Italian Meatballs

Do you need something quick for dinner? I think it seems like I always do but I know you have heard me say many times before that eating healthy isn't always that quick! I think that is one of the main hangups for families who have two working parents. I know when we get really busy our diet gets much less thought and even though I only work part time I do understand the dilemma.

I worked on this problem the other night.I grabbed these at the store that morning for a quick dinner that evening since I knew life was going to be busy the rest of the day.

 I will say that these will be an occasional food for us for a couple reasons. First they are a processed food. We try to stay away from as much processed food as we can. Second they have some ingredients I don't like such as hydrolyzed protein, caramel color, and modified food starch. So you might be wondering why I bothered at all. CONVENIENCE and LACK OF SCHWAN"S MAN. I love the turkey and spinach ones the Schwans man brings me and their ingredient list is excellent but they do also cost almost twice as much. Sadly my freezer was void of the better brand. 

Jennie-O should take notice of their competition!

 You need to grab a jar/can of your favorite low sugar pasta sauce. I like this one but the one I actually used was just a jar of the Walmart plain pasta sauce brand and for some reason I didn't take a picture of it. I would suggest you make your own for health reasons but we are talking about something fast for dinner.

 I just dumped the whole bag of meatballs into the skillet with a bit of cooking spray to get them started for a few minutes and then dumped my pasta sauce over them. I gave them about 12-15 minutes to get good and hot and seasoned with all that tomato goodness.

 Then a few minutes before I was ready to serve them I topped them with fresh mozzarella and let it melt as I stirred it around carefully. You could use shredded mozzarella as well.

 They were so tasty and worked for our strict phase one eating with a salad on the side. Both of my kids LOVED them. That is with a capital L loved them! It doesn't take much time to even get this stuff out and you can make your salad while the meatballs cook. Dinner on the table in 20 minutes is a winner to me and I only had to dirty up one pan and you know how much I adore one pan cooking.

So I hope you enjoy all you busy working people!

Italian Meatballs

1 bag of fully cooked meatballs

1 large jar pasta sauce (about 24oz.)

fresh mozzarella cheese (probably close to 8 oz.)

Add meatballs to skillet sprayed generously with cooking spray. Allow meatballs to heat for about 3 minutes as you turn them gently to prevent scorching one side. Pour pasta sauce over the meatballs and simmer for 12-15 minutes. Top with mozzarella a few minutes before serving and allow to melt as you gently stir. Serve immediately.