Weigh-in Wednesday and turkey meatballs

Starting weight: 176.4
Last week weight: 135.2 
Current weigh: 137.4 

Current loss:  +2.2 

TOTAL LOSS: -39.0

Tough Christmas weekend with LOTS of food.  Back to it this week...

__________________________________________________

  

Italian Turkey Meatballs (in the slow cooker)

This recipe came from a website which is quickly becoming one of my favorites: SkinnyTaste.com

Why do I love this recipe?  It's fast, easy, and you don't have to brown the meat on the stove before you put it in the slow cooker (I know it gives it added flavor and crusty-ness but I'm more of a one-pot kinda cook).  I did change some things in Gina's original recipe (like switching out parsley for baby spinach in the meatballs) but this was super yummy!!  Definitely made it into my regular recipe rotation.

Ingredients:
(this recipe makes 10 servings of 5 meatballs each)

• 20 oz. ground turkey breast
• 20 oz. lean ground beef
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
• 1 cup baby spinach leaves, finely chopped
• 2 eggs
• 2 cloves of garlic, diced
• 2 tsp black pepper
• 2 tsp salt

For the sauce:

• 2 tsp olive oil
• 8 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
• 56 oz. cans crushed tomatoes
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp black pepper

1.) In a large bowl, combine first 9 ingredients.  Mix well with your hands and form 1/8 cup meatballs.  For this, I used a 1/4 measuring cup and just divided each scoop into two... and I employed the boyfriend to roll the meatballs for me.  =)

2.)  In a small sauce pan, heat olive oil over medium heat and brown garlic.

3.) Add browned garlic and olive oil to your slow cooker.  Add remaining ingredients for the sauce into the slow cooker and mix.

4.)  Add uncooked meatballs into the sauce, cover and cook on low 4 - 6 hours.

 Before cooking...

... and after cooking.

5.) Serve over pasta or zucchini "pasta" and ENJOY!