Roasted Red Pepper Alfredo with Mozarella Stuffed Meatballs

I went to lunch at Applebees with a couple of friends not too long ago.  Amber suggested I try their Provolone-Stuffed Meatballs with Fettuccine.  I did and they were pretty good.  So, I decided to make my own version of them.  This is what I came up with.  It turned out pretty good.  I'll experiment next time with different cheeses, I think.  Making the meatballs is a little time consuming, but the rest of the meal is quick and easy to make.  I used this recipe to make the meatballs, but I toned it down some so it was a little less spicy.

Here's what I used for the Meatballs:

½ Cup Green Onion, finely chopped

¼ Cup Italian Style Bread Crumbs

3 Heaping Tablespoons of Shredded Parmesan Cheese

1 Pound Ground Beef

1 Tablespoon Garlic Powder

2 Tablespoons Crushed Red Pepper (for a less spicy meatball use 1 Tablespoon – or less – Crushed Red Pepper)

8 oz Mozzarella Cheese

Here's What I did to make the Meatballs:

1.  Preheated the oven to 350 degrees. 

2.  Cut the Mozzarella Cheese into small cubes.  Set those aside in a bowl.

3.  Mixed together the Green Onion, Bread Crumbs, Parmesan Cheese, Garlic Powder, and Crushed Red Pepper. 

4.  Crumbled the Ground Beef on top of the mixture of dry ingredients.  Then, using my hands, I mixed the ground beef with the dry ingredients. 

5.  I picked up one piece of mozzarella and formed a meatball, approximately 1 inch in diameter, around the piece of cheese.  Repeat until either all of the cheese or all of the meat mixture has been used.  I ended up running out of the meat mixture before cheese. 

     Hint:  Try to form the meatballs around the cheese as tightly as possible. 

     Any gaps will allow some of the cheese to melt out while the meatballs

     are baking.

6.  Placed the meatballs in a glass baking dish with about 1 inch in between each meatball.  

7.  Baked for about 25 minutes.  Remove them from the oven when the outsides are brown and the insides of the meatballs are cooked fully.  Some of your cheese will likely melt and run out of the meatball while they are baking.  Don't be concerned -- I still had plenty of cheese inside the meatballs.

While the meatballs were baking, I made the pasta. 

Here's what I used for the Pasta:

16 oz Fettuccine Noodles

2 Jars Alfredo Sauce

1/2 Jar of Roasted Red Peppers

Here's what I did to make the Pasta:

1.  Boiled water and cooked the Fettuccine Noodles as directed on the package. 

2.  While the noodles were cooking, I sliced up half of the jar of Roasted Red Peppers (use only the peppers, not the juice).

3.  Put the Alfredo Sauce on the stove in a sauce pan to heat. 

4.  Added the cut up roasted red peppers to the alfredo sauce.  Heated til warm.

To serve, I spooned some fettuccine noodles into a bowl and topped that with the roasted red pepper sauce.  Then I placed a few meatballs on top of the pasta.  I also served this with garlic bread.  It was delicious!

Enjoy!