Tag Archives: Parmesan/Romano

The Meatball Club

Posted on by Standard 4

So, yesterday I made spaghetti with homemade meatballs. Today, I wanted a meatball sub. I was thinking I still had some good buns from New Year’s day. They were not good. I had already melted the butter. The store-brand white bread was calling to me. A sandwich? No, a club.., Something worthy of shenanigans.

The Meatball Club: A double-decker meatball sandwich on toasted white bread, teeming with tasty sauce & melted Gruyere and Swiss cheese.
Behold: The Meatball Club
The Meatball Club: A double-decker meatball sandwich on toasted white bread, teeming with tasty sauce & melted Gruyere and Swiss cheese. (Slightly more from the top.)
Look at that toasty goodness.
The Meatball Club: A double-decker meatball sandwich on toasted white bread, teeming with tasty sauce & melted Gruyere and Swiss cheese. (Cut open diagonally.)
Open up & say “Mmm!”
The Meatball Club: A double-decker meatball sandwich on toasted white bread, teeming with tasty sauce & melted Gruyere and Swiss cheese. (Cut open diagonally, from the top.)
If you don’t cut it diagonally, you’re doing it wrong.

It seemed to be a hit on various social media platforms, so I thought I’d share the love. If you make one, please, post the photo, tag me (@AiXelsyD13 on just about everything), and let me know how it was!

The Meatballs:

I have shared my meatball ingredient secrets a quadruple of times:

I generally don’t measure, and make them different every time. This time I fried them on medium-high in a large pan on the stove & a tiny bit of EVOO.

The Sauce: 

OK, gonna level with you. I am not Italian. This is going to make some people mad. I use jarred sauce. This was the cheap Aldi stuff. Usually we get that or the Prego Three Cheese. I add brown sugar & Parmesan/Romano shake cheese. Sometimes, I even add shopped garlic, onion powder, or “Italian Seasoning.” This time it was just brown sugar and cheese. I don’t measure. I toss a little in with abandon. I like the sweetness & it cuts the acid.

The Club:

Get your stuff…

  • ¼ stick butter
  • Garlic powder
  • Onion powder
  • Parsley or (Italian Seasoning)
  • 6 or so leftover meatballs.
  • Shredded cheese (I had Gruyere & Swiss, but I would probably go for Mozzarella or Provolone, but the stuff I had was fantastic.)
  • “Shake Cheese” I had the cheap Giant Eagle brand Parmesan/Romano blend.
  • Three pieces of white bread.

Do it…

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 390° on the air fryer setting.
  2. Melt the butter w/ garlic powder, onion powder, & parsley to taste in a microwave save bowl in 30 second intervals, stirring in between until it’s a liquid.
  3. Put the bread on a baking dish, brush on the melted butter after a good stir. (I just did the top sides.)
  4. Air fry for 2 minutes, & it gets almost crispy on top, the bottom was nice and toasted.
  5. While you’re doing that nuke the meatballs & sauce on a microwave safe plate for 2 min. (or longer if needed.)
  6. Pull the toast out. (I cut the meatballs in half with a spoon then scooped them and the sauce on to two of the slices of bread.)
  7. Top the meatballs with the shredded cheese.
  8. Put the “shake cheese” on the 3rd slice of bread.
  9. Put it back in on air fry for for 4 or 5 minutes.
  10. Pull it out, assemble it like a tower of gluttony, then slice it diagonally with a giant serrated bread knife for dramatic effect.
  11. Take a photo to share & make people hungry.

That’s it. It took a little bit of time & prep, but it was worth it.

Notes:

  • If you cook & have your own meatball or sauce recipe, of course do that.
  • Use whatever kind of cheese you want, shredded, or sliced, or whatever.
  • I would guess you can use the oven on 375°-ish on a regular setting for a bit longer times, or a counter top air fryer.
  • You could also probably do all of it in the air fryer from cooking the meatballs to melting the butter if you have the appropriate vessels.
  • If you slice it in rectangles and not triangles, you are a psychopath.

Discussion:

  • If you’re out of sausage or sub buns, or hot dog buns, what are you using? Pita? Tortilla? Soft Pretzel? Dinner Rolls? Bisquick? Crescent roll dough?
  • Please, tell me in the comments how wrong it is to use jarred sauce or add brown sugar.
  • Share with me your meatball secrets.
  • Do you like the powdery shake cheese or the fancy stuff?
  • Do you make a forbidden sandwich? What is it?
  • Is this a Meatball Club, or a Meatball Melt?

This is why I had leftover meatballs:

Meatballs and Lasagna.

Posted on by Standard 3

First, the recipe.  Then, the story.  ‘Cause the other way around is a thing that everyone hates now.

Lasagna & Meatballs

Lasagna & Meatballs

I don’t measure much.  I had stuff from Aldi, Shop ‘n Save, & Giant  Eagle by the time I was done.  The kids helped.  They have been into helping to cook lately.  We like meatballs on the side, not meat sauce in the lasagna.  Get out of here with your sausage or pork or pepperoni too, this is BEEF territory.

