Meatballs and bread pudding

I guess meatball sandwiches has been in the air lately because I cooked some up last night.  I usually just use meat and herbs, but inspired by Tyly's post here, I decided to make a more traditional meatball.  I did, of course, make some changes.  If you should know anything about me, it is that I cannot follow a recipe to save my life.  I did borrow a few ideas which I normally ignore; such as the eggs and breadcrumbs, which worked out wonderfully (Thanks Tyly)!  I also added in about a cup of chopped bell pepper, a cup of chopped white onion, a quarter cup of chopped garlic, a dash of cayenne pepper and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.

This my friends, is not a recipe for practicing the restraint I recently mentioned wanting to develop in my cooking.  No this was not that, this was a spicy  meatball!  As you can see below, it was flavor country!

I did borrow the cooking strategy laid out in the recipe and it worked like a charm!  Baking the meatballs first and then simmering them in the sauce was brilliant!  It was a great way to soften up all the veggies in the meat balls and they held together amazingly!  No crumbles here!

I served the meatballs on whole wheat, hot dogs buns with melted fat-free mozzerella and topped with a sprinkle of parmigiana cheese.  It was kinda messy, but delish!  And healthy- we had a big salad on the side.

Then for desert, I took some homemade bread which was leftover from the holidays, cubed it and then covered it with a mixture of 1 c. milk, 1 c. sugar, some molasses, some cinnamon, 3 eggs, some spiced whiskey, some vanilla and some chocolate liquor.  Then I let it sit for twenty minutes like this in a baking pan. After twenty minutes had passed I covered this mixture with a topping of 2/3 a stick of melted butter, mixed with brown sugar, vanilla, and some chocolate pieces.  This sat for another twenty minutes and then I baked it for forty at 350.  It is supposed to get some sort of icing, but I simply served it warm with vanilla ice cream (Low fat, no sugar added!).  It is waaay to tasty- I may have had a couple of bites already this evening.  I think all you really need is cubed bread, milk and eggs.  The rest is up to you!