On Top of Spaghetti, all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball, when somebody sneezed!

      Okay, so there was no sneezing and no losing of meatballs, although maybe there were some lost marbles. In fact, there was a lot of finding meatballs, and probably still a lot of lost marbles.

       Mr. Pepper starts his new hockey season today, and he has to eat pasta before each game in order for it to be a successful game. I actually mentioned this to his mum, and she laughed (I know, you're probably laughing too), but she was able to enlighten me on where this tradition came from. When Mr. Pepper was just a young lad he played an excellent game, scoring 3 goals (a hat-trick), and after the game one of the other boys' fathers' asked him what he mother had fed him. The young Mr. Pepper replied,  "Spaghetti". The man told him to keep eating it, and so he did.

     Here's what you need

2 lbs of ground beef (I use 1 pound of ground beef and 1 pound of ground pork)
1 chopped onion

Les Ingredients

2-4 cloves crushed garlic
3 tbsp. sugar
1 large green pepper, chopped
2 - 10oz cans of mushrooms, strained (or about 4 large white mushrooms)
2 - 28oz can crushed tomatoes (drained) - If you're using whole tomatoes, just crush them in your hand
2 - 5 1/2oz can tomato paste
1 - 7 1/2oz can tomato sauce
1 bay leaf
2 tsp basil
1/4 tsp ground pepper
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
 Salt to taste (not too much because it as it cooks down the flavours will become more concentrated. I suggest adding this closer to the end of cooking time)

Pork Beef and Onion

Here's what you do:

Add a splash of oil to a pan and saute the onions until softened and add half the garlic.

Cooking up the good stuff

Add the ground beef and sugar to the pan and brown.

In the crock pot

Strain the cooked ground beef and mix the ground beef mixture with the peppers, mushrooms, remainder of the garlic, tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce, spices and cheese in a large bowl.

Transfer to your slow cooker.

Throw in a dried hot pepper for a little bit of heat.

Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

     "What about the meatballs?" you ask. Well, they are super easy too.

 Here's what you need.

1 pound ground beef

1 pound ground pork (you could do 1/2 veal, 1/2 pork if you wish)

2 cloves minced garlic

2 eggs

1 cup freshly grated Romano cheese (I used Parmesan)

1 1/2 tbsp chopped Italian flat leaf parsley

salt and ground black pepper to taste

1 to 1 1/2 cups Italian bread crumbs (I used 2 cups, and found it to taste too bread-y)

1 1/2 cups lukewarm water (I used the leftover tomato juice from making the sauce)

Mixing Ingredients

Here's what you do.

Combine meats in a large bowl.

Add garlic, eggs, cheese, parsley, salt, and pepper.

Mixing meat and breadcrumbs

Blend bread crumbs into meat mixture. Slowly add the water 1/2 cup at a time. The mixture should be very moist but still hold its shape if rolled into meatballs (I only used 1 cup of the leftover tomato juice). 

Rolling balls

Shape into meatballs. They shouldn't stick to your fingers. If they do, you they are too moist and need some more bread crumbs.

Now, I tried cooking them 3 different ways.

Frying up the balls

       The First Way - Heat 1 cup of olive oil in a large skillet. Fry meatballs in batches. When the meatball is very brown and slightly crisp remove from the heat and place on a paper towel (to drain the grease). If your mixture is too wet, cover the meatballs while they are cooking so that they hold their shape better. They stuck to the bottom of the pan, even with all that oil and started to burn. The outside looked good, but the insides were still a little raw. Maybe I had the heat to high, maybe I tried to turn them too early, but this (in my opinion) was a failure. You might have more luck, but from here I moved on to try another way.

Left Side - First Way
Right Side - Second Way

The Second Way - Put a bit of oil in the bottom of a frying pan and fry up the meatballs in batches until they are golden brown. Cover them with a grease screen and place in the oven at 350°F for 30 minutes or until done. (I'm bad with setting the timer). This one was really good. It was still a little greasy, but it browned the outsides nicely and cooked the insides well.

The Third Way Finished

Getting the third way ready

The Third Way - Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place meatballs on the tray. Place in 350°F oven and bake for 40 minutes or until done. (I'm bad with setting the timer). After 20 minutes make sure you flip them. These are Mr. Pepper's favourite. They are crunchy on the outside and nice and moist on the inside. Watch them carefully to make sure you don't over cook them.

        I portion out the spaghetti sauce and meatballs and freeze them in smaller portions so that on hockey night we can just just defrost the bag and empty the contents into a saucepan. Serve over your favourite type of pasta.

                                 Enjoy!

                                           Mel