My older brother, Joe, was always able to get it all down. He'd set a determined look on his face, hold his breath and start shoveling. Little brother, Casey, and I were always in awe. And very jealous. One dinner, I tried to follow suit and started shoveling. My gag reflex didn't allow it though and it all came back up. The good news is that I didn't have to eat my dinner. The bad news were the glares from my brothers as I was excused from the table as they weren't. It took me a while to get back under the good graces of my siblings. I'd like to think we've moved past that, right? Joe? Casey?
There are a few foods, however, that I don't have to think twice about my kids liking.
Macaroni and cheese
Peanut butter and jelly
Applesauce
Beef jerky
Pizza
Spaghetti
And lets not forget...candy. I never have a problem talking them into eating candy.
Meatballs are never really a problem either. They're good in spaghetti, doused with barbecue sauce, or under a blanket of gravy. I've attempted them before, but I want to make them more often. After checking out several recipes and taking parts of each one that appealed to me, here's what I came up with. They were flavorful, juicy and easy to make. Oh...and there weren't really any leftovers.
Meatballs
1/2 cup chopped onion
4 cloves minced garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground pork
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
2 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil
Heat olive oil over medium heat in a small pan. Add onion and garlic and saute until tender and starting to brown. Place onion mixture and all other ingredients in a large bowl. Mix together with your hands. Form meatballs about 1 1/2 inches in diameter and lay them on a baking sheet. Freeze for about 15 minutes. This will help the balls stay together when you brown them.
Heat vegetable or canola oil in a large frying pan over medium high heat. Place 6-8 meatballs at a time into the oil and brown them on all sides. Remove to a baking sheet and continue the process until all the meatballs are browned.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake the meatballs for 20-30 minutes or until they are cooked through.
I served these with roasted potatoes, gravy and a big salad.
Enjoy!
Ok lets be honest when you say that your "gag reflex" kicked it it really means that you stored a bunch of food up in your maouth and spat it back out. I think that the thing Joe and I were the most angery about was the fact that we didn't think of it first:-)
ReplyDeleteYou forgot to mention what it was that we were being forsed to eat. Since none of us liked squash in an of its forms I think Mom and Dad took it upon themselves to find some way that we would eat it. That night it was mashed butternut squash with raisins in it. Thats rite rasisin and if I'm not mistaken it had syrup in it too. Needless to say the search continued for the magic combination of ingredients and cooking method that us kids could tolerate.