Baked Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

As I mentioned yesterday, I have an overabundance of tomatoes.  On Monday I made a huge batch of Italian Tomato Sauce; today I'm making a large batch of Roasted Tomato-Pepper Soup, which I've blogged about; and Friday I'm making a big ol' batch of Red Enchilada Sauce, which I’ll blog about later.  That should do it for the tomatoes...I hope!  

For our dinner Monday night, I baked some meatballs to have with the tomato sauce.  I also have an overabundance of this Kalamata olive goat cheese, so I thought why not mix it in and give it a try…super yummy combination!!!  You have to give it a try some time.  I’ve decided to make olive goat cheese ravioli with the rest of my surplus…can’t wait to try those out!     

Italian Tomato Sauce

Yield:  4 20-oz mason jars

3 T extra-virgin olive oil

2 onions, chopped (I used a food processor to chop mine…it’s quicker & saves you a lot of tears)

5 t minced garlic

1/2 C tomato paste

3 bay leaves

20 vine ripe tomatoes, cored & diced

S&P, to taste

3 T each of garlic powder, onion powder, Italian Seasoning

1 large handful of basil leaves, chopped

1/2 C grated parmesan cheese

Heat oil in a large pot & cook onions until starting to caramelize.  Add garlic & tomato paste and cook another 3 minutes.  Add bay leaves & diced tomatoes and season w/ S&P, garlic powder, onion powder, and Italian Seasoning.  Bring it to a boil and then turn the heat down to a low and allow to simmer for 4 hours, stirring occasionally.  At this point you can just add the chopped basil & parmesan, taste for seasonings & be done.  I go a step further to assure that X-man doesn’t suspect he’s eating too many vegetables and I puree it with a hand blender (you can puree in batches using a blender, but you must allow it to cool down a bit before adding it to the blender). 

Baked Meatballs

Yield:  24 meatballs

1 # ground beef

1/2 C panko crumbs

1 egg

1/2 T ea of onion powder, garlic powder, & Italian Seasoning

3 T grated parmesan

S&P, to taste

Preheat oven to 400 F.  Spray mini muffin pan & set aside (I use a mini muffin pan but you can easily just use a regular sheet pan.)

Mix together all the ingredients, but don’t over mix because this will give you a tough texture.  Make 24 meatballs & set them into the prepared muffin pan.  Bake for 15-20 minutes.