Italian Meatballs

I recently stumbled across another food blog : Budget Bytes. What I love about this site is that each recipe is broken down into actual cost. Obviously this varies by where you live, and shop, but its a great starting point. One of my personal goals for my blog was cost & nutrition information. That definitely won't be happening until I graduate - but its a nice goal to have.

Anyway, point of the entry is, this blog had a delicious entry featuring meatballs! I've never made meatballs. I really don't even have meatballs that often. Not even growing up. But I Love meatballs. I also love that meatballs can go from pasta to sandwich, how many foods can do that? I first made these meatballs almost two weeks. I made them with spaghetti. I just Barilla plus spaghetti noodles and topped with classico four cheese sauce. According to budget bytes, the meatballs themselves work out to $9.37 recipe (approx 40 meatballs) / $0.89 serving (4 meatballs) / $0.22 meatball. My husband definitely thinks I'm some kind of kitchen goddess now.

I bagged half the left over spaghetti and have the left over meatballs and froze them for use later. I made them again this week. I'm going to throw them in with some sauce and penne noodles, and make some meatball subs.

The recipe below (the break) is from budget bytes. For a pricing break down visit her blog.


Ingredients
1 lb. ground beef
one 1.25 lb. package mild italian sausage, casings removed (I used a Roll of mild/hot Sausage)
1/2 medium yellow onion
2 cloves fresh garlic
6 Tbsp, divided olive oil
1/2 cup bread crumbs (I used italian)
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese (I used shredded)
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 large eggs, beaten
1/2 cup all purpose flour

Directions

1. Finely dice the onion and garlic. Cook them in a small skillet using 2 Tbsp of olive oil until they are soft and translucent.
2. In a large bowl combine the ground beef, Italian sausage (remove from the casing), bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, beaten eggs, parsley and onion/garlic mixture (let cool slightly so they can be handled with your bare hands). Using your hands, mix and squish it all together until it is thoroughly combined. Your hands really are the only tool that will accomplish this effectively so if you don't like touching raw meat, you better get yourself some gloves!
3. Prepare your meatball making station by getting a small bowl and putting a 1/2 cup of flour in it. You will be dredging the meatballs in the flour before pan frying them. Also grab a large plate or platter to hold the flour dredged meatballs prior to frying. Using your hands (again) grab small amounts of meatball mix and roll into small balls (I made mine slightly smaller than a golf ball) and then roll them around in the flour until coated lightly. Place the floured meatballs on the plate and continue until you have used all of the meatball mix. You will probably need to rinse your hands every 10 meatballs or so because they get coated and sticky, making the rolling quite difficult.
4. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and get a large glass dish ready for baking. Put the remaining 1/4 cup of olive oil in a large skillet and heat it over medium/high heat until it is very hot but not smoking (if you drop a little flour in it, it will sizzle A LOT when it's ready). Working in batches (about 10 at a time), brown the meatballs on all sides (about 30 seconds to 1 minute on each side). The meatballs do not need to be cooked through because you will bake them as well. Basically, you are just adding texture, flavor and strength to the meatball by searing the outside.
5. As you remove each batch of meatballs from the skillet, place them in the glass dish until they are all done pan frying. Place the glass dish full of meatballs in the oven and cook at 350 for about 25 minutes or until cooked through. If you made larger meatballs they will take longer to cook. If you are unsure about whether or not your meatballs are done cooking, simply sacrifice the largest one you can find and see if it is still pink inside.