Easy and Delicious Meatballs with Tomato Sauce

Twice a month I make spaghetti and meatballs - one of my favorite meals. It's very affordable if you're cooking on a tight budget. I am constantly working on trying to perfect my meatball recipe. I prefer ground round beef for meatballs, but have also used ground chuck and a ground round/ground pork mixture (1/2 lb + 1/2 lb). I have also used ground chicken - but that will be another post. Ground round is a lean cut but still very flavorful in my opinion. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures from last night's meal because I didn't have my camera with me - but in the future I plan on posting some appetizing pictures, camera willing. I surely hope you enjoy the generic meatball picture though. I assume this a blog faux pas, but can you veterans find it in your heart to forgive me? For now, here is a very simple, but very delicious meatball recipe for you.

INGREDIENTS:

1 large can tomato sauce

1 cup chopped onion

1 lb. ground round beef

1 tbsp peanut oil

1/2 tsp sesame oil <--- this is the secret ingredient!

1 tbsp water

1 Egg, slightly beaten

1 tbsp freshly mashed garlic

1 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp ground pepper

1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs

Optional - 1 tbsp old bay seasoning

1. First, begin to heat tomato sauce in a large pot over medium high heat. Liberally season sauce with salt and  pepper. Add chopped onion. Optionally, add a tbsp of old bay seasoning for some spicy southern jungle love. Stir together well and continue to heat.
2. Next, heat peanut oil in skillet over medium heat.

3. Meanwhile, combine beef, sesame oil, water, egg, garlic, salt, oregano, pepper and bread crumbs in a medium bowl and lightly mix. Be gentle with the beef, you don't want to over mix the ingredients together. As a rule of thumb, you want the mixture to be moist yet remain slightly sticky. Form the beef mixture into 8-10 meatballs, approximately 1-1/2 inch in diameter each. Brown the meatballs in the skillet until no longer pink. Drain skillet and transfer meatballs to tomato sauce, reduce heat. Allow to simmer. Meatballs will continue to cook thoroughly in the sauce.

I prefer to serve these meatballs sprinkled with Parmesan cheese over angel hair pasta. For the pasta, just follow the box instructions. My tip for perfect pasta for you is to make sure you do not rinse with water after reaching al dente. Simply drain the water and serve while hot. Sometimes I sprinkle with a little bit of olive oil to add moisture if they seem dry. Oh, and always salt your water while beginning to boil!

Enjoy the recipe (by the way, it's the first recipe I've ever written out - I usually keep them in my head), and let me know what you think! I promise you won't be disappointed - unless you hate meatballs!!! Dude, I love meatballs.