Sweet heat meatballs

Ingredients:

2 lbs. frozen, pre­-cooked meatballs

½ cup molasses

4 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon ginger, minced

1 teaspoon chili powder

¼ teaspoon cayenne

½ cup water

1 can (8 oz.) crushed pineapple

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Over medium high heat, bring the water to a boil.  Add molasses, brown sugar, garlic, ginger, chili powder, cayenne, crushed pineapple and Worcestershire sauce and stir to combine.  Add in meatballs and stir to coat evenly.  Reduce heat to medium and simmer until the sauce reduces, about 10 minutes.  Skewer with bamboo sticks and serve hot with or without sauce reduction.

I made these in the crockpot for a NYE party.  After coating the meatballs with the sauce evenly, I just dumped them in the crock and set it on low for a few hours, until the party started.  The taste was smooth and all of the meatballs were gone by midnight. 

Dried Beef Cheeseball

Ingredients:

2 packages (8 oz. each) Cream Cheese, softened

2 packages of thinly sliced beef or pastrami

2 teaspoons Worcestershire Sauce

2 teaspoons Accent Salt

3­4 green onions, chopped finely

Place cream cheese in a large bowl and gently stir with a wooden spoon or spatula until slightly creamy. Cut meat and green onion into small pieces.  Add to cream cheese.   Add salt and Worcestershire Sauce.  Mix well.  Place plastic wrap on counter.   Add cheese ball mixture and form one large ball or divide in half for two smaller cheese balls.  You can also roll in chopped nuts if you want.  Serve with crackers of your choice.

This was easy to make and tastes great.  I didn’t roll it into a ball but am storing it in Tupperware in the fridge.  Would be a great additional to any potluck or gathering. 

Crockpot little smokies

Review by Lyndee:

I needed to come up with something to take to a housewarming BBQ this weekend.  I needed it to be easy, no hassle and on the cheap.  So I went with the old standby little smokies.  Generally I just use a BBQ sauce but I decided to get a little adventurous and try this recipe instead. 

Ingredients:

2 packages Little Smokies (I used turkey ones)

1 cup ketchup

1 cup barbecue sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray’s)

1 cup brown sugar

2 tsp Worcestershire

Mix all the sauce ingredients in a large bowl.  Toss in the smokies and stir until they are coated.  Dumb in the crockpot and cook on low for four hours. 

These turned out pretty good.  The flavor was decent.  Next time I might add a few dashes of hot sauce to or a bold barbeque sauce to kick up the heat a ittle bit.