SWEET AND SOUR MEATBALLS OVER RICE

RECIPES THAT BRING OUT THE BEST IN YOU AND THAT GIVE YOU THE FEELING YOU'RE ON TO SOMETHING BIG.

Hooray for frozen meatballs that make life so much easier and help you to be far more creative than you ever thought you could be. In addition and not to mention, they make a wonderful meal no matter how you use them. This recipe is just one of many different ways these wonderful and delicious little balls can be used. You are only limited by your imagination and the many different ways you can think up to incorporate them into a meal. They go with almost anything and they taste marvelous. This crock pot meal can be made ahead and sit simmering until you are ready to eat which can be as much as 7 or 8 hours after you put it in the pot. The trick is to keep the heat down low so the vegetables don't get too mushy and soft. You want them to still have a little crunchiness when you eat it. This is something you could serve to the fanciest guest or to nobody at all--whichever you feel like doing. The preparation takes almost no time at all and the best thing about it is that it tastes wonderful. Here is how it's done:

1. Start by chopping up some fresh vegetables. I used a medium-sized onion, a green bell pepper and some red pepper.

2. To this I added 1 cup of shredded carrots and celery, about 5 stalks, and 1 C. fresh sliced mushrooms.

3. I put all of this into the crock pot and then drained the syrup from a can of pineapple tidbits into a small bowl and added the pineapple to the crock pot.

4. To the pineapple juice, I added the following:

1/4 C. Panda Express Orange Sauce

1/4 C. Hoisin Korean Bar-b-que sauce

1/2 C. soy sauce

1/4 C. brown sugar

1/4 C. balsalmic vinegar

3 T. corn starch


5. I added the sauce to the vegetables and stirred them around so they were all completely covered.

6. Next I added 4 C. of frozen meatballs and stirred them into the vegetables.

It looks like this:

6. Now cover the crock pot, put it on high for one hour, then lower the heat to low and cook until the vegetables are no longer raw. This takes approximately 3-4 hours. After that, turn the heat to warm.

7. Just before serving, add 1 C. frozen peas. Serve it over rice. My favorites are Jasmine rice and Basmati rice which I think are the most flavorful. Serves 5-6. Enjoy!