Paleo spaghetti & meatballs

Spaghetti and meatballs, an American staple!  And let me tell you... this was GOOD!  I actually prepped the meatballs this morning and put them in the crockpot to cook all day while at work.  I love the idea of the crockpot because I really don't have to do much prep when I get home from a long day at work.  I found the initial recipe that I pretty much followed here.  I did not follow the recipe perfectly but it still tasted good!

I used:

2 lb lean ground turkey

2 stalks celery

2 whole carrots

1/4 white "sweet" onion

3 garlic cloves (minced)

2 eggs

1/4 cup Almond Meal

1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp garlic
1 tsp Black Pepper
Dash of Cayenne Pepper
Dash of Sea Salt

I used a chopper to mince up the celery, carrots and onions.  I dumped it into the KitchenAid with the rest of the ingredients and mixed it all up (see left picture).  From the recipe that I followed, there was WAY too much meat (see right picture) left over so that will be used for either more meatballs later or another recipe.  As you can see below.  I used about 1/3 of the whole recipe and filled the crockpot about two deep with meatballs. 

The sauce was absolutely delicious!  I used one 14.5 oz can of Organic Diced & Fire Roasted tomatoes as well as a 6 oz can of Organic tomato paste.  I added about 1/2 TBSP of dried basil and about 5 pieces of garlic minced (I really like garlic!) and mixed everything together.  I added about 1 cup of water to thin out the sauce mixture.  If you only use the diced tomatoes and paste, the sauce is quite thick.  It would have been perfect if I could have baked the meatballs and added the sauce on top later.  However, I wanted a thinner sauce to work well in the crock pot for a long day.

The sauce was added to the top of the meatballs and I cooked everything on "warm" for about 10-11 hours.  When I got home, I spaghetti-ized 3 zucchini and 1 yellow squash.  Once those were all prepped  I placed them in a microwave safe bowl and nuked them for 3 minutes.  Make sure to drain all the water out of the bowl before you serve the noodles.  As you can tell from the picture below, I did not drain the water well enough and it was a little watery.  B drained the liquid from the plate and enjoyed the rest of his meal!  This was such a satisfying meal and will be made again in our home.