Meatballs with homemade marinara sauce

Its Tomato season!!! Yayyyy! And boy do I ever have an abundance of Tomato's this year! The hot weather with heavy occasional thunderstorms has given me an excellent harvest! Perfect for making marinara sauce!

Personally, I like using the Plum Tomato when making marinara. More flesh and less seeds then your conventional hot house tomato (Which I prefer to slice and eat raw!).

 Take about 1 dozen Ripe Plum tomato's and dump them in a pot of boiling water for about 30 seconds. Remove after the 30 seconds and immediately run the tomato's under ice cold water

 This process allows you to easily peel the skins off the tomato. I didn't even need a knife!

 After the tomato's are all peeled, slice each in half and squeeze all the seeds out. Roughly chop the tomato flesh and set aside.

 In a large heavy bottomed pot add your veggies if you like. I like to add some mushrooms and Spanish onion. Saute over medium heat with a little butter, salt and pepper until veggies have softened.

 Next add all your tomato's and stir, making sure nothing sticks to the bottom.

 After about 5-10 minutes the tomato's will start letting our their juices and start to break down. At this point you can add about 3 cloves minced garlic.

 Cook the sauce for about 45 minutes on low. Adding any fresh herbs (Oregano and Basil for me) at about the 30 minute mark.

 After 45 minutes of simmering I take my hand held blender and puree the sauce.

 I still like it slightly chunky. Test the sauce at this point. Sometimes my tomato's can be very acidic..so I add a little brown sugar (1 Tbsp). Taste for salt and pepper at this point as well.

 Lastly add about 1/4 cup of red wine and allow to simmer for at least 2 hours. Afterwards, you can allow to cool and bottle up the sauce for future meals. I even freeze this and it works out pretty good. But if you are gonna make the meatballs, and I think you should,  you can start prepping them at this point.

 take 1 lb Lean Ground Sirloin and 1 lb Ground Pork. Combine.

 Add, 1/2 Cup Panko Bread Crumbs, 1 Cup Grated Parmesan, 2 Eggs, 3 Tbsp Chopped Parsley, 2 Minced Garlic Cloves, Salt and Pepper to taste.

 Combine really well.

 Form balls with the mixture. I like mine the size of the palm of my hand.

 In a large lightly oiled skillet brown the meatballs on each side.

 Place the browned meatballs in your simmering sauce. I use my spatula to push them in the sauce slightly but I do not stir at all while they are cooking in the sauce for the remaining couple of hours. Just make sure the stove is on really low.

And voila! Perfect Meatballs and marinara!