Pork & Ricotta Meatballs

Love this recipe for pork & ricotta meatballs. Made it last night -- using 2 lbs of ground pork from Heilman's Hogwash Farm, the best pork around -- for dinner tonight. The recipe is fairly straightforward and I generally follow it.

A few recommendations, though, to make the process easier.

First, if you have a convection oven, I'd recommend using the convection setting for these. On our old oven, which was not convection, I always had to watch the meatballs carefully throughout the process or whatever side was bottom down could get overly brown.

Second, don't be afraid to use a little more fennel seed and crushed red pepper than is called for, and if you have fresh oregano, to me that's always preferable to dried.

Third, when you're combining all of the ingredients, I recommend tossing everything fairly well before you put the eggs in. Once the eggs are in, ingredient distribution can be difficult.

Fourth, it calls for "white bread." We typically use some type of bakery bread, crusts removed. Maybe it's a wasted expense, but the results have always been hard to argue with.

Finally, if, like me, you like to put out all of the ingredients you'll be using and put them back as you finish with them, don't forget to put out the m@#$#f@#@#ing ricotta, otherwise it might not make it into your pork & ricotta meatballs!!!

I tasted one last night and it was excellent, so not a huge loss, I guess. Just another sign that I'm getting old, I suppose, or that a martini and a glass of wine can make a cook forgetful...