Meatballs and Pasta

Posted on | September 25, 2008 | No Comments

I honestly don’t know if I should qualify “meatballs” since this isn’t your usual “Swedish” meatball. The ground meat mixture was intended to become burgers but when my hubby saw it, he said “Ugh…I’m kinda tired of red meat.” He then suggested we turn them into meatballs. Since they did come out pretty tasty, I’m going to try to write it down in case we want to revisit this. Probably not soon: we have enough leftovers for at least two meals if not more.

Meatballs:

1 1/2 to 2 lbs. ground beef
1/2 c. feta cheese
1 (8 oz.) package of mushrooms
1/2 c. frozen spinach
1 egg
1/2 c. garlic pita chip crumbs
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. dried minced garlic
salt and pepper
1 tbs. olive oil
1 tbs. sugar (dunno why…hubby said to do it)

All above are *approximate* amounts!

Wash the mushrooms. Put the mushrooms through the food processor and mince finely but don’t turn them into a paste. Do the same for the frozen spinach; keeping it frozen kinda helps when you’re pulsing. Yes, my kids saw this happen and they still ate the food. I love them.

Put the finely minced veggies and the rest of the goods in a bowl then mix gently with your hands. Make sure it’s well-incorporated. Shape into balls about 1″ in size. I don’t know if this is necessary, but I put them in the fridge for at least 6 hours before I cooked them. This picture will give you an idea of the distribution of the feta and the spinach so you can maybe tell how much to put in.

They were fried. I didn’t add any fat at all; trust me, with this meat there was no need at all. I fried in batches, allowing the bottoms to brown before turning them. It took about 5 minutes or so on each side, maybe less on the second side. I just used tongs to get them out and put them in a warm (200F) oven to wait while the other batches were going.

Afterwards, I used the rendered fat and bits in the pan to make a gravy with flour, chicken stock (It was all I had) some milk and salt and pepper. While it did taste good, my tummy is not happy at having to digest the fat the stove and pan worked so hard to get out. I recommend working with broth and getting the fat outta there.

Serve over noodles, preferrably egg noodles but we didn’t have any.

If you think meatballs are a pain to make (I won’t be making them any time soon, I think), you can use the above to make burgers instead. We did save some of the meat mixture and do just that. NM wholeheartedly approved and ate all of his.

Category: Foodie Stuff
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