With my grocery dollars screaming for mercy right now, I am trying to focus more on eating more budget-friendly fare. My grocery lists have shifted from what we want to eat to what is on sale and what is going to give us the best bang for our buck. A manager’s special on a meatloaf mix of meat dictated what we would be dining on this week…a good old fashioned plate of spaghetti and meatballs.

I really love my spaghetti and meatballs recipe, but I saw a recipe for spaghetti and meatballs in an AllRecipes Dinner Tonight Cookbook (picked up at our local thrift store for $2) and knew that I had to try this recipe.

I followed all of the directions except that I prefer to bake my meatballs rather than fry them. It is easier clean-up for me and healthier for our family. You can bake the meatballs in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for fifteen minutes and then I gave them a little dip in the sauce to take on some of those flavors.

This dish is perfection. I still prefer my meatball recipe over this one, but the sauce recipe wins hands down. This made a large batch of sauce (enough for approximately six to eight servings) and cost about $2.33 to make the sauce. The meatloaf mix was on sale for $2.09 and I used a box of pasta that I had purchased on sale for $.89. Total cost of the meal $5.31 or approximately $.89 per serving (if serving six generous portions).

I made a double batch of the meatballs and we will be having meatball subs on homemade sub rolls this week and leftovers another day. I just love food that can be served over and over again!

Italian Spaghetti Sauce With Meatballs

1# lean ground beef (ground turkey, meatloaf mix, or turkey sausage)
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons olive oil (omit if you are baking these)
3/4 cup chopped onion (we omitted because we don’t like onions)
5 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
2 (28 ounce) cans whole peeled tomatoes, undrained
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 bay leaf (I omitted because we didn’t have any)
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
3/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

To make the meatballs, in a large bowl, combine ground beef, breadcrumbs, parsley, Parmesan, 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, garlic powder, and egg. Mix well and form into 30 balls. In a large skillet, cook meatballs in two tablespoons hot oil over medium-high heat seven minutes or until browned; remove from skillet and drain.

To make sauce, saute onion and garlic in 1/4 cup olive oil until onion is translucent. Stir in tomatoes, salt, sugar, and bay leaf. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer one hour and thirty minutes. Stir in tomato paste basil, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and meatballs and simmer thirty more minutes. Discard bay leaf. Serve over spaghetti.

Spaghetti and meatballs is a family favorite in our house. Now let us show you how to eat it properly and our sweet little Emily will demonstrate.

Emily just loves to eat this, but she likes to have the long noodles for slurping, not short and stumpy noodles. I can understand this, but… She usually ends up looking like this.

Then we have to hold our noodles and balance them at the very top of our head in our hair. Is it sufficiently rubbed into our forehead and hair yet? If you can complete this trick, you can move on to the next step.

Be sure to get your entire face in there so it looks like this.
And don’t let the face outshine your toes. After all, eating like a monkey is the Clark way.

Dinner and a show! Two for the price of one!