It’s warm and sunny here today – Southern and Western burbs may hit 80º; so I’m sitting here in shorts with the windows open, Poi Dog on the iPod dock, and a tall Arnold Palmer on the rocks.
Why I chose the warmest day of the year so far to make many, many meatballs – I have no idea. Maybe it was because we were switching from Comcast to AT&T for internet, phone and cable and I was worried about being cut off (you can take my phone and cable – but don’t lay a finger on my internet connection!) – we weren’t. In any event, I took out Rich’s mom’s meatball recipe this morning and started mixing and scooping; ending up with 81 meatballs in the freezer for future use. BTW – sorry mom, but I tweaked your recipe a bit based on what I had – It is still quite tasty, tho’!
INGREDIENTS
• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1 lb. ground Turkey
•1 (19-oz.) pkg. each: hot and sweet Italian sausages, removed from their casings – the original recipe uses three pounds of ground beef and 1 pound of sausage
• 2 eggs
• 1 onion
• 2 tsp Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute – a salt-free mix of herbs and spices – or, the original recipe calls for basil and oregano
• 1/2 cup milk
•2 cups breadcrumbs (I used some French bread I had in the box) + 1 cup of panko
•1/2 cup freshly shaved Parmesan cheese – or use shredded – I just like the size of the shavings
Combine the eggs, bread/panko crumbs, onion and spices in a food processor, then remove to a large mixing bowl.
Mix all the meats together – I ran the sausage thought the food processor to break it up and then combined with the beef and turkey in the big stand mixer.
Add the meat to the egg/bread mixture and mix really well – sorry, I don’t believe that there is any better way to do this than with your impeccably clean hands.
Mix all and form into balls – I used a small cookie dough scoop and ended up with about 80 tasty, tasty meatballs.
Bake at 350º in foil-lined pans until done – I had two metal pans and 2 glass baking dishes going at once – it took around 30 minutes. Cool and freeze and use at will.