Cheesy Garlic Pasta

Garlic-lathered meatballs are the star of this dish!  This recipe will show you how to turn frozen meatballs into an excellent and colorful dish that will WOW anyone who eats it!

 You need to be able to use your toaster oven, use the stove, cook pasta, and stir things together in order to enjoy this delightful meal.

 Here’s what you need to make Cheesy Garlic Pasta:

• About 20 frozen meatballs (pre-cooked)
• Spinach fettuccine (you can use any pasta you like – the spinach fettuccine adds a really pretty color to the dish)
• 1/2 a cup of cooking oil
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 of a white onion
• 1 Roma tomato
• 2 slices of bread or 1 bagel
• 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese
• A few slices of cheddar cheese
• 1/2 a cup of frozen peas
• A chunk of mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup of butter/margarine

  Here’s how to make it:

1.  Using your toaster oven, follow the directions on the package of frozen meatballs to heat them up.

Frozen meatballs all ready to be heated up

2.  Follow the directions on the package of pasta to cook the fettuccine.   Remember to stir it often as it’s cooking, and remember to stir it often as you’re draining it.   Click here for tips on how to cook pasta. 

2.5  When the pasta is almost done cooking, throw a cup of frozen peas in the water with the pasta.  This will thaw out the peas while the pasta finishes cooking.  Go ahead and drain the peas with the pasta.

Spinach fettuccine, all ready to be cooked to perfection

3.  Use a garlic press to mince up the garlic cloves.  If you don’t have a garlic press, simply dice the garlic, then dice it again, then dice it again and again until it’s in teeny tiny pieces.

A lot of delicious minced garlic

4.  Pour the cooking oil into a glass cup.  Add about half of the minced garlic and sprinkle in some freshly-cracked black pepper.  Stir it around and set it aside to let the flavors blend.

Oil with pepper and garlic

5.  Mix the remaining garlic with some butter/margarine and some Parmesan cheese.  Stir it all up and set it aside.  You’ll use this later to make garlic bread!

6.  Once the meatballs are all heated up, put a big pan on the stove on medium-low heat.  Pour the oil/pepper/garlic mixture into the pan.

Garlic mixture in the pan

7.  Add the meatballs in with the oil in the pan.  Stir them around, doing your best to coat them in the delicious garlic-stricken oil.

Meatballs getting coated in garlicky splendor

8.  While the meatballs are absorbing the garlicky awesomeness, take your bread or bagel and spread the garlic butter on it.  Let the bread sit for a bit to allow the garlic to work its magic.

Garlicky bagel slices

9.  Dice up the Roma tomatoes.  Put them aside.

10.  Dice up some white onion and set it aside with the tomatoes.

11.  Grate about half a cup of mozzarella cheese and set it aside.

12.  Take your drained pasta and peas and add it to the meatballs in the pan.  Stir it around so the pasta gets coated with some of the garlicky oil.

Getting all heated up

13.  Top your bread/bagel with some cheddar cheese and put them in the toaster oven.  Bake them so that they get all garlickly and melty, just like garlic bread should be.

Cheddar garlic bread!

14.  Add the tomatoes and the onions in with the pasta and meatballs, stirring it around so it looks amazing.

15.  Add the grated mozzarella cheese in with the pasta.

Adding some mozzarella cheese

16.  Stir and stir until the cheese is all melted and the oil has coated everything pretty well.

Look at that stirred-up magic!

17.  Pour the pasta into serving bowls and top with some Parmesan cheese.  Cut the garlic bread into pieces and serve it on the side.  Enjoy your amazing dinner!

Honestly, this is one of the best meals I’ve ever invented.  It’s so good.  It’s amazing as a dinner, and you can take any leftovers in your lunch for work.

