Basic Italian Meatballs

2 slices bread (regular white bread, soft.) Slice it into small bites
1/4 cup milk
1 lb of 75-80% lean ground beef
1/2 of an onion, diced
1 egg
1 TBSP garlic, diced
1 TBSP Italian seasoning

Mix the beef with the bread, milk, egg, garlic, and Italian seasoning. Blend with your hands. But don't blend too much, it makes the meatballs tough. Taking about 2 TSBP of beef mixture for each, form into balls with your hands. If you put water on your hands, that will make forming the balls easier and they won't stick to your hands so much.

Place on baking sheet. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until heated through to an internal temperature of 160 degrees F.

I cook spaghetti and use a jarred spaghetti sauce if I'm crunched for time, or you can make this homemade spaghetti sauce.

Crock-pot Tortellini

Even with my best efforts to destroy this recipe by buying the wrong kind of meat for it didn't ruin this one. BUT it really needs the right kind of sausage - make sure you get Sweet Italian Turkey Sausage, not just any Turkey Sausage. Regular turkey sausage will be edible, but you really want an Italian flavored sausage for this to have the right medley of tastes. Did I just type "medley of tastes"?!? Am I getting to be a foodie? lol!


1 lb Sweet Italian Turkey Sausage
16 ounces of marinara sauce
1 can diced Italian tomatoes, un-drained
4 ounce (small can) mushroom stems and pieces, drained
9 ounce package refrigerated cheese tortellini*

Cook the sausage as directed on package, then chop it into chunks. In the crock pot, combine the cooked sausage, marinara sauce, tomatoes and mushrooms. Cook on Low setting in your crock pot for 4-8 hours. 20 minutes before you want to eat, add the tortellini.

Sides: Garlic bread is good with this, or a French bread loaf, salad.

You could also make a very simple cheese tortellini with just the sauce and the refrigerated cheese tortellini. It was delicious!

*Don't use the frozen types of cheese tortellini, because it will make the sauce become too thin as the frozen food thaws in your crockpot - it will also reduce the temperature in the crock pot too much.

Easy Oven Baked Chicken Parmesan

1 lb chicken breasts, medium thickness
1 egg, slightly beaten
3/4 cup Italian seasoned dry bread crumbs
1 (26-28 oz) jar spaghetti sauce*
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a 9x13" baking dish with a non stick cooking spray.Dip chicken in egg and roll in bread crumbs. Arrange chicken in baking dish. Bake uncovered for 20 minutes. Pour spaghetti sauce over chicken, then top with cheese. Bake additional 10 minutes or until chicken is thoroughly cooked. Serve over pasta.

*If you find out that you don't have any jarred spaghetti sauce, you can make this version -

Mix:

1 12-ounce can tomato paste (or two 6-oz cans)
2 cups water
1-1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp pepper

This is basically the same sauce from the Lasagna recipe. If you want the sauce to be more like Ragu, add about 1/2 tsp of sugar or to taste.

I have also halved this sauce recipe for chicken parmesan and it's come out fine. This is especially the way to go if you don't like so much sauce (or in my case, when you find you only have 1 little ol' can of tomato paste - OOPS! - so I was pretty much forced to do this, but there was enough.

To halve it, use:

1 - 6 oz can tomato paste
1 cup water
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp oregano
1/8 tsp pepper

Spaghetti and stuffed meatballs

This is the spaghetti and meatballs recipe from the TV show, Sandra Lee's Money Saving Meals on the FoodNetwork channel. She said this has a price-per-serving of $1.62.

I really liked her show. She goes rather fast for the foodie-challenged, but her recipes are geared for families on a budget.

Meatballs:

2 slices bread (regular white bread, soft.) Slice it into small bites
1/4 cup milk
1 lb of 80% lean ground beef
1/2 of an onion, diced (go ahead and dice up the whole onion, but use 1/2 of it for the meatballs, reserve 1/2 of it for the sauce)
1 egg
1 TBSP garlic, diced (she dices up her own in a food processor, says that saves a lot of money to do ahead in bulk)
1TBSP Italian seasoning
2 mozzarella cheese sticks (the cheese snack type...cut them into little slices)

Mix the beef with the bread, milk, egg, garlic, and Italian seasoning. Blend with your hands. But don't blend too much, it makes the meatballs tough. Form the beef into mini patties, then place a piece of the cheese in center then roll it up, so that the cheese is inside the meatball. The meatballs should end up being about 2-3" across before baking.

Place on baking sheet. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until heated through to an internal temperature of 160 degrees F.

TIP: If you put water on your hands, it will make it easier to shape the meatballs without it sticking to your hands so much.

Sauce:

Set 2 TSBP olive oil on medium heat in saucepan.
1/2 onion, chopped
2 TBSP basil
2 TBSP parsley
1 TBSP garlic
Diced tomatoes (looked like the large sized can)
Salt and pepper to taste

Simmer this 10 minutes.

Get a package worth of spaghetti cooking in boiling water. Cook spaghetti for about 9-10 minutes or according to package directions.

Set the meatballs into the sauce to absorb the liquid and get more flavor. Drain the spaghetti, then put it out on a serving platter. Place the meatballs first on top of the spaghetti noodles, then gently pour the sauce over all.

Easy Way-You-Want-It Spaghetti Sauce

If you want to save a little money on pre-packaged spaghetti/pasta sauces, here is a good one to try. An extra benefit is that it won't have the preservatives or chemicals that a jarred spaghetti sauce would have. This is a recipe I created/modified from a lasagna recipe, which I also recommend.

This is meatless, but you can cook 1/2 lb to 1 lb of ground beef or ground turkey for a meat version, then add the following:

1 12-ounce can tomato paste
1-2 cloves garlic chopped (or 1/2 to 1 tsp garlic powder to save time)
2 cups water
1-1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp sugar* (optional)

Mix all together, heat. Just like you would do with something jarred like Ragu or Prego, brown ground beef, drain, and mix with this sauce.

If your family is used to the premade-jarred sauces, they usually have sugar in them. That's why we must love them so much, eh? So you can put in a bit of sugar if you want, increase it or decrease it, based on what your family likes.

The consistency of this can be adjusted by the amount of water. If you find the sauce a little too thick for your liking, add water, or you can put a lid on the pot for 10-15 minutes. The condensation will make the sauce a little thinner. If you find the sauce too thin, then turn up the heat and leave top off to let the moisture evaporate from the sauce.

This costs about .80 cents or so to make. A jar of spaghetti sauce in the store will cost $1.50 on sale to over $3. It really is a no-brainer and takes very little time to make.

If you have them on hand, you can add chopped up green peppers or even carrots diced up very small. Just make sure you cook those along with the meat so they will get tender.