until slicing it reveals the raspberry surprise. The raspberries blend into the cake as it bakes, creating little bursts of bright flavor to contrast with the rich chocolate.

This combination of chocolate and fresh raspberries in a buttery Bundt cake is a match made in heaven (just like you and your Valentine?).

Personally, we’re not keen on the powdered sugar garnish. Many people like it, but it just ends up all over the place (including our clothes!).

> The history of the Bundt cake.

> The history of raspberries.

> The history of chocolate.
 
 
RECIPE: CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY BUNDT CAKE

Ingredients For A 9-Inch Cake

1. PREHEAT the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a 9-inch bundt pan.

2. COMBINE the flour, cocoa, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, mixing after each, and stir in the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients in 3 batches, alternating with the buttermilk, scraping down bowl as needed.

3. SPOON the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the raspberries on top (they will sink as the cake bakes). Bake 45-60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs.

4. LET the cake cool completely in the pan, then turn it out onto a plate or cake stand. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and garnish with whipped cream and additional raspberries.

 
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*For more raspberry flavor, add a tablespoon of Chambord or other raspberry liqueur into the whipped cream.