 Hey y'all, it is Chris and Tammy with Collard Valley Cooks. This is our simple Italian meat balls out of our first cookbook and it's a pasta sauce. It's actually Chris's favorite pasta sauce. Okay, it's really simple and easy, but you do use some fresh ingredients, okay? So we're gonna be using a whole onion and this onion I've already sliced that way. So we'll use half of this onion and the pasta sauce and half of the onion in the meatballs. So you're gonna wanna slice it pretty thin, you know, because it's going in the meatballs and then we'll chop it a little bit extra and that should be plenty for both, okay? So it says to use half of onion in both. These are really good meatballs and while we're frying up the meatballs, we're gonna make the pasta sauce. It'll all come together pretty quick. I'm in the mood for something Italian, something different. We've been eating, well, we had chicken and dumplings. We've had, you know, just some more, more low stuff and I'm ready for something spicy. Well, these aren't real spicy, but you know what I mean? With a little flavor. I know what I don't have, I don't have my meat out. All right, so we're gonna put this onion in here. All right, half of it. All right, we got some fresh basil and some fresh parsley and I've already washed it and so I'm just gonna kinda twist it up a little bit, take off the stems and we're just gonna chop this up. This is gonna go in our meatballs too. Lord mercy. Now if you don't have fresh, you can always use dried. You know, just out of your spice jars. It's basil and Italian parsley. We're gonna throw that in here. We're gonna chop up three roma tomatoes. Oh no, that's for the pasta sauce, ain't it? Okay, whoops, whoops. All right, we're gonna put in, let's see, Italian seasoning about a tablespoon. All right, I'm about to make some noise. We're gonna put in an egg, just a little bit of dale. Now if you don't have dale seasoning, use what you got. You got some A1, you got some 57, just put in something that's beefy and it says my half a teaspoon, so just a little bit. This is low sodium, so regular dale has a lot of salt in it. It's corn, which one you're using. Sorry about that. Good old dale sauce, all right. And then you're gonna take about a cup of croutons and you're gonna beat them up. And I use these instead of breadcrumbs just because they got a good flavor. Now if you wanna use breadcrumbs, go right ahead. Let's see, where's my meat at, darling? What about my sausage? Oh, here it is. Sorry, y'all. We didn't wanna get this out because you don't wanna get beef out before you mix up meatballs because if it gets room temperature, it gets real mushy, okay? Today we're using swaggerties, Italian sausage, and I'm gonna use half a pound of this and a half a pound of ground beef. And now this ground beef is actually ground sirloin or tuck or something like that. Don't have a lot of fat in it. And let's see, this is ground beef. It says 7% fat. I would say it's quite lean, quite lean. So we're gonna use half of it, almost half of this. So if you're using breadcrumbs, it ain't a whole cup of breadcrumbs. It's a cup of croutons crushed. So it's probably more like a half cup of breadcrumbs if you're wanting to know how to substitute that ingredient in here. And I'm gonna reach behind me while I'm mixing these and I'm gonna turn my heat up on my wok because we're gonna throw these in the wok and these are gonna cook while we make our pasta sauce in our pasta. So just give them a good mixing. And then we're gonna roll them out. Now you can make a little or an inch, however big you wanna make them. Some of my onions are a little bit big for them or we'll pretend they're not. And if they just fall out, they fall out, okay? They're gonna be good. I'm just gonna lay them right back in the bowl. Y'all tell us what you're making tonight for supper. Y'all tell us where you're from tonight and what you're doing because it's gonna take me a minute to roll these meatballs, all right? So if you've never seen us cook, this is teamie with Collard Valley Cooks. I started Collard Valley Cooks back in 2017. When Chris was still working and then the kids were still in school. Cause I really wanted, I'm a cancer survivor, breast cancer survivor. So I started it just because I was afraid that if something happened to me and my cancer came back, my kids wouldn't know how to cook because they really wouldn't interested in anything I did in the kitchen at that age, especially. And they watched a lot of YouTube, really they did. And I didn't even really know what YouTube was in 2017. And I thought, you know what, I'm just gonna get on here and start making some videos. So that my kids will learn how to cook. And then it caught on and people enjoyed it. And so I just continued it. And then it's grown over the years. We've got four cookbooks and we're very blessed and God has been good. And I am still trucking. I've never had, so far, I will be 13 years out from when they found my breast cancer. And I did have a double mastectomy back in 2010. So it's been a while. So it's a good thing. Wonderful to be a survivor of breast cancer. So if you're a breast cancer survivor or you're going through it or you know somebody that is, you can mention it because almost everybody that you talk to has been touched some way by breast cancer or somebody that they work with their kids, their parent, their grandparent, et cetera. Now my grandmother on my daddy's side had breast cancer when she was 67 and had her breasts removed. And when she was 69 had her breasts removed. So she had both of them removed and lived to be 90 years old. So I'm hoping I get to live to 90. Like Granny did, I had a different kind than she did. But still, I did like Granny and had him taken off. So anyway, now this is pretty hot. We're gonna start smoking. We're