Not a subpar sub...

My husband casually mentioned meatball subs the other night so I decided to win some wife points and picked up our favorite pre made vegetarian meatballs from Trader Joe's. I would like to dabble with making my own veggie meatballs, but honestly the last thing I want to do after working all day is roll bean balls.  I'll save that for a weekend.  

My mom visited us and brought us a fresh loaf of bread from Panera (she's the best!).  It definitely upped my level of submarine sandwich action.  I didn't document this meal like I usually do because honestly I didn't think it was blog worthy, plus we just got our wedding pictures so I was "slightly" distracted!  I regretted not taking more pictures after the first bite.  When my husband asked for seconds I knew I had to post what I made.  

I can't really take credit for the bread and the meatballs, but the sauce is where I make my creative contribution to this meal.  It's my own recipe and it's simple, tasty, and very versatile.  Once you have your base you can add any veggie or protein you want to it.  I'm including what I used last night but I've played around with all different vegetables and veggie proteins and have not gone wrong yet.  

Ingredients

• 2 one pound cans of unsalted plum tomatoes 
• 1 six ounce can of tomato paste 
• 1 14.5 ounce can to tomato sauce
• 1 onion chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic chopped (again we love garlic…you can use more or less!)
• 1 cup chopped peppers (I used frozen since that's what I had, fresh works great as well)
• 1/4 cup olive oil (I used less that 1/4 this time around the sauce was not lacking)
• 3 Tbsp. nutritional yeast
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (I didn't use this for this particular meal, the sauce was still tasty but you can't go wrong with a little brown sugar!)

Making sauce also gave me an opportunity to break out another wedding gift, our crock pot!  I'm a crock pot novice, but all my girlfriends rave about throwing something together and coming home to an amazing smelling house.  I usually make my sauce on the stove in a pot and let it simmer, but I opted for the crock pot.  I cut up my veggies and combined them with the canned tomatoes.  I mixed everything together in the crock pot besides the meatballs.  I didn't know how the meatballs would hold up in the crock pot so I added them last.  I cooked the sauce on simmer for 4.5 hours and then added the meatballs when my mom and I returned from shopping.

If I was a super wife I would have toasted the bread with the Daiya cheese before I added the meatballs and sauce.  I slacked off and added the cheese afterwards.  Still delicious, plus I made a side salad so it's all healthy, right?  We used the leftover sauce tonight over pasta.  Kid and husband approved is always a win!

I hoped to not to be one of those women who are obsessed about their wedding, but I'm thrilled with our pictures.  I love every single one of them.  Here's my favorite and the reason why I slacked on taking pictures of packages of meatballs.