This recipe is straight out of Noreen Gilletz’s Second Helpings, Please cook­book. The cookbook’s pale orange ging­ham cover is a sta­ple among Jewish women my mom’s age. It was a book devel­oped as a fundraiser for Mt. Sinai Montreal.

This book holds a spe­cial place for me because it’s the only sen­ti­men­tal gift I’ve ever received from my mom–she gave it to me as an engage­ment present, inscribed with the words “For My Daughter, Love Mom.”

My mom’s Sweet and Sour meat­balls con­tain alot of ingre­di­ents from “that gen­er­a­tion” of cooks who cooked from a can or bot­tle (note the use of ketchup and gin­ger ale).  And she made it her own by divert­ing from the recipe by adding 1 pack­age of Lipton Onion Soup to the meat mix­ture. In spite of some of it’s “processed food” ingre­di­ents, the famil­iar taste is heart and belly warm­ing at every high hol­i­day event. Consequently, my kids go crazy for ‘em too.

My meat­balls use eth­i­cal, nat­u­rally raised meat. I’m pretty sure  (in fact cer­tain) my mom’s did not.

Tangy Sweet + Sour Meatballs

• 1 1/2 lb. minced meat
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 1 clove gar­lic, minced
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp. matzo meal
• I pkg Lipton Onion Soup
• 1 1/2 cups ketchup
• 2 cups gin­ger ale

Combine first 7 ingre­di­ents and form into small balls. Combine ketchup and gin­ger ale in a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Drop meat­balls into sauce, cover and sim­mer for 2 hours.

Submitted by Jodi Lastman (Happy Mother’s Day Mom, you crazy meatball!)