Ikea Meatball Spag with Easy-Peasy Pasta Sauce

I have just now caught up on my blog reading! After two leisurely long weekends and some busy days at work, my google reader was showing a bold (87) unread posts.. eep! I had dipped into some blog reading along the way but hadn't found made time to really make a go of it...  what does this mean?? Hopefully.. more blog posts from yours truly! I've been reading a few "I'm a slack blogger" posts of late, and I've been having a think about that because I've been feeling a bit "guilty" about the radio silence but more about that in another post... 

What I wanted to share with you is a super quick and easy weeknight dinner! A few weeks ago, we made a trek to Ikea.. I can't remember what our original purpose was for going.. but really, who really needs a proper reason to go to Ikea??!! At the check out were bags of the (in)famous Ikea meatballs, and being a complete sucker for marketing.. I couldn't help but pick up a bag and drop it casually in our trolley.. I might have also thrown in a bag of Daim bars pieces... I digress...

I was excited to have meatball spag for dinner... So was the mister apparently.. 

me: How many meatballs should I cook?

mister: I dunno... how many are in the bag?

me: *checks bag* I dunno.. it says it serves 8 tho...do you think maybe I should use half? 

mister: Just cook them all...

me: ALL of them? hmmm I guess we'll have leftover for lunch then... (yea and about a week after!) - don't make my mistake unless you've got people coming for dinner!

So I've got an entire saucepan of meatballs cookin... I got a pot of water boiling for the spag... I open the cupboard... reach for the jar... check the label... HANG ON A SECOND!! Masala?? hmmm... that's not going to work...  maybe the pasta sauce is at the back of the cupboard?? *calls the mister to come and reach things* and after closer inspection.. nope... no pasta sauce... crap! *mini panic* I quickly googled "pasta sauce recipes" on ye olde interwebs... and decided.. it really wasn't all that hard!! Here's how I did it:

Easy-Peasy Pasta Sauce

What you'll need:

1 can tomatoes 

1 onion

salt, pepper, basil, parsley (I only had the dry kind in the bottles but worked for me!)

oil - olive, sunflower, whatever you normally cook with is fine.. I'm not going to pull a Rachel Ray and insist EVOO at every turn...

What to do:

Slice onions

Heat oil and brown onions

Throw in the entire can of tomatoes, sauce and all... 

Let it cook a bit 

Mash up the tomatoes with your chosen stirring device (mine happened to be a wooden spoon)

Add salt, pepper, basil, parsley (whatever spices take your fancy really, the world is your oyster)

I then took mine off the heat and gave it a whizzy with my hand blender coz I wanted smooth rather than chunky sauce.. 

Et voila! Sauce!!

Meatball Spag

Heat desired amount of Ikea meatballs (yours don't have to be from Ikea, any meatballs will do.. homemade would be even better!) in a pan... 

I just browned mine in oil... 

Boil desired amount of pasta until al dente

Throw the meatballs on the pasta

Scoop on pasta sauce

Dinner is served!!

Easy-Peasy Japanesey as we used to say in school. Probably not very PC nowadays..  :)

If I had mushrooms I probably woulda used those.. and we had brocolli as part of dinner too..

The photos are the portion I had at work for lunch the next day.. hence no veg.. coz we ate them all at dinnertime.. :)