Meatball Subs

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Cooking with a little one has been much harder than I anticipated.  It’s not that he’s fussy during dinner or anything, it’s just that there is NO time during the week.  We’ve been trying to eat together as a family but that isn’t always easy or possible.  During the week, it’s a blink of an eye between the time Zachary gets home from daycare and goes to sleep.  I’d much rather be playing with him for that short time than be in the kitchen, that’s for sure.  As a result, I’ve started trying to prep more things on the weekend or the night before, after Zachary’s gone to sleep to get things done quickly the next evening.  We still don’t always eat as a family (Tom & I often eat dinner after Zachary is asleep), but either way, things are made easier with prep work.

Every minute of my day from about 6am to 7pm is booked solid. And I mean every minute. I’ve been using minutes I didn’t even know I had.  Like those 10 minutes I normally have to sit down for a second in the morning before leaving for work? Those were used to chop and sauté the vegetables for these meatballs. The night before, when Zachary went to bed, I made the sauce (part of it was used for these subs, and the rest for chicken parmesan – look at me, so resourceful!).

With that said, these do come together pretty quickly and easily, even if you don’t make them in, like, 7 parts. 🙂 They’re tasty and comforting and, since I used lean ground beef and part-skim mozzarella, really not bad for  you, either.  We had these with a Caesar salad for a complete meal.

I made the meatballs and sauce pretty similarly to the way I make them for spaghetti and meatballs.  I had an extra half of a red bell pepper in my fridge so I decided to dice that and throw it into the meatball mixture, which was a nice addition that added a little bit of sweetness. I made a few other tweaks here and there.

Meatball Subs

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11 thoughts on “Meatball Subs

  1. I completely understand the weeknight madness! Your schedule sounds like mine. I like to cook, too and I admit that I often feel defeated on weeknights – especially now that I’m also trying to work out three times a week.

  2. You sound like me…mixing up meatballs the night before, browning them before work to throw in the crock pot with sauce just so we can actually eat dinner before the baby goes to bed. Sadly, we have been using a lot of convenience items lately.

  3. I haven’t had a meatball sub in ages either! There aren’t enough hours in the day, that’s for sure. Wait til homework and studying get thrown into the mix 😉

  4. Meatball subs are one of the ultimate comfort foods for me and yet I never have one because when you buy them at a store they are diet destruction! These look pretty darn delicious and pretty damn okay for you…which I love!

    Ugh, I am so with you on the too few hours thing. I don’t have a child but as a med student who wants to also cook and go to the gym, I can tell you that I never feel like I have enough time! Yikes.

  5. With a little one, and even just working, I can see the need for fast and delicious foods. Freeze the meatballs and dinner is ready in 10 minutes:D

  6. When I used to work and the children were young I would make lots of meatballs during the weekend (as making 1 lb or 5lbs the effort and time needed is still the same) and would freeze them in batches, so the following weekend I would make lots of burgers and always could make something quickly but still homemade. Even now that I am at home I still continue to do this. The sub looks delicious

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