*Note: I wrote this Monthly Meal over the weekend, and for some reason I thought that I’d scheduled it to post on Tuesday. But, ha ha, I accidentally didn’t. Whoops! So here is May’s Monthly Meal, in all its glory. This is one of my favorite meals, I’m giving away serious family secrets here. I hope you enjoy it!

My mother-in-law’s spaghetti is practically legendary. I first tried her spaghetti eight years ago, and it was insanely delicious. I’ve added a few things here and there, but the credit goes to her. (Thanks, Emily!) It’s important to use grass-fed beef, if you can find it. Grass-fed beef is higher in Omega-3 fats and lower in saturated fats than corn-fed beef. And it’s delicious. Grass-fed beef is a little more expensive than corn-fed beef, so we reserve it for special occasions. Isn’t that how meat should be best enjoyed, anyway?

This recipe is easily converted into a vegetarian meal by omitting the beef and replacing it with one zucchini, sliced lengthwise and chopped, and 1/2 cup of sliced mushrooms. Add the mushrooms at the point where beef is added in the recipe below, and reserve the chopped zucchini for the last five minutes or so of cooking.

This recipe serves four, or two with leftovers.

MAIN DISH

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

INGREDIENTS
-2 Tbsp. red palm oil
-1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped (about a half of a cup’s worth)
-3 cloves garlic, minced
-1 Tbsp. fresh herbs, chopped
-pinch of sea salt
-1/3 c. dry red wine
-1 lb. grass-fed ground beef
-1/2 tsp. sea salt
-1 24-oz. jar of marinara sauce (I like Amy’s Family Style Marinara)
-1 16-oz. package of spaghetti (I use Whole Foods’ 365 Organic Spaghetti)
-1/4 - 1/2 cup water

DIRECTIONS
Heat a large cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add the oil and heat for a few minutes until hot; add onions and cook for about eight minutes, until almost clear. Add chopped garlic, herbs, and sea salt and cook for a few more minutes. When onions are clear and the herbs have released their oils, add the beef and red wine. Sprinkle with sea salt and use a wooden spoon to “chop” the beef, mushing it into smaller and smaller chunks as it cooks.

When the beef is finished cooking and all the wine has been absorbed, add the marinara sauce. Pour a little water into the jar, swish it around, and then add it to the sauce; this will keep it from drying out while it cooks down. Heat until bubbling, then reduce heat until sauce is simmering.

I’m always starting the sauce late, so I use about 1/4 cup of water because we’re all hungry and don’t want to wait. On these nights, I only cook the sauce for about half an hour. But pasta sauce is best when it’s been allowed to simmer for a while, when it’s “old.” If you can plan ahead and allow time for the sauce to cook for a while, add about 1/2 cup of water and simmer over very low heat for an hour or two.

SIDE DISH

Butter Lettuce Salad

I love a simple salad with spaghetti. Wash and dry some butter lettuce leaves, enough to serve all your guests, and tear into large bite-sized pieces. Using a carrot peeler, peel the outside skin from a carrot, then make short pieces of carrot about two inches long and add them to the salad. For dressing, do what you like, but I like a mixture of macadamia nut oil, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, Italian herbs, and sea salt. Sometimes I leave out the lemon juice and instead use Dijon mustard. The basic rule is, two parts oil to one part vinegar, though I like a little less vinegar in my dressing. The rest is to taste.

SIDE DISH

Roasted Garlic

This will take about 20 minutes, so plan appropriately. Preheat oven to 425ºF. Choose a bulb of garlic with few flaws, so it will cook evenly. Slice the top off of the bulb, just enough to expose the tops of most of the cloves inside. Brush the garlic bulb lightly with red palm oil and sprinkle it with sea salt. Wrap the bulb in foil, keeping it upright.

Bake for 20 minutes and serve with bread and butter.

