If you are anything like me, you have a drawer or even a box full of recipes from newspapers, magazines, old maiden aunts, grandmothers, friends and every potluck you ever went to and said I have to have that recipe! I originally started making this recipe (and posted it too) about 15 years ago. I haven’t made many changes since that initial time – it’s just that good!
While I usually keep the combination of ingredients, spices and seasonings somewhat intact, I do make changes to those recipes to make them more palatable to my family. So I always keep a list of likes, dislikes and allergies and am constantly altering recipes to fly by the seat of my pants.
These recipes have been floating around so long in the box that I have no idea where they actually originated, but one looks like a page from an old, and I mean OLD magazine and the other is handwritten. I have them stapled together with a note to combine them together.
I’m like that – whatever works for my family. I had a girlfriend in college who loved fashion but was on such a strict budget there wasn’t room for the things she eyed the most. I remember Julie borrowing a fancy designer dress from a Joann, a girlfriend of ours for an event and then later that night she took it apart, made a pattern and made her own dress before putting Joann’s dress back together. To my knowledge Joann never knew. Now I can’t do that with recipes literally, but I do do it in my mind while I’m reading the recipe(s) as if I’m eating a particularly tasty tidbit. Some days I feel like an archaeologist unearthing pieces to make a whole from.
This is one of our particularly favorites recipes from my archaeology days of recipe hunting. It’s also versatile in that you can easily change the sauce to whatever your tastebuds crave that day whether it’s one of the ones I have listed or one you make up to fit your family. Serve it with salad, in a pasta dish or even on a sandwich!
ALL DAY MEATBALLS
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground pork
3/4 cup quick cooking oats
1/4 cup Panko read crumbs
1/2 cup WHOLE milk
1/4 cup powdered Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup garlic salt
FRESH ground tricolor pepper, to taste
1 small Vidalia onion, chopped fine
2 LARGE eggs
- In a large bowl combine the quick cooking oats, milk, eggs, onion and garlic salt.
- Crumble the beef over top and then mix in well.
- Shape into 1-2 inch balls.
- Place in slow cooker.
- Pour sauce of choice over meatballs. If using my whiskey sour sauce, save sauce until serving.
- Cover and cook on low for 6-7 hours or until the meat is no longer pink.
CHERRY SAUCE
3 tablespoons QUALITY vinegar
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup tart cherry jam (or jam flavor of choice)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cup jalapeno ketchup
- Mix together the ketchup, vinegar, Worcestershire, jam and brown sugar
NOTE: Cherry, raspberry and apricot pineapple jams work extremely well with this recipe.
WHISKEY SOUR JELLY SAUCE
3 limes, juiced (6 tablespoons)
2 lemons, juiced (6 tablespoons)
1 orange, sliced, rind removed, each slice quartered
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup bourbon
3 ounces liquid pectin (1/2 of a foil pouch)
1/4 cup maraschino cherries, quartered
- In a heavy saucepan stir together the lime juice, lemon juice, sugar, water and bourbon.
- Bring to a FULL rolling boil, boiling hard for a full minute, stirring constantly.
- Quickly stir in pectin.
- Return to boil, boiling hard for a full minute more, stirring constantly.
- Fold in oranges slices and cherry pieces.
- Pour over meatballs before serving.
NOTE – Make a LARGE batch of sauce and use it for pretty gifts. Add an orange slice and maraschino cherry before ladle into sterilized jars. Water bath to seal.