Home Made Sauce & Meatballs

My Note: New Years Resolution 2010: to learn to make home made sauce using only fresh tomatoes and nothing from a CAN!

This is my Grandma's recipe and I changed it just a bit. The meatballs are just how she makes them and so yummy! And it's kind of not really a recipe just a do it as you go... Hopefully we don't get too much BPA from the cans! Eek!

Sauce:

2 large cans of organic crushed tomatoes
2 large cans of organic tomato sauce
2 small cans of organic diced tomatoes
2 small cans of organic tomato paste
a least 10 freshly crushed garlic cloves (or more!)
season with:
about 1/4 cup Italian seasonings
about 2 tablespoons basil and oregano
about 1 tablespoon sea salt and garlic salt
about 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Just put everything in your pot and cook on med-low for several hours. Just taste as you go to add more spices. You can also add sugar or honey or agave nectar to sweeten it. My sister in law Cheryl made it once with chopped zucchini and green peppers and that was good too.

Meatballs:

1/2 of a medium onion chopped very small
1 lb organic free range ground beef or ground turkey (both work great)
1 cup breadcrumbs or oats for gluten free
3 garlic cloves crushed fresh
3 tablespoons parmesan or romano cheese
1 1/2 handfulls of dried mint, crushed in your hands
3 free range eggs
season with about 1/2 teaspoon pepper, 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, 1 teaspoon garlic salt and one tablespoon italian seasonings. Harder to guess on the meatball spices because you can't taste it until it's done! :/
Just mix it up with a spoon or your hands and roll them into balls- throw them in the sauce so they are fully covered and let them cook with the sauce for several hours.
Or you can put everything in the crockpot.

I freeze extras. A few cups separate if I want it for raviolis, or 1 cup separate to use for pizza....

If you try it, defnitely let me know what you think! We like it a lot. I also do a meat sauce occasionally just for variety- that recipe is really good as well and it's on my blog too...