Meatball Sandwiches for YOU!!

This recipe is being put out into the world wide web for all!  I grew up with this being made by my Dad, often for large gatherings.  After Tony and I got married, we visited Napa, and my Dad won my hubby's heart with these meatballs.  I was really missing a dear couple, Jim and Wilma West, and since I can't invite them over, they live 1300 miles a way in New Mexico, I could show them how easy it is to make and not feel guilty as I bite into this goodness!

 

I used 2 pounds of good hamburger, along with 3-4 eggs, about a 1/2 cup of Parmesan, a full Cup maybe cup and half of breadcrumbs, about 1/3 cup of basil, garlic and a healthy amount of any other seasoning I have that says garlic.  

The kicker is the Italian Sausage! HOT is what you want!! I buy the 6 pack, and 4 of them I cut the skin and take out the sausage and add to the meatball mixture.  The other two go in a small sauce pan.  (Back to that in a bit)

Mix with hands all the meat...it is totally gross...raw eggs between your fingers, the coagulated fat off the meat sticks to the palms of your hands, and the smell of raw meat lingers! But this really combines the hamburger and the sausage with the seasonings the best.  I have tried to use my Kitchen-Aide and it isn't the same...and golly, you want to bring in the extra spice to home made meatballs! 

Rolling them is next, I have willing servants for that as seen in the previous post!

I fry them up til crunchy on the outside!  You may feel the need to pull them off quick, but let them get a good crunch!  Please take notice of the small sauce pan in the back. This is where the extra two sausages are boiling along with 2 cut up peppers.  I usually use green, but Tony brought the most beautiful yellow, orange and red ones, so I used them.  I let them simmer til well, I am done cooking all the meatballs.

Drain the meatballs well, they need to sit on paper to have the bad grease leave and the good grease stay!  Ha ha ha...but it is good for them to sit and cool a bit before being dunked into the midst of spaghetti sauce.
While the meatballs are cooling, pull the two sausages out and cut them up into bite size chunks:

**DO NOT THROW AWAY THE WATER THEY WERE BOILING IN*****

I cut them up on a plate, to catch all the goodness that might escape!  I know you are all wanting the top secret recipe to my sauce.  But I can not share that!

Pay no attention to that Prego bottle!  I am adding the meatballs slowly as not to massacre them into crumbles.  I also add a little brown sugar to the sauce, it helps keep the indigestion down....supposedly, but it seems to work, a hand full of it:

You can see the brown sugar on top, kinda brown, lol amazing stuff being brown.  I made myself laugh on that!!

Then add the cut up sausages, along with the peppers and the water they all simmered in!! Remember the breadcrumbs we put in the meatballs? Here is some science.  Just like a piece of bread will soak all the delightful goodness of spaghetti sauce into it...so does the breadcrumbs!  This is why you need to make this in the morning and forget about it!

I cleaned up all the dishes, put the meatballs on simmer with a cover on the pot and went on with my day.  I did turn it off when we left the house!  The sauce never sleeps, it is soaking into those meatballs, bringing them to the wonderful little balls of goodness you will come to crave.

Sadly, I can not show a sandwich, my Philistine children eat these over speghetti noodles, which is yummy, and we ate so late...that Tony devoured 2 or 3 before I got the camera out, and I was weak from not having any carbs all day so I could eat my small little 12" sandwich! bha ha ha...but yours will turn out!
Enjoy!! It isn't the same without the noises of joy that emit from Jim Larry as he eats it, but we suffered through!