slow cooked vegetables in tomato sauce with chicken meatballs

if you could not already tell, i love my slow cooker.  i use it nearly every week.  it produces a wonderfully flavorful pot of food that typically turns into 2 or 3 meals + leftovers for the freezer...and, well, that's my kind of cooking!

today, i decided to slow cook some vegetables to use for a pasta sauce as well as a topping for white beans later in the week.

slow cooked vegetables with chicken meatballs

to your slow cooker, add 1 head of garlic (chopped in half), a handful of herbs- i used rosemary, thyme, and sage, about 3 cups of baby carrots, 4 or 5 small red potatoes, 1 onion cut in wedges, and 1 cup of diced celery.  drizzle with olive oil and then cover the vegetables and herbs with 2- 28 ounce cans of chopped tomotoes and about 1 cup of chicken broth.  place the lid on the slow cooker, set the temperature to low, and  leave it to cook for 10 hours.  when there is only an hour or two of cooking left, add about 20 fully cooked meatballs- we bought chicken with provolone cheese and basil meatballs at trader joes...yummy!  this way the meatballs will not be overcooked and chewy, but your sauce will still get some hearty, meaty flavor. 

serve some of the sauce with the chunky vergetables and meatballs over pennette sauce and top with paremsan cheese.  if you are feeling extra hungry, good crusty rolls are great for soaking up the sauce.

save the remaining sauce and meatballs for wednesday night's dinner.