2010 New Year's Eve Meaty Balls

Believe it or not, I never made a meatball before today. It's the last day of 2010, and I decided it was high time. The Joy of Cooking has about seven meatball recipes--traditional Italian meatballs to Hawaiian meatballs. I see more meatballs in my future.

I deviated only slightly from The Joy of Cooking's recipe for Italian meatballs, which start with a German meatball (or Konigsberger Klops), and then get more Italian-y.

Here's what I did:

2010 New Year's Eve Meaty Balls

1 lb grassfed beef, ground
2 eggs
1/2 cup panko crumbs
olive oil
3 heaping tbsp chopped parsley
3 heaping tbsp parmesan cheese
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp nutmeg

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil (I cheated and used leftover bacon fat). Once cooled, add to ground beef in a good-sized bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix with clean hands. Form into your desired shape (I made one inch balls) and sautee in a large pan in olive oil, turning so that each part of the meaty-balls is browned. Place in a casserole dish filled with tomato sauce and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.



I asked D to do the pasta up right, and that he did. I don't think I'll ever serve pasta without doing it up this way. I had roasted two heads of garlic the day before, and D melted some butter with the roasted garlic and tossed it with whole wheat linguine. He added fresh cracked black pepper and chopped parsley and that's how we served the meat balls....on top of this amazing pasta.