Here’s what it costs to make (4 servings):

• Meatballs:  $5.00
• Spinach fettuccine:  $1.00
• Cooking oil: $0.30
• Garlic:  $0.50
• Onion:  $0.25
• Tomato:  $0.30
• Bagel/bread:  $0.40
• Parmesan cheese:  $0.50
• Cheddar cheese:  $0.50
• Peas:  $0.50
• Mozzarella cheese:  $1.00
• Butter/margarine:  $0.30

Total cost to make:  $10.55

 Total cost per serving:  $2.64

Meatballs, pasta, garlic bread, incredible taste, garlic, cheese, amazingness… all for just $2.64!!  WOW!!!!

Try one of these other awesome pasta ideas: 

• A Streak of Greek Rigatoni
• Cream Eggs and Ham

Cheesy Bacon Balls

Cheeseballs are great, aren’t they?   Well, what can be better than smaller, individual-sized cheeseballs that people can pick up and squish between their favorite chips or crackers?

Note that the first two steps of this recipe are the exact same as the first two steps for Bacon Bites.  If you want to bring two different things to a party, bring both!  They’ve got the same base ingredients but they look and taste different… and you save money by not having to buy a bigger range of ingredients!

These are really easy to make!  You stir stuff up and form it into balls.  That’s all it takes!

Here’s what you need to make them:

• 1 brick of cream cheese, softened (take it out of the fridge about 30 minutes before you want to use it)
• as much cooked bacon as you have available, chopped into pretty small pieces
• about 1/4 of an onion finely chopped (optional)
• a good handful of grated mozzarella cheese
• a handful of grated cheddar cheese
• toothpicks
• crackers/chips

Here’s how to make them:

1.   Take the cream cheese and either cut it into smaller pieces with a knife, or wash your hands super-good and then squish the brick of cream cheese with your hands.  Then put it in a mixing bowl.

Cream cheese, room temperature and squished for easier mixing

2.  Add the grated mozzarella cheese, the chopped bacon, and the onion.  Stir it up until it’s nicely mixed and smooth.

Delicious mixture!!!

More delicious mixture!

Delicious mixture all stirred up

3.  For the best flavor, put the cream cheese mixture in the fridge for a couple of hours or overnight.  Trust me, it works wonders for the flavor of the mixture.

4.  Once the flavors are all nice and blended, it’s time to make the balls!  Take a bit of mixture at a time and roll it into a ball, repeating until all the mixture is used.   Each ball should be about 1/2 or 3/4 of an inch in diameter.

5.  Take some more mozzarella cheese and the cheddar cheese and mix them together on a plate.  Then roll each little bacon cheeseball in the cheese so that there’s a bunch of cheese all over the outside of the cheeseball.

Mini Cheeseballs!

6.  Stab a toothpick into each cheeseball so people can pick them up easily.

Stabbed Mini Cheeseballs!

7.  Arrange the mini cheese-balls on a pretty plate, and surround them with the crackers.

Cheesy Bacon Balls

8.  Mini cheeseballs can be eaten on their own, but I like to take a mini cheeseball and smear it on a cracker, then put another cracker on top to make a cheeseball sandwich.

A cracker topped with a delicious Mini Cheeseball

A Mini Cheeseball squishy sandwich!

These little guys are both delicious and easy to eat.  They’re also a good little conversation piece!

Since cream cheese and bacon and stuff is expensive, I save these little guys for a smaller, more intimate party where I know everyone is bringing something to eat.  That way I don’t have to make so many because there will be lots of other food, but these mini Cheeseballs are still a great contribution to the party and everyone will love them!

Here’s what it cost to make them (cost below is for about 15 cheeseballs):

• Cream cheese:  $2.50
• Bacon:  $1.50
• Onion:  $0.25
• Mozzarella cheese:  $1.50
• Cheddar cheese:  $0.75
• Toothpicks:  $0.04
• Crackers/chips:  $2.50

   Total to make:  $9.04

They’re a little more expensive than some other appetizers, but they are really easy to make and they are also really popular at a party!  So if you usually bring cheaper stuff and you want to up your game every now and then, this is a good recipe to go with.  Delicious!

Not quite what you were looking for?  Check out these potluck ideas: 

• Golden Dynamite Dip
• Bring a Plate of Orange Slices