Easy Weeknight Meal - Meatballs

Like most teachers, I work more than 40 hours a week.  When I come home, I am not always in the mood to cook.  So I am always on the look out for easy and fast recipes.  Today I want to share one with you.

Meatballs are a favorite in my house because, not only are they easy and fast, but they can be put with many different things.  Throw them together with spaghetti, eat them alone, put them in BBQ sauce, make a meatball sub, etc.  

I made them the other night and put them with a salad.  Super easy.  I throw all the ingredients into my mixer and then shape them how I want them.  You can shape them into little meatballs (see picture), make large ones for spaghetti, or they don't even need to be shaped.  You can put them in a pan, cook the meat, and then cut the meat into pieces.

So let's get started!  This recipe is based off of a Betty Crocker recipe, but I have modified it slightly and added my own notations.

Grab your ingredients.  You will need:

• 1 lb. ground beef (You can substitute turkey or chicken as well.)
• 2 Italian sausage links (I like the mild.)
• 1/2 cup Italian-Style bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• Dried Onion to taste (I am not a fan of fresh onion, so I use dried onion and when I do, it is very little, but if you love onion, you may want to use a small fresh onion.)
• 1 egg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl.  I throw everything into my KitchenAid Stand Mixer, but you can hand mix too.  For the Italian sausage, you will need to remove it from the casing.  You want the flavors from the sausage to mix with the ground beef.

 

3. Shape the meat mixture into balls that are about 1-1 1/2 inches.  Place in oven-safe dish.  I use a glass Pyrex pan.  I don't grease the pan.  The fat from the meat makes it easy to release.

4. Bake uncovered 18-22 minutes.  I usually start with 20 minutes and they are perfect.

5. Serve.

Some other thoughts for this recipe.

• I have frozen these meatballs as leftovers and they seem to freeze well as long as you freeze in an airtight container.
• The amount of leftovers depends on the size of meatballs you make.
• If you make larger meatballs, you will need to adjust bake time.

Good luck!  What weekday recipes do you go to?

Back to Reality

I was drinking my hot apple cider this morning, and I realized that I need to start thinking about meal prepping again.  Over break, I didn't have to prep for the week as much as I normally do.  It was nice to make dinner when we were hungry and not have to worry about anything.

Sometimes I feel like I could get used to staying home, or even working part time.  But then I start to think about the kiddos and how much I would miss that too.  How can I have the best of both worlds?

Today, my focus was on breakfast for the week.  I have tried many different things for breakfast, but I keep coming back to the same things.  My husband says I am boring in that respect.  He doesn't understand how I can eat the same thing every day.

Before I started meal prepping, I would eat a bowl of cereal or an english muffin.  Nothing wrong with that, but by the time I ate lunch, I was starving and I would eat something not so good for me.  There were too many hours between breakfast and lunch, without time for a snack.

I have since started making sure that I have a protein in my breakfast.  Sometimes I put in more than one.  I found that when I have protein, I am not starving by the time I have lunch.  So I start by boiling eggs.  I like hard-boiled eggs.  I tried several recipes with eggs in muffin tins with veggies.  They were good for the first few days, and then I got tired of them.  For me, I think I like that the egg is cold.  I seem to be a more cold breakfast type of person.

With that being said, this is what I go to all the time.  Cold fruit, cold, veggie, cold egg.  I also count my calories.  Sometimes when I plan my meals, I find that I am not eating enough calories at breakfast.  So some days, I add these awesome cheese Whisps.  I found these a while back and they come in different cheese flavors.  I love the parmesan flavor. 

They are basically cheese that is air whipped.  If you love chips and stuff that crunches as much as I do, this is a fun treat and the calories are not bad for how filling you feel.  Other times, I just throw in a cheese stick or yogurt.  The good news, my breakfast is done for this week.  Every week, I try to think of new things to make for breakfast, but I always refer back to the same type of things.  

What do you eat for breakfast that gets you going and keeps you full until lunch?