There are a few party recipes that were very popular when I was a kid, and every once in awhile I really crave them.  Sometimes nothing can compare to a big bowl of Chex Mix (the original recipe, not any of the variations), ripple potato chips with french onion dip, cream cheese topped with chili sauce and crab from a can, or meatballs cooked in a sauce made with grape jelly.  It's this last recipe that I've searched for the longest.  When I've asked people how to make it, it's always the same answer - one bottle of chili sauce and some grape jelly (amount varies).  It's never quite as good as I remember it as a kid, but maybe it's because now I'm the one making it.  Food always seems to taste better when someone else makes it for you.

I made an awful lot of meatballs, but the one thing I don't like about making them is that they can be kind of tedious.  So when I found this recipe last year for meatballs that can be cooked in a crock pot and don't require any pre-cooking, I was thrilled.  They were pretty good, but the flavor wasn't quite what I had in mind.  Plus, they had parsley in them, which for my children, rendered them inedible (THER'ES SOMETHING GREEN IN MY MEATBALL!).  And, the recipe called for 1.5 lbs of ground beef and since the beef in my freezer is in 1 lb. packages, that strikes me as completely inconvenient.  To fit the palates of my household and the size of the beef packages in my freezer, and to bring back that old grape jelly-laden memory, I've made a few changes.

Try the original, or try mine, either way these meatballs are darn easy and very tasty.  Throw some on a plate and hand your kids a pile of toothpicks and they'll be happy and you'll be glad they finally ate something.

Print it: Aunt Jenny's Slow Cooker Meatballs
Print it: Jennie's Crockpot Meatballs