3 ingredient Meatballs & other time-saving Holiday Hacks (#sponsored)

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of . All opinions are 100% mine.

The Christmas countdown is ON in the Mo’Betta house! I have a 6 year old that is literally counting down the days, and his excitement is contagious. (Let’s just hope the cold he had last week is not. ‘Tis the season.) I’m sure we all have some favorite recipes for the holidays, some being more labor intensive than others (can you say old-fashioned fudge?!), but we all need a few quick and easy ones lined up that will feed a crowd, yet be delicious. I thought I would share a few that have served me well over the years. These little ‘holiday hacks’ get me out of the kitchen, and able to spend more time with my friends and family.

These 3-ingredient meatballs have been around for years. They make an appearance around the holidays, as well as baby showers, bridal showers, you name it. I got the recipe from one of my uncles many years ago, and I’m surprised it has not made the blog before now. The ingredient list seems a little odd, but it works! I always have people asking for the recipe…and it’s SO easy! 

3-ingredient Meatballs

  1. 2 lbs. frozen meatballs
  2. 1 bottle (12 ounces) chili sauce 
  3. 1 bottle (12-15 ounces) grape jelly

*These can be prepared on the stove top, or in a slow cooker. The slow cooker is also great for keeping them warm during a party or get-together. Amounts can also be adjusted based on the number of people you are feeding. 

Add meatballs to crock-pot aka slow cooker. Mix together the chili sauce and grape jelly, then pour over meatballs. Heat through on high for 3-4 hours, stirring occasionally, then turn heat to low or ‘warm’ setting for serving.

I’ve seen many variations of this recipe so feel free to play with it…you can use barbecue sauce in the place of chili sauce; you can use cranberry sauce in the place of grape jelly; you can use turkey meatballs instead of beef, which I do often.  makes original and turkey meatballs that are also gluten free. They look like this:

but you can use the  to find them near you. Before heading out, I would go  coupon! Another quick and easy meal is to heat up your meatballs, and add them to slider buns with a little pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese. Stick them in the oven to melt the cheese…

In addition to frozen meatballs, you can save yourself a lot of time by stocking the freezer with other snacks that can easily be heated and served like Farm Rich Mozzarella Sticks, Loaded Potato Skins, Pepperoni Pizzeria Bites, Toasted Ravioli, and Breaded Mushrooms. My girls and I LOVE Loaded Potato Skins. Top with a little sour cream (or plain yogurt) and green onion and you are good to go. 

Sausage Balls are another family favorite, and to save time, I mix up a batch early in the season, roll into balls, and freeze. Then when company comes or we want sausage balls, I can pop them in the oven straight from the freezer. 

What about a breakfast timesaver?

These Oven Baked Pancakes can serve a crowd quickly with all the great comforting taste of pancakes, without all the standing and flipping over a griddle. Or this Make Ahead Breakfast Casserole that can be made up the night before and just baked when ready in the morning.

And of course, if you know me, you know that I will definitely have plenty of sweets…our favorites being a sweet and salty combo…

This Chocolate Lover’s Snack Mix can be whipped up fast and easy, using basically whatever is in your pantry. Also, these little gems…

These easy Turtle treats can be made in minutes. 

So, these are a few of my ‘Holiday Hacks’…feel free to share yours!

You can find more recipe ideas by following Farm Rich on . (They are also on , , and )

Italian Meatball Sliders & GIVEAWAY!

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of for . All opinions are 100% mine.
When I think of meatballs, I think of labor intensive and time-consuming. However, that’s not the case at all wtih this  recipe from . They came together quickly, baked up in less than 20 minutes, and tasted delicious!

I decided to make meatball sliders as a quick meal before heading out for my girls’ volleyball games. My middle child loved these! I loved the fact that they were simple to prepare, flavorful, had a great texture (sometimes meatballs have a weird texture that I don’t like), and they weren’t greasy in the least…

See…almost no grease! I used a very lean ground beef (90/10) but the original recipe calls for ground turkey, which would also work great as I use turkey quite often. Even though the meat was very low in fat, the meatballs had a great flavor from the blend of spices.

I threw in some red pepper flakes for a few of the meatballs (not all, since I knew my kids would not like any heat!) The  have a blend of basil, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper; combined with bread crumbs. I used plain Japanese Panko bread crumbs and spices by McCormick. I think next time I may reduce the garlic just a little, but that’s just a personal preference – we aren’t huge garlic fans. Meatballs can be used for any number of dishes, but since we were so short on time, I thought sliders would be a good option. I took a roll, split it, added a little pizza sauce, topped it with the meatballs and reduced fat mozzarella cheese, and baked for a few minutes – until the cheese was nice and melted.

YUM! I am definitely adding these to my “make again” list – I can see meatball subs, spaghetti and meatballs, meatball sub casserole, meatballs in sauce….all in our future. We enjoyed them so much, I made a video…I’m calling it the original ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’. haha, enjoy my “movie”!

Now, onto the giveaway! How would you like to win this McCormick Gift Set?

Nice right?! I would personally love to win this myself! All you need to do to qualify is answer the question “What’s your favorite McCormick Spice?” in the comment section of this post!
For additional entries, you can also “like”  on Facebook;  on Twitter and  on Pinterest. Just leave a seperate comment for each additional thing you do.  (Shipping is only available within the US.)  *GIVEAWAY ENDS 10/20/13 at midnight EST*