gonna drop these meatballs and I'm gonna throw a little olive oil down in there too. Since our beef was really lean and that sausage is very lean. Typically, you know, it don't have a lot of grease either. So we'll be adding a little grease to these. And now we're gonna make our pasta sauce but I gotta get all this hamburger off my hands. We are a team. Chris takes the whole thing off. What'd you do that for? I feel like I need to really hurt it. Oh, the browner they get the better, I think. Now this is a wok and a wok gets really hot. We turn this down a little bit. So for the sauce, we are going to open a can, 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes. And I think what I'm gonna do, I don't tell you to do this, but I think I'm gonna put a little bit of oil in there and just saute these onion real quick. Let me grab a scraper. I don't really want onion all over the floor. So this is just a really simple pasta sauce. And it is super delicious. It's Chris's favorite way for me to make pasta sauce. It's really fresh tasting because you don't cook it a long time. And while those are simmering, we will stir these a little bit. So when you're doing meatballs, that you can put these in the air fryer if you've got an air fryer, and that way they get done all the way around quicker, instead of having to turn them and watch them and stuff if you want to. Can't submit to flip them all. All right, I'm gonna put a little bit of a steam on them and help them get done in the inside. Now what we're gonna do is chop up a few tomatoes. I've got some Roma tomato and we're gonna chop some up and throw them in the pasta sauce with the tomatoes. I gotta decide how I wanna cut them. Now it's quiet. All right, so, and this just adds just a little bit of a freshness to it, a taste. We're gonna put some fresh garlic in it too. And this is really good, delicious. Now I put a lid on those. Once they start getting brown, you'll be able to move them around a lot easier without having to worry about them falling apart. And so you're gonna be able to stir on these here. And I'm just gonna put the lid back on them. And that just helps them get done in the inside. I'm about to burn my onions up. They're gonna have some flavor. All right, we're gonna throw our tomatoes in here. It's a bit hot. Pot's hot. Hot pot. Don't y'all like excitement? All right, I think that's it. You got your tomatoes, a little bit of sugar, a little bit of salt and pepper, your onion, and then your garlic. Okay, so we're just gonna add a little salt and pepper to it. And I got it right here. Oh, I never turned the light on, Daddy O. Did you notice? You should've told me. Oh, no. All right, we're gonna put some pepper in here and salt and just a little bit of sugar, pepper, salt, a little bit of sugar. Okay, and let's throw our tomatoes in there. And then once this starts simmering good, we can start our pasta. Drop the tomato. Don't that look good? Yummy. Yummy, yummy. Now we're gonna get our garlic ready and that's the last thing we have to get ready. And then we're gonna be able to drop our pasta. Did y'all think you weren't gonna eat a piece of garlic? Do you know what? Garlic is something that not a lot of animals like, but we sure like it, don't we? If you're just coming on, we're making Italian meatballs. I'm getting them good and brown, too. You turn them down. Boy, that wok gets hotter than you think it does. It really does. Now I'm gonna use a garlic press and I'm gonna press the garlic into the pasta sauce. And I always take the toughest parts off. You don't have to with a garlic press, but I like to. That's just how I am. So we're gonna put these in there and press those through. And there's the fresh garlic going in. Yummy. That's cooked long enough, but I'm gonna tell you Benchris love the fresh taste of tomatoes, don't we, baby? Love them. And you should know as much stuff as we put in those meatballs. They're gonna be good. I'll try to get one that's not so brown. Of course, y'all might like it because they're brown. I sure like them brown. And there you have it. Spaghetti and meatballs. Quick, it's called simple Italian meatballs because I know some people put a lot more than I do in their meatballs, but I'm gonna tell you, these are just really, really good, okay? So give them a real close-up view of it and then I'm gonna take a bite. Yum, yum, yum. Which side? Your own? Yep. Alrighty. Let's get us a bite, y'all. So we're gonna slice into the meatball. See, it's good and done. And it's good and hot. I don't wanna get burnt, so I'm gonna be careful. I'll roll this up a little bit of, ah, pasta? Let me get half of it. Chris always says, you get the biggest bites. I'm like, well, I'm doing my best. I want some sauce. I can't get everything on it at one time, y'all. Hey, I'm not a real good with my noodles. Come on now. I did my best. Chris is looking at me like I've lost my mind. No, absolutely not. Suck the spaghetti up? Not like what you just did. No. My kids love spaghetti. Okay. I'm still a kid at heart. Yeah. Anyway, it's really good, y'all. Delicious, fresh-tasting, that fresh garlic in there, all those herbs, I mean, it's really good. Really, really delicious. I hope y'all give it a try. Throw in the Italian seasoning. Croutons in there helps it too. I mean, it's got a lot of flavor. It's punched, punched with flavor. So I don't know why I call them simple when I wrote the recipe, but I did. They're not that simple, but they're delicious. All right, mm-mm-mm, that's a good meatball. And we're using our Swaggerty's Italian Sausage, which makes them even better. All right, we'll see you next time on Colored Valley Cook, where we cook. Like Mama did, let me show you this. What'd you do with my, I had a viewer send me this in the mail today, where we cook like Mama did. Bye, y'all love ya.