Mozarella stuffed Meatballs (or Mock Applebees Dinner)

I have a confession, I enjoy eating out too much! But we end up disappointed every time we go out to eat. You would think we were food critics the way we tear apart the meal and talk about how much better we could do it at home and for alot less.

Last month Applebees had a special 2 for 20 on their mozarella stuffed meatballs with spaghetti. The taste was okay but I was disappointed with the meatballs, they just lacked that oozy cheeseyness. Last night I decided to see if I could make them better.

I started with my meatball mix.

Beth's meatloaf mix

2lbs of ground beef

2 healthy tbsp chopped garlic (more like 1/4 cup)

dash of powdered onion

handful  of dried oregano, sage and basil

3 whole eggs

3/4 cup of breadcrumbs.

Mix and leave to set in fridge for an hour or two. I find this enchances the seasonings, don't know why.

To make the mozarella stuffed meatballs, cube mozarella cheese. Start out with a small half meatball, like a mini patty. Press the cheese into the center of it then add another half meatball on top, and press closed.

Heat olive oil in a pan, and saute the meatballs on each side just to brown.

Add drained meatballs to a crock pot of sauce ( I used 2 batches of homemade spaghetti sauce this time) and allow to simmer on medium for 2 hours. This allows the meatballs to finish cooking since all you are doing with the oil is browning them.

Top cooked spaghetti with meatball sauce mixture and voila dinner!

From this batch, we got 2 healthy sized dinners, and 3 boxed lunches for later and enough meatballs leftover to do a meatball sub later on. These freeze well when partial cooked.

You can see the oozy melty cheese escaping from the meatball!

Beth and Bear! Who by the way loved his meatball plain!