Spaghetti, Meatballs, & Italian Sausage

So this recipe came from my mom who got it from my Great Grandma Jean. Grandma Jean came over to America from Italy was she was just a baby, and she had some great Italian recipes. I can't believe I haven't actually made this recipe myself before last night, but my mom would make this a lot for us when we were growing up. I promised Kevin last week that I would make spaghetti and meatballs for our Sunday dinner so yesterday I called my mom and she talked me through the recipe. It turned out really great and we have tons of leftovers.

Ingredients:

Meatballs -
1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork
3/4 cup grated romano cheese (or you could also use grated parmesan)
3 T minced garlic
1 onion, chopped very finely in the food processor
5 slices good italian bread with crust taken off and then soaked in warm water for a minute or so, then wring as much liquid out as you can once you are ready to use
2 eggs
1/4 cup fresh italian parsely, minced
salt and pepper to taste (but be generous)

Tomato Sauce -
3 (12 oz) cans tomato paste (you can adjust this amount depending on how much sauce you want and just also adjust the amount of water you add)
water (you will use a 3 to 1 ratio of water to tomato paste so since I used 3 cans of tomato paste, I used 9 cans of water)
1 onion, chopped
3 T minced garlic
1/4 cup sugar (can adjust to taste)
salt, pepper, and italian seasoning to taste (but again, be generous)

Other -
EVOO
1 lb spaghetti
1 package italian sausage (we used hot, but sweet would also be really good)

Directions:

1. Mix together all of your meatball ingredients with your hands and then form meatballs into about the size of golf balls.

2. In batches, brown meatballs in a little EVOO until almost cooked through. Set on paper towels to drain, but reserve the oil and meatball grease in the pan (at first, I had a little trouble with my meatballs falling apart when I tried to turn them so be gentle with them and make sure you have enough EVOO in the pan for the first batch.  Also, next time I make them I'll make a little smaller because I think that might help them hold together better.)

3. Meanwhile, cook italian sausages until almost cooked through (I boiled mine in a deep skillet for awhile, then drained the water and added some EVOO to brown on the outside). Set on paper towels to drain and then cut to desired size (I cut each sausage into thirds).

Here's what the meatballs and sausages looked like after browning:

4. In meatball skillet, saute your chopped onion, garlic, and italian seasoning until softened (about 5 minutes).

This is what my onions and garlic looked like:

5. In a large stockpot, mix together 3 cans of tomato paste and 9 cups of water and bring to a boil. Sauce will thicken a bit, but if it looks too thin or too thick you can add a little more tomato paste or water.

6. To the sauce, add the sauteed onions & garlic, sugar, and salt & pepper to taste. Keep seasoning until you are happy with the flavor of the sauce (make sure you add enough salt - when I first tasted my sauce it didn't taste good at all and then once I added quite a bit more salt it tasted amazing!).

7. Carefully add in the meatballs and italian sausages to the sauce and simmer over low heat for about an hour.

Here's what my sauce looked like:

8. Meanwhile, cook 1 lb of spaghetti according to the package directions.

9. Once you are ready to eat, serve each plate up with some spaghetti and top that with the sauce, meatballs, and italian sausage.

To serve, we grated a little parmesan on top and served with some garlic bread and a green salad. It was a perfect Sunday dinner!  The sauce was soooo good....awhile back I had made some of Giada's marinara sauce and wasn't that happy with the flavor of it so this is going to be my go-to tomato sauce.