Easy Meat Balls

Working a full time job means less time in the evenings to make my family dinner during the week, so planning ahead is crucial.  When I was looking through my cookbooks recently I stumbled across a recipe for easy meatballs from my Aunt Rita, and what a relief when I realized they cooked all day in the crock pot.  The best part of this meal...I made it all up the night before. Got my kids in bed and spent about 15 minutes preparing this wonderful meal. I put all my ingredients in the crock pot, carefully laid the meatballs in the sauce, put the lid on and put it in the refrigerator overnight, so in the morning just took it out and put it in the crock pot, pushed a few buttons and out the door! Very helpful for those crazy school and work mornings!

Coming home and only having to make some spaghetti noodles and warm up some garlic bread in the oven made my day! Hope you try this soon!

Begin by making the sauce, no need to even use a bowl, just throw it all in the crock pot!

1 medium onion, chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 (6oz) can of tomato paste
2 whole bay leaves
1/2 TBLS dried oregano
1 TBLS Italian seasoning
1 TBLS brown sugar
1 TBLS balsamic vinegar
I used four 15 oz cans of tomato sauce, but you could just use 2 of the large cans, and if I didn't have a picky family, I would have used a can of crushed tomatoes

Stir all ingredients together and begin the meatballs

Meat Balls
From my Aunt Rita

Mix together
1 lb. ground chuck
1/2 lb. sausage
1 egg
2 slices bread (wet and squeeze out water, then pull it apart and add it in small pieces)
1 tsp. dried oregano
3 or 4 shakes of garlic powder ( I love my aunt )
1 tsp. dried parsley
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
1 TBLS. grated Parmesan cheese

I made large meatballs because I knew they would be cooking for most of the day, a heaping Tablespoon, and they turned out perfectly. Cook on low for 8 hours. The sauce simmers on low all day and makes everything come together for one delicious bite!

Enjoy!