DESSERT

Yellow Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

My friends know that I am obsessed with cupcakes. I was into cupcakes WAY before Magnolia Bakery made them hip. I affectionately call them “cuppycakes,” which is kind of juvenile, but that’s the joy of a personal-sized cake that comes in a crimped paper wrapper. I used to be obsessed with white cupcakes topped with pink frosting, but I’ve since moved on to my current love, yellow cuppycakes with chocolate frosting. Cupcakes are portable, so they’re good for when you want to give away some baked goods to friends and neighbors, and they’re adorable. Another great thing about cupcakes is that they’re already portion-sized, so you can have greater control over how much you eat. That is, of course, if you can keep yourself from eating more than one.

There are several good recipes out there for yellow cake, many of which are really involved and laborious, involving special flours and lots of sifting. These recipes may produce a better cake, but here I’m going for ease of preparation. The frosting recipe I’ve chosen is a little more work, so I figured I’d keep the cake part simple. Plus, it’s pretty darn good. And the frosting recipe below is nothing short of amazing; I can promise that it’s worth the effort.

This recipe makes between two and three dozen cupcakes. You’ll probably have some leftover frosting, which I’m sure you’ll appreciate.

CUPCAKE INGREDIENTS
-2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
-1 1/2 c. sugar
-1/2 c. shortening (I use vegan shortening from Jungle Products, but you can use coconut oil or butter instead)
-1 1/4 c. milk
-3 1/2 tsp. baking powder
-1 tsp. salt
-1 tsp. vanilla
-3 large eggs

CUPCAKE DIRECTIONS
Preheat your oven to 350ºF. Line muffin tins with baking cups (I like the waxed paper ones from If You Care — they work well and they’re environmentally friendly).

In a large bowl, beat all ingredients with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds. Pause mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl; then beat on high speed for three minutes, scraping the bowl a couple of times. To get the batter into the baking cups, here’s a tip I learned from Ina Garten, a.k.a. the Barefoot Contessa: use an ice cream scoop. It keeps things relatively tidy, and it ensures that your cupcakes will all be about the same size. Fill the cups until almost full, allowing some room for the cupcakes to rise while baking. I fill my baking cups about three quarters full.

Bake cupcakes for about 22 minutes, checking for doneness by inserting a toothpick into the center of a cupcake. When it comes out clean, they’re done. If you only have one muffin tin, keep the remaining better covered while you wait for the first batch to finish baking. When the cupcakes are done, remove the pan from the oven. You can pull the cupcakes out of the tin right away, but be careful not to burn your hands. Place the cupcakes on a cooling rack, and frost when cool.

FROSTING INGREDIENTS
-4 oz. unsweetened chocolate (I like Valhrona’s darkest chocolate, but that’s expensive; use another kind, if you’d like)
-2 Tbsp. butter
-2/3 c. milk (and more, if necessary)
-4 c. powdered sugar
-2 tsp. vanilla

FROSTING DIRECTIONS
In a double boiler, melt the chocolate, butter, and milk together over slowly simmering water. (If you don’t have a double boiler, use a short saucepan in a taller saucepan with a little water in the bottom.) When melted, cool mixture to lukewarm, and then stir in the sugar and vanilla. Beat until it’s thick enough to spread. If you think the frosting is too thick, you can add a little milk, but add a tiny amount at a time. You can always add more, but if you add too much at once you’ll have chocolate soup instead of frosting.

I like a thicker frosting for cupcakes, so I make sure I frost them while the frosting is still slightly warm, but not soupy. The frosting hardens a little when it’s completely cool, which I like. But this requires patience while you’re waiting for the frosting to cool on top of the cupcakes, so this technique isn’t for everybody. Like, say, my husband. But since you probably have some extra frosting, you can placate the swarming masses with it while you wait.

MUSIC

Album: Feist, The Reminder

Yeah, yeah, I know, this album is played out. But the thing is, I’m not sick of it yet. The Reminder came out more than a year ago, but I can still listen to “1234″ over and over and over again. The song that’s getting the most rotation on my playlists right now is “I Feel it All,” which just feels right for this time of year. The weather is amazing, the crickets chirp all day, the ocean breeze is… breezing, and everything is right in the world. To me, this is the perfect album for a good late spring/early summer meal, especially one that involves cupcakes.