Meal Planning Monday – Crock pot Mozzarella stuffed Meatballs

Aye aye aye….

I took a long, unintentional break. You can blame the mice.

We came home from Colorado and I was making dinner. I opened the drawer of our oven and there it was, staring at me in the face. Mouse droppings. UGH! I hate mice. I am convinced that I hate them because my mom conditioned me to hate them, because she is terrified of them. I felt like I couldn’t do anything in my house until I knew they were gone.

Well, we had our follow up on Friday and they appear to be gone – yeah! Time to carry on with our lives.

Now that I’ve talked about disgusting mice and their poop, let’s talk about food! YEAH!

I needed to go grocery shopping – big time grocery shopping. So I took to my recipe group on Facebook and tried to find some easy ones.

This one isn’t necessarily easy, but it’s delicious and it’s a crock pot meal. The setting up of the whole thing is sort of time consuming but it’s worth it – trust me!

I SUCK at making meatballs. Always have. But not anymore! My crock pot has made most food items easy for me – the ones that I always struggle. Meatballs being one. I always try to get them to be crispy on the outside, but subsequently they are raw on the inside.

Here is the link to where I found it. Obviously, I changed it up a bit 🙂 Let’s proceed.

Ingredients:
*2 lbs of ground Italian Sausage
*1/2 tsp garlic powder
*2 tsp salt
*1 tsp pepper
*1 cup breadcrumbs
*1/4 grated Parmesan cheese
*2 eggs
*1/2 cup milk
*1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
*1 log? Loaf? of fresh mozzarella cheese, cubed
*2 jars of pasta sauce

Directions:
*In a large bowl, combine the sausage, garlic powder, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, Parmesan cheese, eggs, milk, parsley. I used my hands, but if you’re sensitive to temperatures like me, beware, it’s freaking cold. Like “have to stop a few seconds in and gain your composure” cold.
*Take a meatball and form it about the size of a golf ball.
*Take a piece of mozzarella cheese and push it into the meatball.
*Wrap the meatball around the cheese (sorry, no pictures…my hands were full of raw meat and my photographer was busy watching Mickey Mouse. Also, he’s 3.)
(This next step is not in the directions, but after reading all the comments on the video, I decided to add it)
*Get a skillet super hot and add some meatballs. Let the heat sear the meatballs for about a minute, then flip them so you sear 2-3 sides of the meatball.
*Layer the bottom of your crock pot with sauce.
*Add one layer of meatballs, more sauce, then your last layer of meatballs, then more sauce. Mine were about the size of golf balls and it made 29 meatballs. My OCD really, really wishes I could tell you 30. REALLY.
 *Let them go on high for 2-2.5 hours and serve on pasta. Or eat them as a sandwich. Or by themselves. I don’t care. I don’t judge. I am the last person to judge someone when it comes to food.

Happy cooking!

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