Meatball Subs

Ever have one of those days where you get crazy ambitious and three hours later you have cleaned the bathroom like the Tazmanian Devil on performance enhancing drugs (surprising since I just ran to the bathroom to grab a hair clip, not turn cleaning into an Olympic sport), cooked enough meat for four dishes, a dinner, a dessert, and finished three loads of laundry?  I had one of those days this past week.  I returned home from a meeting at work and thought "maybe I should go ahead and cook this meat".  Next thing I knew, we were sitting down to tasty meatball subs (but not before random Extreme Sport cleaning).  And yes, it is as big as it looks.  I was only able to eat half.


I started out with the plan to cook some Italian sausage and lean ground beef to freeze for use in Italian dishes--spaghetti, pizza, manicotti, etc.  I had a full pound of sausage and beef that all needed the basic Italian spices.  I simply set aside about 1/4 pound of the mix and finished it out as meatballs and scrambled the rest for future use.

Here are the major players:

Ingredients:

1/4  pound ground beef
1/4  pound ground Italian sausage (I prefer mild)
2 teaspoons parsley, divided (I used fresh because I had some in the garden)
2  teaspoons oregano, divided
2 teaspoons basil, divided
2 teaspoons fennel seed, divided
2 teaspoons garlic powder, divided (or minced fresh garlic)
3 small green peppers
1 small onion
4 small Roma tomatoes
1 egg
1/8 cup Italian bread crumbs
1/8 cup whole wheat couscous
1 small can tomato paste
1 small can tomato sauce
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
Hoagie rolls
Provolone or other favorite cheese

Directions:

1.  In a small food processor, finely chop the onions, tomatoes, and green peppers.  In a coffee grinder, grind the fennel seed and add to the vegetable mixture.  Set aside half of the vegetable mixture for use in another dish (I cooked it with the rest of the meat to use in manicotti later this week)

2.  In a pan or dutch oven, open the can of tomato sauce and can of tomato paste.  Add in the vinegar and olive oil, other half of the spices, and 1/4 of the vegetable mixture that was chopped in the food processor.  Remember that 1/2 is saved for later, 1/4 goes in the meatball mix, and finally 1/4 in the sauce.  Heat sauce on low heat, and covered for approximately 30 minutes.   Taste the sauce and add additional amounts of the spices as needed.

3.  In a bowl, mix the beef and sausage.   Add in the spices (remember that they should be divided with 1 teaspoon going in to the meat and 1 teaspoon going in to the sauce) and 1/4 of the vegetable mixture and combine by hand. Add the egg, couscous, and bread crumbs.  Combine well and roll in to small meatballs. Lightly coat bottom of cast iron skillet with olive oil and cook meatballs on medium high heat, turning every 4 minutes.

4.   Once they are nicely browned on the outside but still not fully cooked, add to the sauce to simmer and finish cooking.  Cover and let simmer for 15 minutes on low heat.  Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

5.  Slice your hoagie rolls and place your meatballs and sauce in the bun.  Leave the buns attached at the bottom like a hotdog bun so that the sauce doesn't fall out the bottom.  Cover with cheese and place on a pan.  Finish out the rest of the subs and prop them against each other on the pan so that the cheese is facing up for browning in the oven.  Bake for about 12 minutes or until the cheese starts to brown.  Serve immediately.

Tips:

• Remember that this was one of my crazy, cook pounds of meat for 5 dishes kind of recipes.  I took 3/4 of the meat mix (the original pound of beef and pound of sausage) and separated out 1/4 of the meat for the meatballs but went ahead and cooked the rest of the meat adding in more of the Italian spices and the other half of the vegetable mixture that I chopped in the food processor.  That meat will be partially used in manicotti and partially used in spaghetti with meat sauce.  It is safely tucked away in the freezer.  
• The meatball mixture was enough for 2 subs for Matt and I for dinner, plus two more meals that we ate over the weekend.  
• I have been testing couscous as a binder in my meatballs and hamburger steaks for a while now and am very pleased.  I used whole wheat couscous that was leftover from another meal.  
• The fresh tomatoes used in the vegetable mixture are only there because they happened to be in my garden.  The onion and green pepper are mandatory but the tomato is not so don't go out buying Roma tomatoes just for this dish.