Spaghetti & Meatballs

After perusing a few meatball recipes and their comments, I arrived at this one for dinner tonight. It takes some effort to make meatballs but in the end it is SO worth it. Besides, you can pop them in the freezer for future quick dinners.
Sure beats those grisly store-bought frozen meatballs!
Start by making sauce: use 1/2 a jar of store-bought pasta sauce (Shaw's tomato, garlic & onion), add a 14 oz can of diced tomatoes (Muir Glen).
One tip I learned: calcium chloride is used in cans of diced tomatoes so they maintain their shape/don't fall apart even after a long simmer. If you want a chunk-less sauce, opt for whole canned tomatoes or just the jarred sauce instead. Add a bit of butter to make your sauce taste rich (1-2 Tb).
Make your meatballs!

Use a food processor or some such device (a fork is fine) and pick at/crumble some bread of choice to equal 1 cup. I used a nearly stale english muffin. Go for bread heels or pieces you may not otherwise consume.
Pour 1/3 cup milk on the crumbs and allow to sit for 10 minutes.

Chop up some parsley (no more than 1/2 cup), dump into large mixing bowl.
Microplane (fine grate) 1 cup of Parmesan into bowl.
Zest 1/2 lemon peel on same microplane into bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk two eggs and add two cloves of garlic (fine chopped or through a press).

Squeeze the excess milk out of the bread with your hands and put bread blobs into the bowl, get rid of the excess milk (not much). Use your fingers to fluff up the bread and toss to incorporate all.

Open a package of meatloaf mixed meat (8 oz hamburger, 8 oz pork), pull apart and add to the bowl.
Pour in egg mix and use your hands to mix carefully just until combined.

Roll into desirably sized balls (set on 2 plates/1 per fry session). I fried right away in olive oil over medium heat but there is a recommendation to refrigerate 15 min-1 hour (so they firm up a bit).

As you fry them, they are fragile so handle minimally at first. Once the bottom is browned after 4 minutes or so, carefully flick them around from underneath to turn.
Tend to them almost constantly.
They're done once all sides are nicely browned.
I found it necessary to discard grease properly (not down the drain) in between fry sessions.

Boil up a pot of spaghetti! I like Barilla's whole grain.

Taster loved!