People seem to either love or hate Ms. Martha Stewart. I am in the middle. Recently I watched the documentary on M.S. and it was so interesting. She’s terribly smart and motivated, and what a perfectionist. I identify as a non-perfectionist, so she fascinates me.

Martha Stewart is not a chef and yet first became known for catering, which led to her first book, Entertaining, published in 1982, followed by a hundred more. I remember her cookbooks got criticism, but it’s easy to surmise that people were simply being hateful.

I came across a recipe for a simple spaghetti and red sauce with shrimp meatballs on the Martha Stewart website and knew I had to make it. We’ve all made traditional meatballs, but shrimp?! I couldn’t wait.

My only change is that I had a package of octopus in my freezer that I needed to use so I combined it with the shrimp for the meatballs.

I didn’t follow the recipe for the red sauce; I had a large jar of frozen passata that I’d made from my summer tomatoes, which I enhanced with onion, garlic, and basil. Martha Stewart’s original recipe is printable, below. She suggests 1 1/2 cups of sauce for this recipe. I used more than that.

Spaghetti with Red Sauce and Shrimp-Octopus Meatballs

Shrimp Meatballs:

1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined plus 1/2 pound of octopus)
¾ cup panko flakes
¼ cup whole milk
⅓ cup finely grated Pecorino Romano (1 ounce), plus more for serving
¼ cup chopped fresh basil leaves, plus more for serving
¼ cup chopped scallions, plus more green tops for serving
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

1 pound spaghetti, spaghettini, or bucatini

Rinse and dry the shrimp and octopus before continuing the recipe.

Pulse shrimp to a paste in a food processor. Transfer to bowl with reserved onion mixture. Stir panko and milk into shrimp mixture until milk is absorbed. Add cheese, basil, scallions, egg, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Refrigerate 30 minutes. Because I hadn’t followed the recipe exactly, I sauteed onion with garlic, and added salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.

Use an ice cream scoop, or roll heaping tablespoons between dampened palms, to form thirty 1 1/2-inch balls. Drop into a pot of boiling salted water; cook until they turn opaque and float to top, 3 to 4 minutes. With a slotted spoon, transfer shrimp meatballs to skillet with red sauce and simmer until just cooked through, about 5 minutes. (I didn’t do this because I’d made the sauce previously, but it’s probably a good step.)

Meanwhile, cook pasta in same pot of boiling water until al dente, about 2 minutes less than per package instructions. Drain pasta and return to pot; toss with 1 1/2 cups sauce.

Serve, topped with meatballs, more sauce, cheese, basil, and scallion tops.

I really enjoyed these “meat” balls! They’re very subtle, but tasty.