Meatballs

Meatballs are a favorite of many.  You'll find them in various sauces at parties stabbed with multi-colored toothpicks. I have thrown some frozen meatballs into a slow cooker and added the recipe on the side of the Heinz Chili Sauce (recipe: http://www.heinzchilisauce.com/). Today, I chose to add these meatballs to my spaghetti sauce.  If you're a Walmart shopper, I really love the Great Value (Walmart Brand) of traditional sauce.  It's a really great flavor and if you like to doctor it up and do all sorts of things with it.  I use it in my lasagna, Manicotti, spaghetti, and even as a dipping sauce for garlic cheesy bread.  Most recipes I have seen for making your own sauces are very much a long process.  If they're easy, then you're still buying your cans of tomatoes and tomato paste/sauces.  At that point, why not just buy the sauce ready to go and then flavor it with all of your preferences?

This recipe calls for three different kinds of meat: beef, veal and pork.  I'm sure that using all three of these would be delicious, but for cost and ease, I simply used all beef. I also cut this recipe in half because it made too much for my personal needs (which is the same recipe I am posting).  Also, when you're using cheese in a recipe like this (where it is also used to bind ingredients together) it is very important that it be freshly grated.  Besides the fact that it has more flavor when it's fresh, it will blend into your recipe much better.

Meatballs

½ pound ground beef

¼ pound ground veal

¼ pound ground pork

1 clove garlic, minced

1 egg

½ cup freshly grated Romano cheese

2 ¼ tsp. chopped Italian flat leaf parsley

salt and ground black pepper to taste

1 cup stale Italian bread, crumbled

½ cup lukewarm water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine beef, veal, and pork in a large bowl. Add garlic, eggs, cheese, parsley, salt and pepper. Blend bread crumbs into meat mixture. Slowly add the water ¼ cup at a time. Be careful not to overmix and make meat mixture mushy. The mixture should be very moist but still hold its shape if rolled into meatballs. Shape into meatballs. Line a cookie sheet with parchment or use your silicone baking mat.  Line up your meatballs on the baking mat and bake in oven for 15 minutes. Move meatballs to tray lined with paper towels to drain.  Be advised that you will have a great deal of grease left on the pan.

I really loved the flavor of these meat balls. I hope you enjoy them as well. Let me know if you decide to make them. Enjoy!!