Messy food is good food

When I'm really up on things around here, I try to plan ahead my menu for the week, usually leaving a day free for whatever night. I plan specific things, but I'm always flexible, so I write my plan in pencil.

Normally I have this done on a Wednesday, leaving me free to go shopping on Thursday morning with a good list in hand. I didn't make it shopping last Thursday, nor did I do my menu on Wednesday for a week, but instead for a few days. Instead I planned to do some real shopping on Sunday, sitting down Sunday morning to plan out what I wanted for the week, and what I'd need for baking that afternoon. Meatballs came to mind before I'd gone grocery shopping on Sunday, always good when lean ground beef is the meat special for the week, but as I'd planned to make butter chicken with rice on Sunday, I really didn't want to make my usual sweet and sour meatballs with rice the next day. Too much rice does not go over well with the rest of the family.

Instead I decided on meatball subs, an idea that came out of nowhere for me as it isn't something I would normally make. I mentioned it to my husband, and his face lit up, so I assumed he liked the idea and went shopping.

I made my own meatballs, combining lean ground beef, salt, pepper, dried parsley and parmesan cheese together before rolling them into balls. I also made my own sauce, combining canned diced tomatoes, onion and garlic together, simmering until slightly thickened before pureeing it into a smooth sauce. Then I added the meatballs, threw in a parmesan rind, and let them marry together.

This was not a clean eating dinner. The sauce and the meatballs oozed out of the buns, the cheese turned gooey as it melted on the hot meatballs. There was alot of finer licking, but just from the adults as the children chose to eat their meatball subs deconstructed with piles of cucumbers on the side.

Still reasonably new to the food blog world, I forgot to take a picture of the constructed sandwich, remembering after I had eaten the first half of mine. So I whipped out a new plate, and in true blogger fashion, took my pictures!

I served this dinner with a few fresh veggies, cuccumbers as mentioned, red pepper strips and a few carrots picked from my garden.