Recipe for Ruth- love you Ruth!

Thankfully my dad taught me all his great recipes before he died. He even taught me his sauerkraut recipe and I won second place at the Sauerkraut days cookoff. (Can't believe I didn't get first place). The thing about an Italian recipe is that it is rarely ever measured, it is almost always a little bit different from batch to batch, and it is ALWAYS evolving. So I enjoyed eating my dad's sauce because it was a little bit different than mine. So here is the recipe as I tried to measure it and write it down. I literally had to pour my handfuls into measuring cups to see how much they were.

This is a huge recipe. 6 quarts of sauce. It freezes really well. It also feeds others really well. We almost always take some to friends. Please don't be afraid to make it. It can't be messed up. You can cook it all night or for 3 hours and it's still good! Just remember that fresh tomatoes will take a LONG time to cook down, so I stew them in a pot first, and then plan on leaving it in the crockpot overnight on low and then turn it up to high in the morning if necessary. Just plain tomato sauce could be done in 3 hours on high. (This was my dad's most recent way of making it) I usually mix mine with tomato sauce and canned tomatoes and cook it between 6 and 10 hours.

If you are confused about me saying plain tomato sauce. I mean at Costco or Sam's Club, you can buy a gigantic can of tomato sauce for about $3.00. It's not Ragu or anything, it's just plain, unseasoned sauce. It's the same stuff you can buy in the tiny cans for $.025. Also, don't confuse ground Italian sausage with breakfast sausage (will ruin the flavor of your sauce) or with links. It looks like Hamburger meat, and will be labled "Mild Italian Sausage." Then you brown it just like taco meat and throw it into the sauce.

I threw my mom's meatball recipe on here too. I think my grandma taught her how to make meatballs. We love her meatballs, we pop them in our mouths as they are coming off the pan. We all drool a little bit at the thought of her meatballs.

Here are the recipes.
Two quick recipes to be served together or have two meals from one night of preparation.

Biada Sauce (An Italian Tradition)
Quantities for a 6 qt crock pot

1 lb ground mild Italian sausage
1 onion chopped and sauteed or a handful dried onions
¼ cup sugar
1 ½ T. Italian Seasoning
½ cup Chopped Garlic or about half if using Garlic Powder
About 9 lbs of Tomatoes or sauce= 1.5 #10 cans= 10 regular sized cans

Brown the sausage and the onions in a pan. If using tomatoes, blend or chop to desired consistency. Add all ingredients to crock pot and cook overnight on low. If adding meatballs, do so a few hours before serving. Freezes well, and makes a huge recipe so you can share with others.

Meatballs

2 lbs ground beef
1 egg
7 oz. of Italian bread crumbs
Garlic to taste (In my opinion that means a lot!)

Mix ingredients together, roll into balls, and cook on medium in a pan until all sides are brown and the inside is cooked.