Gluten-Free Meatballs

I'm baaaaaack! :)  New camera, memory card issues fixed, and new recipes! Unfortunately, 5-6 of the recipes I wanted to share with you were on the old memory card that is no longer with us, but I have the files retrieved. Just need to transfer them to this computer. Those recipes will be coming shortly.

My lovely husband saved a recipe for swedish meatballs from his 6th grade home ec. class because he loved it so much he wanted to make it again. His parents never made it, and he tried one time several years ago to make the recipe and the meatballs totally fell apart. About a week ago, my son started complaining that he had never eaten a real meatball with his spaghetti. I couldn't remember if *I* had ever had a real meatball with spaghetti, and if I had, I had certainly never made them myself. So, I pulled out my husband's recipe for swedish meatballs. I went ahead and followed the recipe for the most part, but if you'd like a more Italian zip for spaghetti, you could substitute some Italian seasoning for the ginger and nutmeg. Truthfully though, the spices in these meatballs are so subtle that I didn't notice them conflicting with my spaghetti sauce at all.

OK, so meatballs are hard to get a nice picture of. Ignore the "pear" napkins. We are trying to go mostly paper-free (no paper towels or disposie napkins), so these napkins were all I could find! One batch made about 36 meatballs. The picture below is how I served the meatballs. My kids like the noodles and sauce all mixed together. I served the meatballs over quinoa noodles with a side of green beans.

***Gluten-Free Meatballs
1 pound ground pork
1 pound ground beef
1 1/2 cups soft bread crumbs* (I used 3 slices of Rudi's original sandwich bread)
1 cup light cream
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 egg
Dried parsley flakes (a few shakes)
1/2 tsp. salt
dash black pepper
3 Tbsp. butter, divided

For Swedish Meatballs: dash of ginger, dash of nutmeg
For Italian Meatballs: dash of Italian seasoning

*To make soft bread crumbs, cut bread into small pieces and soak in light cream.

Cook chopped onion in 1 Tbsp. of the butter, until onions are tender but not browned. Set aside. Soak pieces of bread in light cream for 5 minutes. Scoop bread out of cream with a slotted spoon and place in large mixing bowl. Discard any unused cream. In bowl with soft bread crumbs, mix in meats, onion, egg, parsley, salt, pepper, and spices for either Swedish or Italian meatballs. Mix thoroughly. Form meat mixture into about 36 meatballs (each around the size of a walnut, or about 1 1/2 inches). Melt remaining 2 Tbsp. of butter in large skillet. Cook meatballs in butter, flipping to cook evenly. You want your meatballs to be over 165 degrees internal temperature.

I cooked the meatballs in with the butter until they reached around 160 internal temperature. Since I was working the meatballs in batches, I preheated my oven to 350 and when meatballs browned on all sides, I would place them on a cookie sheet and into the oven. By the time all the meatballs were finished and had spent some time in the oven, they were well done and much of the fat baked off. Drain on paper towels. We had quite a few meatballs leftover, so I froze them for our next spaghetti and meatballs night.

Enjoy! ~It's good to be back!