Meatball subs, yum!

Well, I have six weeks of my undergrad left, after that I'll be able to keep up with posting pretty regularly (I hope).  I also hope everyone had a great St. Patrick's Day and drank lots of green beer!  I got to explain to my mom what an Irish Car Bomb was, she said she'd have to put that on the drink list for next year.  I sported my green and frolicked around some of the local bars with my friends, it was an eventful day to say the least.

Anywho, last week I made Italian style meatballs and sauce.  They turned out quite delicious, if I do say so myself.  I combined a couple of different recipes I found online.  My biggest fear was that since I didn't pre-cook the meatballs (like one recipe called for) I would open the crockpot at the end to a meat sauce and none of my meatballs would have stayed together.  Thankfully this did not happen.  Also, as I mentioned earlier Nick and I try hard to make the healthiest choices at the grocery store.  Instead of ground beef we usually use ground turkey, but we discovered something new: ground chicken breast.  It's not only cheaper than ground turkey but it's less fat and calories.  That's what I used in this recipe, but it can be replaced with ground beef, ground turkey, or a combination depending on personal preference.

Here's the breakdown.

What you need:

For the meatballs

1lb. ground chicken

1 egg

1/2 tea. salt

1/2 tea. Italian seasoning

1/4 tea. red pepper flakes

1/4 c. seasoned bread crumbs

1/8 c. parmesan cheese

1/4 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

For the sauce

1 can crushed tomatoes

1 can diced tomatoes

1 tea. Italian seasoning

2 bay leaves

2 garlic gloves, minced 

Salt and pepper to taste

What you do:

In a medium bowl combine egg, Italian seasoning, salt, and red pepper flakes.

Add the remaining ingredients for the meatballs and mix well with your hands.

Shape into 1 inch-1 1/2 inch balls and place in bottom of crock pot, leaving some space in-between and staggering on top if you need to stack them (like I did).

Next pour the cans of sauce on top and add the remaining spices and garlic.

Stir gently, making sure not to disturb the meatballs on the bottom.

Cover and cook on high 3-4 hours (low 6-8).

Stir, separate the meatballs, and serve.

It's a pretty easy recipe.  1 pound of meat makes about 14 meatballs.  We made meatball sandwiches first and used the leftovers the next day on spaghetti, because it yields a lot of sauce (the can of crushed tomatoes was huge).  I was really happy with this recipe and would definitely make it again. 

Here are some pics, enjoy!

Ingredients

Subs!

Sub

Left overs for spaghetti 

Easy Chicken Lo Mein

Two whole recipes in one day!  It must be Christmas...or the end of my spring break.

This next recipe is not as dated as my Super Bowl pork.  I made this one for Nick and myself the last week of February.  I got distracted with preparing for my Spring Break in Key West and failed to post in a timely fashion.  So here it is.

Crockpot Chicken Lo Mein

What you need:

2 Tbl Butter (or oil for cooking chicken)

1 lb chicken tenders (or you can use thighs or breast, as long as they're skinless and boneless)

1 cup stir-fry sauce

1 onion, chopped

1 can water chestnuts

1 16 oz. package frozen stir-fry veggies (Publix has a Japanese blend)

8oz. box spaghetti

What you do:

Melt butter in a 10-ich skillet. 

Cut chicken into small strips and toss in skillet on medium-high heat.  

Cook until brown, stirring occasionally (about 5-7 minutes)

Place in crockpot.

Add stir-fry seasoning, onion, and water chestnuts.

Cover and cook on low 4-6 hours.

For the last 30 minutes of cooking turn to high and stir in the veggies.

Cook pasta as directed.

Stir in with chicken and veggies before serving.

We thought this turned out really well, much better than our first Chinese crockpot attempt of General's chicken.  Nick loved it and claimed the left overs.

That's all for now, I am officially caught up on recipes.  I do have a yummy dish planned for this Wednesday and my goal is to have it posted by this time next week...we'll see how that goes.

Better late than never, right?

Let's pretend for a second that it isn't March and I'll tee you what I made for the Super Bowl.

(The sad part is this is probably the easiest thing with the least amount of ingredients and it's taken me a MONTH to post it.  Procrastination is a skill I learned in college, I'm a pro.)

Easy Pulled Pork

What you need:

Pork Butt (1-3 lbs depending on how many you're feeding.  I used 3 for about 8 people)

1/2 bottle BBQ sauce (Sweet Baby Rays for me)

1 can cola (The recipie called for diet Pepsi, I used diet Dr. Pepper since that's what we had on hand aka: Nick's favorite drink)

Lawry's Seasoning salt

What you do:

Coat pork with seasoning salt (I had to remove some extra fatty pieces of my pork before doing this).

Put in slow cooker with soda and BBQ sauce.

Cook for 4 hours on low.

Use two forks to shred meat while still in slow cooker (this is a very warm task, I was sweating by the end of it lol).

Let cook one more hour to soak up juices.

Serve on buns :)

I was very happy with the results and everyone else seemed to enjoy it as well (unless all of my friends are liars).  It was super easy and fed a lot people, half of which were boys.

Enjoy!