Aunt Connie's Meatballs and Italian Gravy (Gluten-Free Pasta Sauce)

This recipe comes to us from Arthur Spiegel.

Ingredients:
1 pound ground turkey
1 pound ground beef or pork
1 egg per pound of ground meat (for this recipe, 2 eggs)
Garlic powder, to taste (about a tablespoon, more or less)
Salt to taste
Fresh Ground Black Pepper to taste
½ cup gluten-free bread crumbs or use a few tablespoons of rice flour or potato flour.
1- 2 Teaspoons Oregano Flakes to taste

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Directions:
With your hands, combine wet and dry ingredients, thoroughly. Form meatballs about golf ball size. Lightly fry tem in extra virgin olive oil until brown all over. Finish cooking in red Italian gravy. This is best if you can cook one day in advance and let the meatballs sit in the gravy over night. Serve hot.

Italian Gravy

Ingredients:
5 to 10 cloves of fresh minced garlic
1 large onion, minced
1 red pepper chopped
½ pound chopped mushrooms
½ to 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Salt to taste
Fresh Ground Black Pepper to taste
Good sized sprig of fresh Basil chopped
1 pound sweet Italian or spicy Italian Sausage (pork or turkey is fine) cut up into 1 inch pieces
1 pound of ground turkey
1 large can crushed tomatoes
1 large can tomato puree
1 small can tomato paste
2 tablespoons of sugar
1 cup of your favorite red wine

Directions:
Finely mince garlic, and chop onion. In a large sauce pot, start to fry in extra virgin olive oil until onions are translucent and starting to brown. Don't let the garlic burn, or it will be bitter. Add in chopped red pepper and chopped mushrooms. Add salt and black pepper to taste. Saute. Remove veggies from heat and set aside. In same pan, brown the sausages. Remove from heat and drain fat. Brown ground turkey, adding salt and pepper to taste. Pour in some red wine to deglaze the pan and get up the brown bits on the bottom. Return the sausage meat and veggies and add some salt and pepper. Add crushed tomatoes, tomato puree and tomato paste. Add rest of red wine, basil and sugar to taste. (The longer you have to let this cook, the less sugar you'll need, as basil will sweeten the gravy. If you have less time to cook, use more sugar to taste.). Stir gravy mixture well. Add in the meatballs. Cover and let cook on a low heat. Stir occasionally, so nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot. During the cooking process, taste from time to time and add seasoning as desired. Some people like their gravy spicier than others.

This is terrific red gravy for spaghetti or any other pasta.