Is there such a thing as a healthy meatball? One that tastes good too? Sure there is! I am feeling saintly and virtuous after my morning endeavors, so I’ll share my awesomeness with everyone. My husband went for a run, because he’s one of those crazy people that like to do that. I decide that he’s not the only one who can exercise, so I strap on my sneakers and head to the grocery store. To be clear, I walked. AND I remembered my reuseable grocery tote (good for the environment!) AND I remembered to apply sunscreen. My good deeds are piling up. I even walked past a McDonalds right when the lunch rush was starting and the smell of fresh fries was wafting over me. I am a wonderful person. At the grocery I load up on various ground meats and pastas, pack them into my earth-friendly tote, and head home. The load is uneven though, which can throw your spine out of alignment, so I purchase a Big Mac to counterbalance my load. That’s better. So far this is the healthiest meatball I’ve ever made. As a holy bonus, I am making these to take to a coworker on maternity leave (sainthood!)
Home again, and I eat my lunch and rehydrate with a Diet Dr. Pepper. Big Macs are actually quite healthy in and of themselves – there’s practically a whole salad-worth of lettuce on there (vegetables), pickles (more vegetables!), onions (I’m practically a vegan at this point), strength-building protein, energizing carbohydrates (bun and fries), bone-building calcium (cheese) and tomatoes (ketchup) which contain powerful antioxidants. The healthy part is over – let the fun begin:
This is a very simple meatball, and as I forgot a few key ingredients, it will be even simpler than normal. Combine ground beef and Italian Sausage with a few eggs, freshly grated parmesan cheese, and a few handfuls of bread crumbs. Crushed red pepper and some herbs & spices finish the mix. Normally I would start with a panade of milk and white bread to prevent the meat proteins from bonding too masculinely, resulting in a dense hard meatball. I forgot the milk. I don’t mind dense hard meatballs enough to walk back to the store, or even drive. Also there are many ways to make a great meatball. Sometimes I press fresh garlic cloves into the mixture. Sometimes I dice pepperoni into it, or onions. These will be feeding at least two small children, in addition to the new parents, so simpler might be best. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. Get ready to mix:
Wait! Before you jump in with both feet (hands actually. gross.), you will want to preheat the oven to 325 and prepare your baking pans. My baking pans are thick and of good quality. They are also very well seasoned, which means they are grody-looking. I line them with foil for easier clean up and, well, because they are grody-looking.
Ready to squish? I always wear rubber gloves when I make meatballs. Always. There is no amount of hand-washing before this most intimate meat-handling, nor after to remove packed-in beef from under your nails. Ready? Oh wait. My cat has woken from a 23 hour nap to assist. He wants to help! Isn’t that cute?
Just kidding. He’s an asshole. Out he goes.
This of course means throwing out the foil, washing the pans, and relining them. Well, at least the one he stepped on.
Now squoosh. Blend. Really get in there and work the mixture with both hands. Keep going until it’s very well blended, but not so much that it becomes paste-like. Halfway through this part, and well into the rolling phase, your nose will start itching aggressively, and you will futilely try to scratch it on your shoulder so you don’t have to start over with the gloves. Thoughts of scratching your nose will become all-encompassing and you will fly through the next few steps to reach that heavenly time when you can rip off the gloves and give yourself a good scratch.
It must be mentioned that while all this is going on, my husband came home from his run, showered, then prepared and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich mere feet from where I was preparing delicious homemade cuisine. He is banished to the den, where he happily resumes watching Hard Knocks.
Roll the meat mixture into balls. Whatever size you like – I prefer just slightly smaller than an egg, opposed to the baseball-sized ones served in chain restaurants. (They only give you two or three; I made forty eight.) Some variation is fine – like I say – perfection is boring. Little ones are perfect for taste-testing. So are big ones. They line up in formation like a delicious army.
Into the oven they go. See? Baked. Not fried. That’s pretty healthy if I do say so myself. Bake until done. I can’t get any more specific than that. They will be browned on the bottom and stuck to the foil, and cooked all the way through. If one or two is still a little pink in the middle, that’s fine – they will continue cooking in the sauce and you will not die.
They say “fuck” a lot in Hard Knocks. A lot.
As the sad violins of players getting cut drift in from the den, remove your meaty army from the oven. They look and smell wonderful.
This picture is both gross looking and terrible. You have my apologies.
You can make a simple and delicious tomato sauce from scratch in no time at all, or as I have learned, you can make a complicated and oniony sauce from scratch over an entire three-day weekend. For meatballs, I opt for cans and jars. (One of each, plus a can of diced tomatoes for homemade-looking chunkiness. Canned sauce is too sweet, jarred sauce is too thick and acidy – together they work quite well.) Plus for forty eight meatballs, you’re going to need a lot of sauce. Carefully remove the meatballs from the foil – use tongs and twist so they don’t fall apart or rip the foil. (If the foil doesn’t rip, the pans don’t have to be washed too enthusiastically, provided you can keep small animals off them.) Throw in another half cup of grated parmesan for depth and texture. Throw in a parmesan rind – this is a fairly new trick I learned that gives incredible flavor to any tomato sauce. Chop some fresh herbs from your garden (ha ha). Again the possibilities are endless. The kitchen is a playground – have fun in it.
One little trick I will share – I always intentionally smoosh one meatball into the bottom of the pot of sauce. This releases meaty goodness throughout.
Ignore that green can in the background! It’s not what you think!
Bring the sauce to a simmer and boil up a little spaghetti – you have to taste it right? You can’t send it over to someone’s house without trying it first – what if it’s too salty? Too sweet? What an embarrassment that would be.
Mmmmm. Delicious. Maybe I will have just another little taste before I take it to my work friend – how much can a family of five eat anyway? I mean the baby isn’t going to eat much.
illdothedisheslater 