Italian Meatballs Recipe

The other day my mother in law called me and asked me to cook an Italian dinner, she was craving Italian style meatballs, much like the ones she used to order when we lived in Boston. So I searched for recipes on the net until I seen one that looked like a winner and they were very easy to make and best of all I already had most of the ingredients. I avoided all the recipes that called for a 3 different meats and stuck with the recipes that called only for the ground beef and it still came out absolutely hearty. My mother-in-laws comment when she finally finished eating, "I never ate so much" , I overate too, so if your watching your weight, beware this dish is too good to resist, once you start, you won't want to stop.

Meatball Ingredients:

1 and 1/2 pounds of ground beef
1/3 cup dry bread crumbs
1/3 cup grated onion
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 egg
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 and 1/2 teaspoons of dried basil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1/2 teaspoon rubbed sage, I used fresh sage from my garden
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 degree F . Combine all the above ingredients together. Mix well. Shape 1/3 cup of mixture into meatballs. Of course you just need to measure the first meatball and then you know the size of the meatballs you are making. These are giant meatballs and one probably only needs one or two per serving. I ate three and had a hard time breathing afterwards. LOL they were too good.
Place them on a broiler rack and bake them for about 25-30 minutes.

If your going to serve this dish with pasta, it would be good to start about 15 minutes after you put these into the oven.

Meanwhile, we can start making the marinara sauce or use your own favorite sauce but here's the one I used. By the way this recipe makes about 5-6 servings. Since I was cooking for 9 people, I doubled everything except for the salt. I learned not to ever double the salt from previous attempts with other recipes.

Marinara Sauce
Ingredients:

1 and 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 can of Italian plum tomatoes, undrained
1/4 cup tomato paste
2 teaspoons dried basil
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Directions:

Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic, cook and stir 3 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients, until the sauce comes to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer. Once the meatballs are out of the oven, add them to the sauce and simmer for 10 more minutes. Do not cover.

Serve with pasta and and your favorite garlic bread is recommended.

Enjoy ;)

Want to know what nutrients are in your foods, meals, or menus?

Kwe,

September is a busy time for me. This is a time of harvest, canning and preserving jellies and bounties from the year's gardening, while the hunting season and fishing runs begin. And let me tell you, I had my first taste of tenderloin moose steaks yesterday and "oooohhhhhhhhh" gawd I missed the taste of wild game. There is nothing like the taste of the wild. Honestly it doesn't just taste better, its also healthier! This is not just my personal opinion but a scientific fact.

There is a web tool on a website I use once in a while its called nutritional data.com . On this site, there are several useful tools for someone who likes to keep track of what they consume and the nutritional information on not just your foods but your entire menu and recipes. They have so many foods in their database, including wild game such as moose. I experimented with a few recipes a while back, I took two exact recipes with only one difference, recipe 1 was made with 100% beef and recipe 2 was made with 100% moose. Once I was done computing these recipes into their database, I had the option to print out a nutritional label that looks like the labels posted on the sides of almost every food product we ever buy which basically tells us the per cent age of all the minerals and vitamins are in the product. So I did this and compared the nutritional values side by side. I was impressed with the health benefits of wild game in comparison with the beef, the moose is leaner, which is why it usually requires a bit of more tenderizing or marinating but it also contains less fat, the fat in the moose also contains more omega fatty acids which are a healthier alternative to the fat in beef. I think I will take a recipe and show you what I mean sometime so you will understand what I am talking about, I can not verbalize it as well as I can just show you.

The more I understand diet and nutritional values, the more awed and inspired I become of our ancestors who had an incredible lifestyle, diet and ways of life that we can not compare with today. We do the best we can with what we have though and many times these cuisines are spectacular. I love to cook and trying new foods.

Speaking of trying new recipes, I will be preserving and I will keep you posted and let you know how these canning projects come along. I have no recipes to share today but I am working on them. I justed wanted to give you a bit of an update and let you know there are more stories and recipes to come in the near future, including stories from Mi'kmaw role models. So stay tuned.

Take care
Eva