Mini Meatballs

Hello Blog World!  I apologize for the cyber space silence this past week.  I hope you all had an excellent Valentine's Day!  What did you all end up doing??

I had a very small get-together at my apartment on Saturday night where we all made or bought finger food or hors d'oeuvres so people could see my new place, play fun games, and catch up!  There were some... logistics issues.  As a first time host I did not want to step into my "bossy pants" and straight-up tell people what to bring.  This resulted in a menu of miniature meatballs, cocktail weenies, bruschetta, fruit and veggies topped off with individual chocolate cakes and yogurt covered pretzels.  Oh yeah, and lots of wine.  Let's just say I was up at 4 AM, 6 AM and approximately 8 AM.  Lesson Learned. 

I made meatballs and the individual chocolate cakes for dessert.  I got the recipe from my Mom.  It is simple, dee-lish, and you can make it all ahead of time!  For the few ingredients it takes - it packs a lot of flavor.  I made the meatballs small on Saturday night so you could pick them up with toothpicks, but for this demonstration I made them bigger since they were my dinner. 

The Sauce:

1 jar of chili sauce

1 jar of grape jelly

What is chili sauce, you ask?  See the picture! It took two trips to the grocery store to figure that one out. It's in the ketchup aisle. Put both in a sauce pan and heat until bubbles.  Then, top on meatballs.

Meatballs:

1 lb of ground sirloin (I used lean this time around but Saturday used Sirloin)

1/2 sleeve of regular ol' crakers smushed (smooshed??) up

1/3 cup of ketchup

1 egg

salt/pepper

Mix ingredients in a bowl.  I didn't have a masher so I used my hands and it got a little messy.  I don't know the technical term for a masher.  Is that correct?? That seems to properly describe what its use is so I am going to go with it. 

Next, you roll them into balls (duh).  Like I said, I made mine a bit bigger this time around since this was my main dish, but I believe these are best served small.  They are easier to cook that way and you get more sauce on each one. 



Imma meatballa!

Oil up a pan, heat it up, and toss 'em in!  

I went heavy on the oil I think so they're a bit fried...

Once they were done - I just poured on the sauce and served them up! 

The way you can make these ahead of time is to keep it all in a crock pot on "warm", which is what I did.  Or you can get one of those fancy-shmancy serving dishes.  Heater and all.  But, that's only if you're one of those people that go all-out. 

Either way, these are great so I have to shout-out to my Mom... THANKS MOM!  Great recipe!  Everyone should try it but maybe not with cocktail weenies and chocolate cake in the same sitting. 

P.S.  Expect some pretty kick-butt Asian cuisine, soon!  Just got a wok from my parents for Valentine's Day. I'm thinking these kitchen gifts are hints that they'd like to be invited to my next taste-testing party??