Comfort food… what is your favorite? Mac n cheese? Mashed potatoes? We were brought up on these great filling carbs, only to find out as an adult that they are not so comforting… they still fill us up, but also fill us out… they turn to sugar and fat and like to settle into low lying areas...
After years of being borderline diabetic, Buddy officially now has the dreaded disease like so many of his ancestors and siblings. So we are learning about carbs and counting carbs and reading labels differently. And we are learning about changing old eating habits. Instead of a big plate of pasta and meat sauce and a couple of slices of garlic bread, let's try this instead… a big salad and some big meatballs and a little bit of spaghetti noodles.
Searching my kid's favorite recipe site - allrecipes.com - found this meatball recipe that sounded good but of course I didn't have half of the stuff listed, so as they say - necessity is the mother of invention. I added some of this and that to my basic ground beef and came up with this recipe which we tried last week:
MEATBALLS and spaghetti
1 # ground beef
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1 egg
2 dashes of garlic salt
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
6 Ritz crackers crumbled
1/2 cup water
Your favorite bottled spaghetti sauce - 23.5 oz (Prego Italian Sausage and Garlic)
Mix all ingredients except sauce together well, shape into eight 2" balls. Brown in a little oil in saucepan, cooking slowly and turning to brown all sides - cover for a little bit to make sure the middle gets done. Remove from pan, pour off grease, wipe out pan. Return meatballs to pan, add sauce, simmer for 15 minutes.
Carbs are a necessary nutrient, so don't cut them out altogether, but should be eaten in moderation. We are working on cutting down on carbs, it would be easier if they didn't taste so dang good!
