Cheesy Baked Meatballs

I never much cared for anything with tomatoes when I was a kid. I opted for mustard over ketchup (making me a bit of a youthful neighborhood oddity), and would always forego any type of Italian food, including pizza. Tomato sauce always tasted bitter to me. As I got older and became serious about cooking, I learned about the wonders of bechamel sauce, and how beautifully it pairs with tomato sauce in Italian dishes, tempering the sauce, turning into a dish that is absolutely wonderful.

For this reason I have been stalking the Cheesy Skillet Meatball recipe that has appeared on both the 12 Tomatoes and View from Grand Island blogs. I love meatballs, and with one version of this recipe making use of bechamel, I figured they had to be good.  So I combined the two and came up with I think is probably my favorite meatball yet. I added a few more seasonings to the meatballs to give them a bit more of a kick, and baked them longer than either recipe suggested. We loved them! As an added plus, they reheat perfectly, and make the best meatball sandwich that I think I have ever tasted.

Cheesy Baked Meatballs

Meatballs:

1 lb. ground beef

1 extra-large egg

1/2 cup Italian breadcrumbs

1 Tbl. minced onion

1 tsp. onion salt

1/2 tsp. dried oregano

1/2 tsp. dried thyme

1/2 tsp. fresh cracked black pepper

1/2 tsp. Beef or Montreal Steak Seasoning

1 heaping Tbsp. ketchup

Pinch of cayenne pepper

16 oz. jar of your favorite pasta sauce

(I use Paul Newman’s Sockarooni)

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Sauce:

2 cups whole milk

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Set the oven to 350ºF.

Crack the egg into a large mixing bowl and whisk until blended. Add the meat, breaking it apart as you add it to the bowl. Add the remaining ingredients EXCEPT the tomato sauce and the mozzarella cheese. Mix to combine everything well, using your fingertips. Don't compact the meat, and don't over mix.

Scoop out the meat into approximately 15 balls (I used a small ice cream scoop.) and roll the balls into nice rounds with your hands.

Place the meatballs on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes.

After you put the meatballs in the oven, pour the sauce into a 1-1/2 quart casserole dish and place in the oven along with the meatballs for the last 10 minutes of cooking, to heat up the sauce.

While meatballs are baking, melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in flour and cook, stirring constantly, until roux is golden, smooth, and paste-like, 5-7 minutes.

While continuing to whisk, stir in whole milk. Bring mixture to a boil and cook for 10 minutes, or until thickened. Stir in salt and nutmeg.

Remove both pans from the oven and transfer the meatballs to the skillet, nestling them into the sauce. Bake 15 minutes. Top with bechamel. Return the skillet to the oven and cook for another 15 minutes, if you made your meatballs smaller or larger, the cooking time may vary.

Remove the skillet again and top with the cheese. Return to the oven to melt the cheese, 2-3 minutes.

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This post is linked to:

Wow Us Wednesday
Work It Wednesday

What’s It Wednesday

Wine’d Down Wednesday

Wake up Wednesday

Dream, Create, Inspire

The Homemaking Party

Foodie Friday & Everything Else

Roasted Dutch Yellow Potatoes, you need them!

You've all heard the old adage about how time flies when you're having fun. As a veteran of time, let me tell you that it flies whether you're having fun or not. The older I get, the closer together the holidays seem, and I often find myself at a loss for comestibles when people come knocking on the door.

If this same thing happens to you (not that I'm saying you're old, or anything), here is a product from Melissa's Produce that you are going to love, Roasted Dutch Yellow Potatoes. All of the work is already done for you, so in order to have a delicious side dish all you need do is microwave (if you are really in a pinch), or warm them up in a skillet on the stove in a little bit of oil (my personal choice), and serve them right alongside your main course. 

Having a brunch? Quarter these cuties and warm them in a saute pan, and you have quick and easy cottage fries.

Need an appetizer? Melissa's to the rescue! Warm them up, dump them onto a plate, shake your favorite brand of hot sauce on top of them, serve them with a side of Bleu cheese dressing (and lots of toothpicks for easy spearing), and you have Buffalo Potatoes. Warmed, plated, and topped with a generous grating of freshly ground black pepper and a dish of ranch dressing, and you have Ranch Potatoes.

What a delicious and healthy alternative these are to chips or fries, and, trust me when I tell you, people love them.

Many thanks to Melissa’s Produce for supplying me with these lovely potatoes.

Lorena Garcia's New Taco Classics, reviewed

I make no secret of the fact that I love tacos, or that I insist upon a cookbook being colorful, easy-to-read, and loaded with mouth-watering pictures. Lorena Garcia's New Taco Classics lives up to, and surpasses, both of these. Prepare to find yourself running to the kitchen in search of ingredients only pages into this book, because she makes you want to stop what you're doing and start making tacos. But this book is so much more than just tacos. By the time you cook your way through, you will be an ace at preparing Latin American street food.

Beginning with teaching you how to make the base (or vessel as she more accurately refers to it) for your taco (or empanadas, telitas, arepa, or tamale), she then provides you with recipes to make an amazing amount of fillings based upon what you crave (or what is in your cupboard or available locally), then the crunchy aspect of the slaw or salad, and finally the salsas. You will soon be mixing and matching from what she offers here to suit your own tastes.

There is a staggering amount of recipes for making the base. My experience has been either flour or corn, but she employs carrot, beets, cilantro, and black beans in addition to that.

When I make tacos, I tend to stick to my usual, and that is a thin spread of homemade refried beans. She provides many recipes for spreads here using a wide variety of beans including black-eyed peas, fava beans, garbanzo beans, and pintos. The recipes are easy and intensely flavorful due to her carefully chosen selection of complementary herbs and spices.

Recipes for sauces abound, from savory to sweet, all quick and easy, and all so delicious that you will be spooning them over everything, if not eating them directly from the bowl. A cilantro fan, I make her green cilantro sauce in minutes and find myself labeling it onto almost anything that I can find, including my taco meatloaf.

Her chapter on Picos was eye-opening. As she says, “There's so much more to pico than a few chopped tomatoes, onions, and chiles.” I confess to being stuck in that rut most of the time, but have happily expended my repertoire thanks to her, now using corn, mint, peaches, and pineapple, although her toothsome Brazilian Pico de Gallo remains at the top of my list.

If you want to take a walk on the wild side, trying replacing your usual salsa with pickled vegetables. The section on how to make these will have your mouth watering, and make just change your taco making forever. The cilantro (you can substitute parsley) lime pickled onions are heavenly!

The wide variety of fillings will shock you. She employs the use of everything from simple pulled pork or beef to beef tenderloin, sausage and peppers, and fried chicken.

The chapter on creams and the one on sides is worth the price of the book alone. Making my own, fresh creams, was very appealing and, as one who is often stumped for ideas for sides, this section proved invaluable. Consider Grilled Avocado Salad, Peruvian Corn Gratin (with Parmesan, mascarpone, spinach, and hearts of palm -- Heaven!), grilled cauliflower, herbs rice, and the amazingly easy seasoned lemons and limes that truly add so much flavor. I no longer eat avocados without squeezing them with the juice from a seasoned lime.

I cannot recommend this book enough, for taco or Latin food lovers, yes, but also for people who are interested in expanding their daily cooking into something a bit more flavorful. Anyone can make these easy recipes, and you will certainly be glad that you did.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.