My Unbutton your Pants It's So Good Spaghetti and Meatballs

The first recipe I had to conquer was Spaghetti and Meatballs. It was always one of my favorite dinners growing up and mine will never beat my Mom's. It took a few years of trial and error with different seasonings. I try to cook as healthy as possible whenever I can. I very rarely buy ground hamburger except when I intend on making hamburgers. You can use that or ground turkey for this recipe. I also use Whole Wheat Spaghetti Noodles. Why not get some fiber if you are going to "carb it up"? I use normal sized spaghetti noodles...I hate angel hair pasta.

The Meatballs
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup diced yellow onion (one small one)
1 Tbsp. Parsley
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese Topping
1 egg
1 lb. ground beef/turkey/sausage
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/2 cup Olive Oil

Put the ground meat of your choice into a big bowl. Add the onion, garlic, parmesan cheese topping, parsley, breadcrumbs, the egg, and salt and pepper to your liking to the bowl as well. Prepare to get your hands dirty. Use both of your hands to fold all the ingredients together until it is well mixed. Form the mixture into a big ball and put back into bowl, cover it with saran wrap and put it back into the fridge for 10-15 minutes. Now go wash your hands! In the meantime, get out the biggest frying pan you have and add the 1/2 cup olive oil and heat to Medium High. Take the meatball mixture out of your fridge and roll them into 1 to 1.5 inch balls and add them to the pan. Let them cook until the bottoms touching the pan are a nice golden brown color and then flip them over one by one. Once they are cooked through, add them to your simmering sauce for around 10-15 minutes to absorb the flavor.

The Sauce:
1/2 of a yellow onion, diced (I lurve my Vidalia Chop Wizard)
2 cloves of fresh garlic, minced (again...the wizard is money)
1 Tbsp. fresh basil chopped (dry is fine too)
1 Tbsp. thyme (dry seasoning is fine)
4 Tbsp. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
The "big can" of whole tomatoes, I like Hunt's flash steamed.
Salt and Pepper to taste

Whole tomatoes are important because they have more flavor in them than the already crushed or diced. To start, you really don't have to be exact with the olive oil...I take the bottle for about 4 spins around the bottom of the pan. Put your saucepan on Medium heat and throw in the onions, let them start to cook while you chop the garlic gloves and then add them in with the onions. Add the basil and thyme and stir. Open the can of tomatoes slightly, just enough to pour the juice from the can into the saucepan. Finish opening the can and pour the whole tomatoes into a bowl and crush yourself with a potato masher or big wooden spoon. or you could even give them a few pulses in a food processor if you have one. Add the crushed tomatoes to the sauce pan and bring the heat to Medium-High until it starts to bubble slightly but not enough where you get those red sauce spots on your stove. Reduce heat to low and simmer at least 10 minutes or longer and cover it. Just take it off the heat when your noodles are done.

If you are making the sauce with the meatballs, cook the meatballs first and add to the saucepan before you simmer it so they absorbs the flavor too!

When you are done...let me know when your "food baby" is due. I'd go ahead and throw on some sweatpants when you eat this!