Chicken Meatball Stew

I was in Costco during the holidays and picked up a package of Amylu Kickin' Cranberry Meatballs to serve as an appetizer.  Can you believe that we never used them?  These meatballs are found in the refrigerated section and are vacuum packed; as such they have a long expiration date but with less than a month before expiration, I figured that it's time to use these tasty sounding morsels!  Being a cold, wet, Tar Heel basketball kind of day, a stew sounded perfect.  So a meatball stew concoction was born!  You could use any kind of meatballs.  Because I had such a large package of meatballs to use fairly quickly, I made a large batch; but it can easily be downsized.  We loved this stew so it's on my "keeper" list.

INGREDIENTS:

1 42-ounce package Amylu chicken meatballs

  (I used Kickin’ Cranberry meatballs from Costco)

1 38-ounce can green beans, drained

1 20-ounce package Simply Diced Potatoes with Onion

2 15-ounce cans crushed tomatoes

1 26-ounce jar pasta sauce

½ package matchstick carrots

¼ cup beer

Fresh ground pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS:

Add all ingredients to 6-quart slow cooker and stir to combine.

Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

Serve over rice or orzo pasta or just by itself!

Note that this recipe can easily be halved.

Use your favorite pre-packaged or frozen meatballs or make your own!