The meatballs for this recipe are fantastic, but the proportions for the sauce are all wrong. There's so much tomato paste, and so little of anything else, that the whole thing ends up tasting like tomato paste. I would go with 30 ounces of paste and 18 ounces of tomato sauce, rather than 48 ounces of paste and no sauce. Also, throw in 2 onions instead of 1, twice as much mushroom, bay leaf, and basil, 6 (or more) garlic cloves, half a cup or so of parsely, and 2 teaspoons each of oregano and thyme. Stand by with some sugar (a tablespoon or two) if you need to cut it further. Also, when the porkchops simmer for 8 hours, they end up tasteless without adding anything to the sauce, so maybe put them in later. If there's less concentrated paste flavor and more other flavors, this sauce would be great. (Again, the meatballs are wonderful.) But as it is, it's not worth 9 hours of your time. (Also, this makes a lot more than 10 servings; I'd guess 15 or 20.)

Reviewed On: Jan. 9, 2006