We eventually decided on…

Ingredients:

  • A box of no-bake lasagna noodles from Aldi.
  • A 2½ lb. package of ground beef from Aldi.
  • Fresh spinach from Shop ‘n Save.
  • Fresh parsley from Giant Eagle (could’t order it from Aldi or Shop ‘n Save via Instacart.)
  • A tiny tub of Ricotta from Aldi.  (Instacart size fail.)
  • A giant tub of Ricotta from Giant Eagle.
  • 2 Aldi zucchini.
  • A 2-cup bag of “Italian Blend” cheese from Aldi.
  • A 1½ cup bag of shredded parmesan & romano cheese from Giant Eagle.
  • A 1½ cup bag of shredded mozarella cheese from Gaint Eagle.
  • 2 eggs
  • “Shake cheese” – Used both Parmesan & a Parmesan Romano blend.
  • A bag of “Italian Seasoning” croutons from Aldi.
  • Kraft Roasted Red Pepper Italian dressing.
  • 3 jars of the cheap Aldi marinara sauce.  (It is way better than the supposedly more delicious and expensive ones.)
  • Condensed Tomato Soup
  • Brown Sugar
  • Various spices no, I didn’t measure:
    • “Italian Seasoning” {Whatever that is.)
    • Dried spice-rack Parsely
    • Garlic Powder
    • Onion Powder
    • White Pepper
    • Coarse Ground Black Pepper
    • Sea Salt
    • Whatever Aldi “Seasoned Salt” that looks like the Lawry’s Seasoned Salt bottle or McCormick Season All is.

🌡️ Cook temp:  400° F

⏱ Prep time:  This isn’t Food Network, All Recipes, or Martha Stewart & Snoop Dogg.  How do I know?  I had a 6 year old and a 4 year old helping.  So, it was slow.

⏲ Cook time: 20 to 25 min. for the meatballs.  (Cook to a temperature, not a time.  The USDA says ground beef needs to be 160° F so you don’t die or something.  Get a food thermometer.)  45 min. covered in foil for the lasagna, 15 min. uncovered.

Method:

  1. Get out all your pots, pans, utensils, cutting boards, and stuff before you cook.  If you have children helping, get paper towels.  Get the ingredients out.  Wash your hands.  Wash the eggs.  We used 2 large mixing bowls, and an inordinate amount of oddly shaped glass baking dishes.
  2. Chop the parsley & spinach like a madman (or mad woman, or mad person of a non-specific gender).  Have the kids help.  They love sharp knives.  It’s important that they respect them and that you watch closely.  Very closely.  We sometimes use one of those still sharp plastic lettuce knives for stuff like this.  I didn’t measure.  We used about the whole bunch of parsley & a handful and a half of spinach.
  3. Slice up that zucchini as thinly as possible.  I don’t have a mandolin, so I did that instead of the kids.  Actually, I would still do that if we had a mandolin.
  4. We divided the parsley & spinach about equally into the 2 mixing bowls.  I talked about that thing where you add the same flavors across different dishes to tie them together, but I have no idea what the word for that is.
  5. In the meatball bowl, we tossed in the ground beef & the croutons.  We smashed the croutons first.  Oh, that was fun.  It probably got out of hand, but the bag didn’t pop.
  6. We also poured in some Kraft Roasted Red Pepper Italian dressing in the meatballs.  Amount?  Yes.  Until it looked good.  This is one thing I won’t bend on.  It is far more superior that any other Italian dressing.
  7. The we dropped in some Italian Blend shredded cheese & some shake cheese.  Measuring is for the timid.  Eyeball it.  Use the force, let it guide you.
  8. Mix it with your hands, roll into balls, and pop in into a glass baking dish, or 3 odd little ones.  We spaced them out.  I mean, you could use a baking sheet, and I used to prefer them in the electric skillet, but this is so easy.  We put all of the above spices in there too.  And sprinkled a bit on the outside once formed.
  9. We washed out hands again, and I set that in the oven & set the timer for 23 minutes because I couldn’t decide between 20 or 25.
  10. We poured the marinara & tomato soup in a pot, added some brown sugar (just a bit), shake cheese, parsley & italian seasnonings, & garlic.
  11. The kids stirred that.  And stirred that.  And stirred that.
  12. We put the ricotta in the 2nd mixing bowl already containing spinach & parsley.
  13. Add eggs, the rest of the “Italian Blend” cheese bag, some shake cheese, and some minced garlic… and whatever spices you want.  I told the kids here about depth of flavor in using the dried parsley vs. the fresh parsley and minced garlic vs the garlic powder… but I don’t know if they were paying attention.  They had just cracked eggs and we were about to mess with a giant gooey bowl of cheese.
  14. Go easy on that white pepper if you have it.  It goes a loooong way.
  15. Spread the sauce on the bottom of your biggest glass baking dish.
  16. We layed out the no-boil noodles.  It was my first time using them.  I think it went pretty well.  They fit 4 across and 1 at the end in our pan.
  17. On top of the noodles we did half of the ricotta mixture, the Parmesan/Romano shredded cheese, the zucchini, sauce, more noodles, the rest of the ricotta mixture, the shredded Mozzarella cheese, sauce, noodles, more sauce, and a mix of the Parmesan/Romano & Mozzarella cheeses.
  18. We like cheese.  The kids tasted the different shred varieties as we layered.  Ian liked the Parmesan/Romano & Molly liked the Mozzarella.
  19. I covered that in foil & put it in the oven for 45 minutes.  Then I uncovered it & let it go for 15 minutes.
  20. The extra sauce goes on the meatballs.

Ooh.  I snuck the story in on you didn’t I?  Wow.  Would you like to speak to the manager?  You might like my other blogs about meatballs or meatloaf or wedding soup… or any of my food stuff.  The kids went absolutely primate-poop over the meatballs.  The no-boil noodles were fine.  I liked that they were al dente.  There was enough liquid that I didn’t add any like the box suggested.  Be a rebel!  (OK, I asked for opinions on FB for that first on my page & in an Aldi recipe group.)

Oh yeah, completely unrelated, I made these this morning too:

Found the recipe here via Google: https://tasty.co/recipe/potato-flower-breakfast-cups