Meatballz!

Meatballz! (Meatballs)

I can honestly say that I don’t hate cooking anymore and I even enjoy it most of the time now. In order to reduce heating the kitchen each night after being gone for nearly 12 hours, I decided to make my famous meatballs and then freeze them. I already can spaghetti sauce each summer so boiling a pot of water to get noodles done isn’t too bad.

I also saved some meatballz to make the Meatball Sub Casserole recipe over on THE COUNTRY COOK. The only thing I do differently than the recipe is to toast the French bread slices prior to constructing the casserole.

For freezing, I used the wonderfully incredible new Ziploc Perfect Portion bags! I just love them and I’ll show you how I used them further down in the post. Here’s a picture in case you have not heard of them yet.

Meatballz:

1   pound ground beef
1   pound ground pork
1   cup fresh bread crumbs
1/2   cup chopped onions — finely chopped
1    cup grated fresh Parmesan cheese
2    tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
2   teaspoons minced garlic
2   large eggs — beaten until frothy
1   teaspoon salt
1   teaspoon dried oregano
1    teaspoon dried basil
1/2   teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
non-stick cooking spray or olive oil

In large bowl combine turkey, breadcrumbs, onion, Parmesan, parsley, garlic, beaten egg whites, salt, oregano, basil, and pepper. Mix lightly but thoroughly.

With moistened hands, lightly shape mixture into 1-inch balls. You should have about 60 the size of a cherry tomato.

Coat a large non-stick skillet with non-stick spray or olive oil. Add meatballs, about 8 at a time. Cook, stirring constantly until browned but not cooked through.

When all meatballs are browned, place them in a Pyrex dish and bake them for about 20 min at 350 degrees.
Completely cool in the pan.

Pull the PP bag over your hand and grab 10 meatballs.

Once you have them, pull the top of the bag over your hand

Put a twist tie on and repeat until they are all bagged.

Place all bags in gallon sized Ziploc and place big bag in freezer.

During the summer, if I want to make a quick dinner I grab a bag out of the freezer and a can of spaghetti sauce out of the pantry. I doctor up the sauce adding the meatballs to it while the spaghettini (we like it better) is cooking. Keeps the kitchen relatively cool and I always have a meal ready to go in case some of the kids come by to eat.