Fed a horde last night, although it was a smaller horde than usual — a hordelet, I suppose. The homeschool co-op middle/high school history students stayed after co-op for our second Dinner and a Movie Wednesday. This time it was To Kill a Mockingbird followed by spaghetti and meatballs. A friend had helped me transform seven pounds of discounted ground beef into a two-pound Italian-style meatloaf w/ string cheese buried in the middle (for the freezer) and five pounds of meatballs the day before. I used about 1/3 of them in the spaghetti sauce and will enjoy the rest for future meals. There were enough leftovers last night to make meatball subs a possibility for lunch today, although I think I’ll need to dig through the cold sauce and count to see if there really are enough for that. Bread from the more-terrific-than-our-Tiny-Town-warrants bakery rounded out the meal. I had planned a salad, but in the end I didn’t bother and justified my laziness by deciding that the movie popcorn I had made for the kids was a vegetable, after all. Um, yeah.
Now get up and go cook something good.
Meatballs for Every Need
Serves 5, but multiply as desired
1 lb. ground beef
1 t. salt
several grinds of pepper
1/2 c. milk or water
1 egg
½ c. quick or rolled oats
2 T. chopped onion
If making Italian-style, add:
1 t. dried basil
½ t. each thyme and oregano, dried
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
If baking, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix everything lightly but thoroughly. Get a shallow dish of cold water and a baking pan to set up a rolling station. Wet your hands, scoop up some meat mixture and roll approximately 1 ½” balls. Re-wet your hands as needed to keep the meat mixture from sticking. Arrange in the baking pan as you roll.
Options:
–Bake the meatballs uncovered for about 35 minutes, left unadorned or topped with barbecue sauce or some other sauce.
–Saute meatballs in batches in a large skillet filmed with oil over medium heat until cooked through.
–Simmer the meatballs in broth, soup, or spaghetti sauce until cooked through.
–Freeze the meatballs until frozen hard, then pop into a freezer bag and keep until needed.
Follow
