Tomato Sauce with vegan meatballs

I am all about quick and easy meals. I can spend hours baking but when it comes to cooking, guuuurl, mama likes to be done with cooking quickly! And this sauce, I literally made it during my 20 min workout. Ok, ok, I started before and it just then kept bubbling on the stove for the time of that workout. But as soon as I finished the workout, it was all ready! Let's make it together now.

My friends here in Canada (Czech friends) keep joking that any Canadian family they go to, they would have red sauce pasta. I guess it's the easiest way to pop when someone comes over, most of the people would have pre-made store bought red sauce in their pantry and that's it. I am more about putting love in what you do so if you are surprised with the invitees or just don't feel like cooking for hours, just go for it and make this delicious and easy tomato sauce.

You will need:

Red sauceQuesadillas:

• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped

• 1 big can of whole plum tomatoes

• 1 handful of basil

• olive oil

• salt, pepper

Meatballs:

• 1 package of vegan minced meat (I used Yves one but any other such as Beyond meat would do)

• 1 onion, finely diced

• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard

• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast

• thyme (maybe two branches, you will only need the leaves)

• salt, pepper

I believe I have already mentioned it - do NOT buy diced canned tomatoes. They are usually made of cut offs of bad quality tomatoes. When you go for whole tomatoes, you know you are buying quality!

Preheat your oven at 380F.

Put a sauce pan on medium heat, generously drizzle with olive oil and add garlic into the oil as it's still cold. As the oil heats, it will infuse with the garlic and will bring the sauce to another level. Also, you won't burn the garlic this way. As soon as the garlic gets a bit golden, pop in the tomatoes, use some tap water to clean the can and add it to the pan. Add in the basil and let bubble on low heat for around 20 minutes. Put then to blender or blend it with a hand blender and then cook for 5 more minutes, season as needed.

Mix all the ingredients for the meatballs in a bowl, if it still doesn't stick together, you can add some extra Dijon mustard and breadcrumbs. Use your hands to form little bowls (I usually end up with 9 out of that package) and put them on a baking sheet to the oven for around 20-25min.

Before serving your pasta, put the meatballs in the red sauce so it just marries together. Once the pasta is cooked, mix it in a pan with the red sauce and serve!

Enjoy!