Some More Great Family Friendly Dinners

I've been slacking on posting some of my recent meals and recipes so I thought I'd combine a couple on this post.  Saturday, I had an Italian Pot Roast cooking in the crock pot all day (9 hours!).  I had a baby shower to go to and some other errands to run.  I didn't want to worry about slaving over dinner in a time crunch.  If you don't have a crock pot, get one.  If you have one, use it!  As a busy mama, I rely on mine at least 2 days a week.  I choose a couple days when I know I have a lot going on.  It is very easy to just get take out or pizza when you have a lot of running around to do, but if you have dinner in the crock pot, it's ready to go with very little effort at the end of the day!



So, here is a pic of the pot roast when I first put it in the crock pot

It was delish and my husband said he LOVED it.  It is a different take on your traditional pot roast.  It has yummy artichokes, kalamata olives, and capers.  I usually don't cook with this much meat because it goes to waste around here, but I used a 3 lb roast.  I still have TONS left over and I am going to be freezing it tonight. So if I did make this again, I'd probably use 1/2 the meat. 

I am not a big meat eater.  It upsets my stomach most of the time.  I am not a vegetarian by any means....I love me some mahogany's filet!  But, I usually try to avoid it whenever possible.  This meal was great because my husband could eat the roast (and of course the sides) and I could just load up my plate with red potatoes, artichokes, and kalamata olives!   Definitely something for everyone. 

The only downside was the cost to make this meal.  The roast itself was a little over $10, plus the cost of the capers, kalamata olives, artichokes, and potatoes was probably another $10 +.  Definitely cheaper than eating out but still my most expensive dinner I've made in a long time.  There is a ton of food here though.  This would be great to make for company!

Here's the recipe:
Light Italian Pot Roast (as adapted from Cooking Light Slow Cooker)
4 tsp dried Italian Seasoning
1/2 tsp pepper
3 lb pork loin roast (cut in half)
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 c chopped onion
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 c low sodium, no MSG chicken broth
9 small red potatoes (halved)
24 kalamata olives (+ or - depending on how much you like these)
1 tbsp capers
1 tsp oregano
2 - 14 oz cans whole artichoke hearts, drained

Directions:
1.  Combine italian seasoning and pepper, rub over surface of roast.  Heat olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over med-high heat.  Add roast, cook 8 minutes, browning all sides.  Remove roast from pan, place in a 6-qt electric slow cooker. 

2.  Add onion and garlic to pan.  Place over med heat, and saute 5 minutes.  Add broth, scraping pan to loosen browned bits.  Pour mixture over roast in crock pot. 

3.  Arrange potatoes and olives around roast, sprinkle with capers and oregano. 

4.  Cover and cook on LOW for 9 hours. 

5.  Add artichoke hearts and cook 1 additional hour

So that's the pot roast.  Tonight, I made it super easy and decided it was time to re-heat my frozen meatballs from the other night and make some meatball and roasted veggie subs!  I only had 21 meatballs and it ended up the perfect amount for my family, but we will not have any leftovers.  So, I am recommending having more meatballs for this recipe.  If you don't have frozen meatballs, I will give you a killer meatball recipe to use if making these from scratch.  You could even make the meatballs at an earlier date and freeze them until you're ready for this recipe.  So, here are 2 recipes, the first of the clean eating meatballs and the second of the meatball subs.

First, here is my meatball recipe:
Clean Eating Meatballs
1 lb certified organic lean beef
2 cloves minced garlic
1 large organic cage free egg (or you can substitute 2 egg whites)
1 tbsp oregano
1/2 c bread crumbs (if store bought, make sure it's clean; otherwise just put 2 pieces of toast, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp onion powder, 1/4 c grated parm in a food processor - voila!  Homemade breadcrumbs)
Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Add all ingredients to a large bowl and mix thoroughly by hand.  Form meat mixture into 1 in size meatballs by rolling them between the palms of your hands.  Place on baking sheet (line with aluminum foil for easy clean up) & transfer to oven.  Bake for 25-30 minutes, turning halfway through. 

 Meatball Subs with Roasted Veggies
32 frozen meatballs (+ or - depending on how many people you're feeding) 
OR the Clean Eating Meatballs you just made
Organic Spaghetti sauce (or my super easy homemade spaghetti sauce found on this blog)
1 medium zucchini, cut into 1/2 in wide strips
1 medium red bell pepper, cut into 1/2 in wide strips
1 medium yellow onion, cut into 1/4 in wide strips
2 tsp olive oil
Fresh cracked black pepper (to taste/optional)
whole wheat hoagie rolls/subs

1.  (FROZEN:)  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Place frozen meatballs on cookie sheet and put in oven for 30 minutes.  Remove from oven and set aside.

***From here on, recipe is the same, whether you had frozen, pre-cooked meatballs or just made them.***
2.  Set oven up to 400 degrees.
3.  On a separate cookie sheet, place all veggies and toss with olive oil and some cracked black pepper (to taste)

4.  Toss cooked meatballs in spaghetti sauce on cookie sheet, until they're evenly covered.

5.  Put veggies in oven for 5 minutes. 
6.  Leave veggies in, place spaghetti sauced meatballs in oven for 10 minutes, set aside. 
7.  Toss veggies, and return to oven to roast for 15 more minutes. 
6.  Slice hoagies and place open face up. 

Tear out a bit of bread from the middle to make room for the meatballs.  Spread some spaghetti sauce on inside of hoagie bun and place open face up in broiler for 1 minute to toast. 

7.  Place meatballs and veggies on toasted hoagie, as desired.

So, once again, I skipped meat all together and just piled on the roasted veggies.  IT WAS AWESOME!  I hope this wasn't too confusing, but I wanted to give you some options.  For the kiddos, I served this with some organic baby carrots and organic cucumber slices with organic ranch dressing.  Kids raved and said how great dinner was....so in my book that's a success!!

Thanks for reading, have a relaxing evening!!