This is a low fat recipe. Both the meatballs and the sauce are basically good for you. Now what you serve them on can be a different story. But I’ll get to that later. For now let’s just concern ourselves with the meatballs and sauce.

First the meatballs. What can I say except I probably have never met a meatball I didn’t like. OK, that’s not true. Let me re-state that. I have never met a homemade meatball I didn’t like. I have unfortunately met quite a few mass produced meatballs that, well frankly, I wouldn’t give to a dog. (And I’m not crazy about dogs.)

But homemade meatballs. Ahhhhh. They are routinely delightful. And these ground turkey meatballs are no exception. Thanks to the Culinary Hill web site for this terrific meatball recipe.

Now on to the marinara sauce. This is my “go to”, never fails me, always loved by one and all, never to be changed, simple, always in style, Italian to the core, decades old recipe for marinara sauce. (If that description doesn’t win you over, I haven’t a ghost of a chance of converting you to my thinking, so leave this post immediately.)

But if you are still with me, this is the sauce for you.

Now onto what to serve these delightful meatballs and this incredible sauce on. (And yes I know not to ever, ever end a sentence with a dangling participle. But shucks, I only minored in English in college, so cut me some slack!) Anyway…..

If you are truly concerned about healthy eating, you can always serve these meatballs and this sauce on spaghetti squash, quinoa, black beans, or shirataki noodles. (Haven’t tasted shirataki noodles myself, but what I have read scares the heck out of me, so you will have to venture into this uncharted territory with someone else as your guide.) But if you are like me, and want to stick to the real reason meatballs and sauce were invented in the first place, let’s talk pasta. (And yes I know, pasta gets a lot of bad press.) But from everything I’ve read and heard, foods we eat affect our blood sugar. And since pasta is a high carbohydrate food, diabetics particularly need to watch portion sizes so their blood sugar levels don’t spike.

But pasta itself is a lower glycemic index food. And eating food with a lower glycemic index can help keep blood sugars more stable than eating foods on the higher glycemic index scale. So here’s the good news. Cooking pasta al dente, which I always recommend, helps keep blood sugar in better control. Plus, when pasta is cooked al dente, it remains firmer for better texture, mouth feel, and taste. So for those of you who are especially concerned, but don’t want to entirely give up pasta, always cook pasta al dente, if not molto al dente, and reduce the quantity you normally consume.

For more information, go on line. There is more information about pasta being OK (within limits) than you can ever hope to read. Also there are some great articles on how to cook pasta al dente. Actually molto al dente is best when you are adding the pasta to a sauce. I recommend an article written by Alex Delany for Bon Appétit magazine – December 14, 2017. Good information.

I hope you enjoy these recipes. Happy eating everyone.

Meatballs Recipe:

½ c. finely minced onion

3 garlic cloves, finely minced

1/3 c. minced fresh parsley

2 lg. eggs

2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

½ tsp. dried basil

½ tsp. dried oregano

1 tsp. seasoned salt

freshly ground black pepper

1 c. rolled oats

2 lbs. ground turkey or chicken (93% lean)

extra virgin olive oil

In a large bowl, combine the onion, garlic, parsley, eggs, Worcestershire sauce, basil, oregano, seasoned salt, and pepper.

Stir in the oats and ground turkey. Mix well, but don’t over work the meat. Using a small ice cream scoop, plop meatballs on a lightly greased rimmed baking sheet. Using a pastry brush, gently slather each meatball with olive oil.

Bake the meatballs in a pre-heated 400 degree oven until browned and cooked through, about 15 to 20 minutes (an internal thermometer should read 155 degrees). Remove from oven and use immediately, or allow to cool and refrigerate or freeze.

To freeze the meatballs:

Arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet, not touching. Freeze until solid, about 1 hour, then transfer to a freezer-safe container and store up to 1 month.

Marinara Sauce Recipe:

2 T. extra-virgin olive oil

½ c. chopped onion

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 (28-oz.) can chopped or diced tomatoes (Italian tomatoes preferably)

1 bay leaf

pinch crushed red pepper flakes

1 tsp. dried oregano (I use Mexican oregano)

½ tsp. kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

3 T. chopped fresh basil leaves

1-2 T. butter, opt.

In a large covered sauce pan, heat the oil over medium high heat. Add the onion and sauté until soft and translucent, about 6 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook for an additional minute. Add the tomatoes, bay leaf, red pepper flakes, oregano, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine ingredients. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for about 30 minutes. (Take the lid off part way if the sauce is too thin or allow to gently burble away until the sauce reaches your desired thickness.) Remove from heat, discard bay leaf, add the basil, and adjust seasoning. If the sauce tastes acidic, add butter 1 tablespoon at a time to round out the flavor.

