Last Sunday my daughter and I had “Craft day” which comprised of staying in our PJ’s the entire day and making a complete mess of the kitchen island. A few years back I started making place cards for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. I generally have the same core people each year for both meals so you would think I would be able to reuse from year to year. My mother-in-law always thinks they are “so cute” “can I take ours home”? I have no idea what she does with them but whatever. This year I KNOW she is going to want them; I think Abbi and I out did ourselves; they are super cute, or at least we think so.

I had seen a Christmas wreath made out of wine corks and having a few (wink wink) on hand I wanted to try and make it. Then I also saw someone online made a Christmas tree out of corks. I was like how hard could it be. Hot glue, corks and a frame; they really were that easy! Though I won’t be able to finish the wreath until maybe after the holidays; I need a few more corks to finish it off, nothing a bow can’t fix for now.

My Dad had stopped over the weekend before and bragged about having sauce and meatballs cooking on his stove, then one of my co-workers bragged about hers. OK maybe they were bragging I just took it that way because it sounded awesome. So between some crafts I made meatballs and had my own; well technically it wasn’t OWN sauce though I add diced onions, crushed garlic and fresh basil and some oregano and let it simmer the day away. This is one of those times when I can, and do make my own sauce, but if I can add a few ingredients to theirs and create something new and delicious why not. Leaves me more time to hot glue something!

Italian Meatballs – I used close to 3 pounds of beef so I adjusted my measurements to what  I was using but here is a simple batch recipe to use if you don’t want a have a lot of left overs.  

1 lb. ground beef
½c bread crumbs
¼c milk
1 Tbs. fresh parsley
½ tsp kosher salt
½ tsp cracked black pepper
2 Eggs
1 tsp. garlic salt
½c fresh grated Parmesan cheese

Put everything in the bowl mix just to incorporate; best if mixed by hand. At this point you really should test a small one out by cooking it in a fry pan to make sure if tastes the way you want it to; there is no adjusting once all rolled and cooked.

Roll into golf ball size; I tend to stir my sauce too much and some of meatballs don’t make it so I like cooking most of my meatballs in the oven; added benefit is the crust that forms on them YUM and then I add them to the sauce. Another added benefit is you can freeze them individually then pack them up in a gallon bag and save for another time.

This batch was eaten all in the form of meatball grinders. Never even got to make pasta!