David's Birthday Celebration

We usually have some type of get together for celebrations and I always make some type of appetizers or meal for it, but for this one I wanted to make dishes that David loved. Appetizer Meatballs happened to be one of David’s favorites, and it’s one of his Gramma’s recipes. Now I am not usually a fan  of this type of recipe, but I have to admit these were pretty good. So I gathered the ingredients and set to work.

*Makes approx. 61-65 (1”) meatballs

**This recipe makes 1 ½ quarts of sauce

-          3 lbs ground beef

-          1 c minced onion

-          3 eggs

-          3 tsp salt

-          1 ½ tsp Worcestershire sauce

-          1 ½ c bread crumbs

-          1 ½ c milk

-          3 tbsp parsley, chopped or dry

-          ¼ + 1/8 tsp black pepper

-          36 oz. Heinz Chili sauce (3 bottles- found in the condiment aisle by ketchup and cocktail sauce)

-          30 oz grape jelly

1.      Mix the ground beef with the onion by hand first. When fully incorporated, then add in the spices and mix that in by hand as well until incorporated.

2.      Make a well in the meat mixture and crack the eggs into it. Carefully using your hands mix in the egg. When fully incorporated add the milk and Worcestershire sauce. After the milk/Worchestershire sauce is fully integrated into the mix, it will now be somewhat loose. 

3. Now add the bread crumbs to the meat mix and using your hands yet again mix in carefully until fully integrated. The crumbs absorb some liquid and will help make the mix less loose.

 

4.      Roll meat mix into 1” balls. Heat a little oil in a pan on medium-high heat. Put meatballs in hot oil and brown on all sides. Drain on paper towels. 

5. Heat chili sauce, drippings from meatball pan, and grape jelly in pot until the jelly melts, stirring often and scraping the bottom

6.      Return the meatballs to the pot and simmer on warm-low for 30 minutes.

*You can make these ahead and freeze. I made the meatballs and cooked them almost all the way through then froze them individually on a cookie sheet before I put them in a bag. Then made the sauce with the pan drippings and froze that separately so I could heat the sauce in a Crockpot and when it was hot finish cooking the meatballs in it (approx. 30 minutes)

I also made cheese sticks with a marinara dipping sauce

  

Makes 24 sticks

-          1 (10 oz) prepared pizza crust, or make a homemade dough

-          1 tbsp butter, melted

-          ½ c provolone cheese, shredded

-          1 tbsp parmesan cheese

-          1 tbsp dried basil

-          ¼ tsp garlic salt

1.       Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

2.       Unroll Pizza dough onto a greased cookie sheet and brush with butter.

3.       Sprinkle cheeses and spices evenly over the dough.

4.       Using a pizza cutter, cut lengthwise into 12 long strips. Then cut those in half to make 24 strips. DON’T SEPARATE THE STRIPS!

5.       Bake for 10-12 minutes or until light golden brown

6.       Re-cut along each strip and remove from cookie sheet.

***Serve sticks with warm marinara sauce

But nothing compared to his cake. Now, if you know David you know that he has a passion for Star Wars, so naturally I thought: Cake…Death Star…Death Star cake!!!! So, after a whole day of effort we were able to create this masterpiece

If you want to see how my friend and I made this cake then look at her blog, because she is the dessert baking queen! Death Star Cake

I know what you must be thinking, either that we’re insane to make it, or that David has some people in his life that REALLY like him. Enough to put in a whole lot of effort J

The party was wonderful and David certainly enjoyed himself, not just eating good food, but we were lucky enough to be joined by some great friends to celebrate the occasion with.

 This was a big hit at the party and it certainly made David a very happy man J