Saturday, September 12, 2009

Meatball Sandwiches

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I am always looking for ways to save money lately and I started noticing a while ago how much it is costing for our family to pick up lunch at a restaurant on the weekends. It costs about $20 per meal depending on where we go. I decided this weekend to cook up meatballs in the crockpot while we go out, and then we'll have lunch ready for us when we get home.

This worked out great, I made the meatballs at 8am and by lunch time they were perfect. It only costs about $10 for the ingredients and we have a ton of leftovers to have for lunch tomorrow and probably a meal that we can freeze. A comparable meatball sandwich would cost about $5-10 per person, so we saved some cash by doing this. I will definitely try this again.

Sauce

•1 (28 ounce) can tomato sauce
•1 (28 ounce) can tomato puree
•1 (14 ounce) can chopped tomatoes
•1 (8 ounce) can tomato paste
•2 teaspoons olive oil
•3 garlic cloves, minced
•1/2 sweet onion, chopped
•1 teaspoon salt
•Italian seasoning

Meatballs

•4-5 lbs meatloaf mixture (ground beef and pork)
•1 cup breadcrumbs
•2 slices bread, cubed and soaked in milk
•3 eggs
•1/2 cup parmesan cheese
•2 garlic cloves, minced
•1 teaspoon salt
•1 teaspoon pepper
•Italian seasoning

1.Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Mix breadcubes soaked in milk, breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, eggs, salt, garlic, pepper, and seasoning in the bottom of a large bowl.

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3.Add meatloaf mix and combine with other ingredients using your hands. Don’t mix too much, just make sure all ingredients are well blended.

4.Roll mixture into balls using your hands and arrange meatballs on a cookie pan (with sides, not the flat kind).

5.Bake meatballs for 30 minutes. You can brown them under the broiler for a few minutes if you like a crunchier meatball.

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6.In the meantime, sauté onion and garlic in olive oil on low heat until translucent, do not burn.

7.Combine the sautéed onion and garlic to the rest of the sauce ingredients in a large crock pot or stock pot. Turn crock pot on high (if using a stock pot, bring contents to a boil).

8.When meatballs are done in the oven, mix into the sauce mixture. Cook in crock pot for 4-6 hours on high heat. If using a stock pot, reduce heat and simmer meatballs for 4 hours or until ready to serve. (I serve them on rolls with some Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top)

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