Grandma Maroni's Meatballs

Who is Grandma Maroni? I have no idea. But if you want to use this recipe yourself, just substitute your grandma of choice (but don't use Grandma Ward). There are actually two recipes here: meatballs and a tomato sauce (also Maroni's). You can combine these two with spaghetti for a regular meal or serve the meatballs with a dipping sauce. Since we were having band practice this Sunday (I'll be gone next weekend), I thought I'd just prepare some food for my friends at the same time.
These meatballs are actually easy to make and I used the full quantities in the recipe (which made ~16 moderate-to-large-sized meatballs). Meatballs aren't particularly appetizing to photo and the bottoms were crispier than the pictures show, but they were also quite delicious. Just combine the ingredients listed below in a good-sized mixing bowl, roll into 1 to 2 inch round balls, and bake for 30 to 40 minutes. Like the recipe says, if they are still too squishy when handling, add more bread crumbs.
The tomato sauce is nothing particularly fancy: it's basically crushed tomatoes combined with sliced garlic and diced onions. I must admit that I prefer my pasta sauce out of a can and without these fresh ingredients. What does that tell you? You can lead a horse to the kitchen but you can't make him cook. The goal, really, was to make something that anyone could enjoy, without being too fanciful or flavor-foreign. In that regard, the meatballs were good "finger" food and could be dipped into the sauce for some extra pasta-y flavor. OK, I promise I'm done with the hyphenated words.
Oh yeah, here are my friends being awesome. From left to right: Peter, Cory, and Jon. By high score, our band is a ranked a little over 300 in the world. And now for the recipes. Grandma Maroni's Meatballs:

• 1 pound of ground chuck
• 0.5 cups of bread crumbs
• 4 large eggs
• 0.5 cups of milk
• 3/4 cups of grated Romano cheese
• 3 ounces of grated onion
• 1/4 cup of diced garlic
• 1/4 cup of chopped parsley
• 0.25 cups of chopped basil

Just combine all these ingredients in a bowl, roll into balls, bake at 350 for 30 to 40 minutes, and serve. And for Maroni's sauce (I used a quarter of these ingredients):

• 6 ounces of "good" olive oil (whatever)
• 12 garlic cloves (!), sliced
• 1 or 2 onions, diced
• 2 (!) 28-ounce cans of crushed tomatoes
• salt and pepper (1 teaspoon or so each)
  
• 1 "large handful julienned fresh basil leaves"

Again, this sauce seems a little much. Just buy a can of Ragu and you'll be fine. ;-)