Saturday, November 1, 2008

Family friendly meatballs.

I created this recipe about a year ago and make these meatballs all the time. Everyone in our family likes them. The same meat mixture can be used to make hamburger patties. Of course, much like many of the things I make, they contain pureed vegetables and are relatively low in fat, depending on which type of meat you use.
Ingredients:
1 pound ground turkey or lean ground beef
1 cup carrot puree (chick pea, squash or pumpkin puree also work well)
1 sleeve Ritz crackers, smashed into small crumbs
1 tablespoon worshechire sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon seasoned salt
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with tin foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Mix together all ingredients in large mixing bowl. Form into balls; I use a cookie dough scoop to keep the size uniform. Makes about 24 meatballs. Bake for 8 minutes, then turn the meatballs over and bake for another 8 minutes. They should be nicely browned on the outside.
Serving Suggestions:
Depending on what kind of sauce you like to use, these meatballs are very versatile. They're good served with a standard marinara with spaghetti, or a sweet and sour sauce with rice. The picture shows them served with a pumpkin sauce I made with ingredients I had on hand, and it turned out nicely. Here are a couple of sauce recipes:
Pumpkin Sauce
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup red bean puree
3/4 cup milk
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. red pepper powder
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
Whisk together ingredients over med-low heat in saucepan until thickened.
Tangy Sweet and Sour sauce:
1/2 cup barbecue sauce
juice from one can of pineapple
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 Tbsp. worshechire sauce
Whisk together over med-low heat in saucepan.

4 comments:

The Bowler Five said...

This is great, I was planning on meatballs tonight. I will try these ones. Sounds like you cook a lot like I do!

Priscilla said...

Angie,
Yay! I can't wait to hear how you and your family liked them!

Elizabeth Downie said...

Wow, you're so creative! I could never invent a recipe. Seriously. I'm impressed.

The Bowler Five said...

We loved the meatballs...I did make a change, only because I did not have the crackers (my children ate them before I got around to cooking). So instead I added 1 cup of oatmeal and 1/2 cup of wheat germ. We ate them over rice with a mushroom sauce. They were great and my husband wants more...always a good sign. Thanks!