Meatball recipe to the rescue

I purposely did not attach a recipe to my recent posting about meatballs because I kind of just wing it each time. In my mind everything is negotiable. I realize this is not the most helpful way to go about cooking so I simply neglected to put anything. However, this could be construed as somewhat cruel after making boosting comments about how good meatballs are and then not writing about how to make them.

First things first, I am not opposed to buying frozen meatballs. Trader Joe's has a great variety of turkey meatballs. One bag is only about $4 and they are pretty good and super easy - just heat them up.

But let's not lie, nothing is the same as homemade, so here is my best attempt at capturing my method for meatballs.

Ingredients:
*Pick your meat: Beef or Turkey, If opting for beef this is one of those times where less fat is a good thing. You don't want your meatballs floating away on grease. I use about a 1lb package.
*one egg
*1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
*1 cup bread crumbs - I always use 2 or 3 slices of whole wheat bread in the food processor
*1 Tbsp oregano
*1 Tbsp crushed red pepper flakes
*1 Tbsp minced garlic (about 2 cloves), garlic powder works too
*1/4 cup onion or green peppers or both (ground in food processor)
*1/4 -1/2 cup ketchup

Throw together and mix with hand or spoon. I make about 1inch balls. I find the best, simplest, and easiest to clean up after method for meatballs is baking them. Foil a cookie sheet and bake in the oven at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes. Remember the time varies with the size of the balls.

Now here are all of the cravats. The portions above are types of ratios. When I make the meatballs I don't really measure the bread crumbs or ketchup. There is a certain consistency you are trying go for - moist but solid in the squishy beef mixture solid way. You should get this feeling as you are mixing everything together. If all the ingredients are not coming together you need a bit more ketchup. If things feel a bit wet and you cannot form perfect round balls probably need a bit more bread crumbs. It sounds complicated but once you practice a couple of times you should know what I mean. I am confident within two attempts you should be golden.

As mentioned above, baking is not the only method. Putting them in a heated skillet also works well but takes more hands on time. You cannot make them all at once and you must stand there turning them around in the pans. By baking you pop them in the oven for 20 minutes and walk away. Once you remove the meatballs from the pan you can throw the foil out and clean up is done.

I have frozen the cooked meatballs as well, and they last for about 2 weeks. Just take out the night before you want to use them. You can also make them up Sunday night, they last for about 2 or 3 days in the refridgerator after they are baked.

New take on an old favorite

One of my favorite family meals is meatballs. My mom makes amazing meatballs. It is one of the special dinners we have whenever I come home. If I am super sweet, which most likely is yes. Or to be more honest my mom is being super sweet, which most definitely is yes, she will make extra to send home with me.

For all of the time I spent growing up in the kitchen, for the longest time I didn't know how to make meatballs. Finally about a year ago I asked my mom to show me. Well, this was quite a task since I hate to handle raw meat. When I was young I wouldn't even touch the wrapped packages in the grocery store. Whoever decided to put the plastic bags in the meat department is a genius, but I digress. Making meatballs certainly requires grabbing raw meat and making the balls. I don't care how skillful you are to mixing the ingredients with a spoon there is absolutely no way to make the little meatballs with just grabbing the meat barehanded. Yuck is all I can say. I tend to hold my breath as I take this step.

Regardless, the point of this post is not raw meat but meatballs. Commonly they are served on the side of pasta but I want you to consider another common way of serving meatballs. A meatball sub! Instead of waiting for the water to boil and then the pasta to cook simply buy some grinder rolls or a nice baguette at the store, heat/toast, and throw on the meatballs with some toast. Its simply, delicious, and filling. Meatball sub sandwiches are a perfect variation on an old favorite.

Tarry Lodge

The birthday celebration continues this week with my true birthday dinner. We drove down to Port Chester, NY to try the newest Mario Batali restaurant Tarry Lodge. Parking is a bit of an issue and using the valet services can be an easy way to save yourself some anxiety. The building itself looks like a big warehouse on the outside with a new coat of paint and a fancy sign. It sits nicely on a corner right off of Main street.


We started the night off with a stop at the bar. Along with an extensive Italian wine list, Tarry Lodge has homemade fruit sodas and wonderful cocktails. We chose two of the cocktails. A little on the girlish side, the Tarry 75 mixes cognac with limoncello. It was delicious. The cocktails range from $5-$13. And are quite reasonable compared with the wine served by the glass from $10-$18. My suggestion would be to go for the bottle if you are interested in wine.


We picked two Antipasti dishes: smoked trout and sweet peppers. The smoked trout was served as a salad with pieces of the trout mixed with heirloom tomatoes, rustic bread pieces, mozzarella, basil and green beans. The sweet peppers was simply a dish of roasted sweet peppers. And they were not joking about being sweet. I paired my with the bread they brought to the table. It was as good as dessert, or almost. The bread came with extra virgin olive oil with additional olives in it. There was an intense olive flavor to the oil.

We opted out of a past dish and went straight for the Secondi course. Jordan got the skirt steak with tomato panzella.

I got the lamb chops with roasted zucchini capota. The lamb was amazing but I could have done without the zucchini mixture. There was some sort of pepper included with a taste I did not care for and completely overwhelmed the flavor of the other veggies.

We left before dessert. I honestly didn't see anything that jumped out at me on the menu and I was sufficiently full after the meal. Our reservation were early on a Saturday night but as we left the restaurant and bar area was filling up. I can see the whole place getting quite loud when busy. I would go back again for a lunch and try one of the tasty sounding pizza dishes they also serve.