Meatball sub!

Joey: This place makes the best sandwich in the world.

Gary: Hey, Joey, does it have meatballs on it?

Joey: Oh yeah.

Gary: Does it have melted cheese and marinara sauce?

Joey: Yep.

Gary: Yeah. You can't eat that in my car.

Joey: Yeah, okay. Even though my tax dollars paid for this car.

Chandler: Your tax dollars?

Ever since I watched this episode, I wanted to eat a meatball sub. I imagined that it would be THE (as Joey so aptly put it) best sandwich in the world! When I tried the meatball sub AT Subway (yes, that was the first place that I found that sold meatball subs, so don't judge me) I was somewhat disappointed.

Cut to today - I woke up with  5 hours of sleep ( I was up attempting macarons, but that's another story altogether - and also attempting to make a farewell cake for Anna Banana) and staggered to the supermarket to get some more butter and chocolate for the fudge mixture. While I was there I thought that I would grab some stuff for lunch. I have never been so uninspired at the supermarket before. It could be because I was groggy and still had sleep in my eyes, or my lack of sleep (which for me always equals to lack of appetite) but I had to get something for lunch. My first thought was to get some minute steaks and make cheese steak sandwiches. WTF. They didn't carry minute steaks. Then, inspiration hit me as a stray ray of white light shone on the meatball offer - buy two packets of pre-made meatballs for $ 10. Done. I was going to get some mince and make meatballs from scratch, so so CBF right now. Luke and I have had these meatballs before and they are delish, so it's not a problem. Even the baguette and the tomato puree was on sale. Sold and sold.

First thing I thought I would tackle would be the marinara sauce. I was going to google and find a great marinara sauce recipe, but I remembered that I had the barbeque sauce leftover from the night before (when I made those ribs again) and I didn't want to waste it. So this time, I think I'll make my version of a marinara sauce.

The end product was delicious. It was a massive sandwich though, I managed half of mine and I was DONE. But very satisfying - take that Subway!

NESSIE'S MEATBALL SUB

 Ingredients

• fresh baguette
• meatballs - homemade or storebought - which ever takes your fancy. This time I just bought it from the supermarket - the Woolies brand meatballs are delish!
• processed cheese (yes, plastic cheese - but that's how it's done in the States, I'm given to understand!)

For the marinara sauce:

• leftover BBQ sauce (from my ribs recipe here)
• 1 can of tomato puree
• half a can of red wine
• dried oregano

Method:

• Heat up the frying pan and put all the ingredients for the marinara sauce into another pot. Heat up the ingredients and try to reduce the sauce (not too much - the sauce should be nice and thick anyway).
• In the frying pan, cook the meatballs - just brown the outside, no need to cook it right through.
• Once the meatballs are sufficiently browned, pop the meatballs into the sauce and heat through.

Sorry for the messy pot - it was bubbling!

• In the mean time, cut the baguette in half and hollow out the insides (I do it because it would be easier to fill with meatballs and eat with no mess, but at the same time, the pictures are not as pretty)

See how pretty its sitting - no mess! Even though there was heaps of sauce!!!

• Once the meatballs are cooked through, fill the baguette with the meatballs, and layer the cheese over it. The heat of the meatballs will heat up the cheese - don't you worry!

• Tuck in an ENJOY!

Definitely going to photograph without hollowing out the inside next time- and probably won't use the poppy seed bun either!

I definitely did and I think Luke did too, which is great. I don't even think that I'm going to bother learning the recipe for the marinara sauce - this one works. :)