 

We recently purchased half of a Highland* cow together with Mr. Cs sister Katie and her husband Rick. When we received our quarter of the beef, we had 34 – 1 lb. packages of very lean ground beef among all the other cuts. Now that’s a lot of ground beast! Our beef had been packaged exactly as Rick and Katie’s. So at Christmas time when they were visiting for the holidays, Katie asked me what I planned to do with all the ground beef? Since I happen to really love ground beef, I answered that I already had several recipes that called for ground beef. But when I looked through my recipes, I realized I didn’t actually have that many. So I thought about my favorite cuisine – Italian. What about an Italian meatloaf, I thought to myself? So I set about figuring out a recipe.

Now the one thing that meatloaf absolutely must be is moist. If it is dry and has the consistency of sawdust, you might as well use it as a doorstop! So in order to offset the leanness of the beef, I added an equal part of pork Italian sausage. (You could use chicken Italian sausage, but the meatloaf would not be quite as moist.) And the recipe turned out to be very good. Absolutely moist and full of the Italian flavors that we so dearly love. And the topping, which is basically a simple marinara sauce, is a nice alternative to the usual ketchup and brown sugar variety.

So if you want a new slant on meatloaf, give this recipe a try. It is a wonderful way to prepare a large meat dish using 2 fairly inexpensive cuts of meat. Plus planned-overs can be used in a number of different ways – sandwiches, cut up in small squares to use as “meatballs” for spaghetti, or crumbled on a pizza, to name just a few.

So however you serve this dish, your family and friends are bound to like it. And for your young children who think of meatloaf as a boring alternative to “real” food, like McDonalds hamburgers, for example, don’t call it meatloaf. Call it something fun like Monday Moo Meat or some other fun name depending on whatever night you are serving it to your family. Then serve it with a potato dish like Oven Roasted Steak Fries with Fry Sauce (on this site) and carrot sticks, and your kids will love it. Or they might possibly think you have slipped over the edge. That could also happen! (I always felt it was better for my children to think of me as slightly crazy rather than as your average boring mother type! I succeeded too!)

*Highland cattle are a Scottish breed. They have long horns and long wavy coats that are black, brindle, red, yellow, white, silver or dun colored. And, this is the hard part, they are just stinkin’ cute! But, as cute as they appear, they are raised primarily for their meat. So as long as I stick to thinking of these darling critters in terms of small white packages that live in my freezer, I’m OK.

• 1 T. extra virgin olive oil
• ½ onion, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 T. Italian seasoning, divided
• 1 tsp. kosher salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• ¼ c. minced fresh parsley
• 1 c. finely grated Parmesan cheese
• 3 eggs
• 2 T. milk
• ½ c. Italian style dry bread crumbs
• 1 lb. bulk Italian sausage* (pork or chicken)
• 1 lb. lean ground beef
• 1 (8-oz.) can tomato sauce

Heat the oil in a small fry pan. Add the onion and fry until translucent. Add the garlic and sauté for one minute. Take all but 2 tablespoons of the cooked onion and garlic out of the pan and place in a large mixing bowl.  Set the pan, complete with contents aside. 

To the bowl with the cooked onion and garlic, add one of the tablespoons of Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, parsley, Parmesan, eggs, milk, and bread crumbs. Stir until thoroughly blended. Add the Italian sausage and gently stir until completely blended. (I use the meat serving fork from my set of tableware to help break up the meat as I stir it into the other ingredients. I find it to be the best tool for the job.)  Add the ground beef and do the same. Pat into a lightly greased 9X13-inch baking dish. 

Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 25 minutes. Meanwhile, add the tomato sauce, remaining 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning, and a pinch of kosher salt and pepper to the pan with the 2 tablespoons onion and garlic. When the meatloaf has baked for 25 minutes, remove it from oven and slather on the sauce. Return the meatloaf to the oven and bake an additional 15 minutes or until the meatloaf reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees. (If you don’t have an instant-read thermometer, ask Santa for one next Christmas. They are the best thing to hit the culinary tool parade since high temperature spatulas!) But seriously, the meatloaf should be done after about 40 minutes. So don’t panic if your kitchen does not contain an instant-read thermometer. I didn’t have one until about 3 years ago, and I’ve been making meatloaf for a heck of a lot longer than that!    

*If you don’t happen to have bulk Italian sausage around, you can add 1 teaspoon of fennel seed and ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes to either plain ground pork or bulk breakfast sausage and achieve a good enough replacement.