Well, this was originally supposed to be Lamb Meatballs, but as I was standing in line at the Farmer’s Market to get my ground lamb, the lady in front of me declared that she wanted all of the remaining ground lamb. She didn’t care how much it was, she wanted all of it. Not only did she want all of that tray, but if they had another tray, she wanted that too. Grrr. Now, my Farmer’s market is extra super awesome. They actually butcher their meat right there in front of you if you ask them to. However, they don’t always have time to grind it for you. It’s enough work chopping up entire goats and lambs and cows and such. So, I was shit out of luck for my ground lamb.

Thus, my Lamb meatballs turned into Turkey meatballs. I chose turkey over pork or beef because I wanted something that would either compliment the feta or not overpower it. Beef would definitely overpower the feta flavor and pork wouldn’t compliment it well. So, Turkey it was.

So, I bought my ground turkey and some hot turkey sausage to mix in with it all. Then I got some wicked fresh Greek feta. I was ready. I had the herbs, I had the breadcrumbs, I had the egg… now it was time to cook.

Ingredients - Meatballs
1.5 lbs ground turkey
.5 lbs hot turkey sausage
½ cup bread crumbs
1 egg
½ - ¾ cup crumbled feta
Ground rosemary
Ground sage
Basil
Enough Garlic to smother a baby elephant
salt & pepper
olive oil

Ingredients – Sauce
5-8 peeled roma tomatoes, diced
1 can tomato paste
½ cup water
1 bay leaf
more garlic
½ cup sliced kalamata olives

So far as the herbs go, I don’t know exactly how much I put in. I eyeball my herbs.

Directions
1. Mix ground turkey and ground sausage with bread crumbs and egg. Blend well to make sure everything is dispersed evenly.
2. Add herbs and garlic to the mixture. Flavor it to your taste. The ground sage adds a really nice flavor to the turkey
3. Crumble Feta into the meat and lightly fold into the mixture to work the cheese through the meaty goodness.
4. Heat olive oil in a large pan. Make sure the olive oil coats the bottom evenly.
5. Roll meat into small balls. I make mine about the size of a super bounce ball. I don’t like huge meat balls, those suck.
6. Place 7 – 10 balls into the pan. You don’t want to add too many to the pan because it will cook unevenly. Each ball should be browned on every side and cooked through.
7. Remove balls and place on a paper towel.
8. Add more meatballs until all the meat is cooked.
9. Now we work on the sauce! Place all of the meatballs back into the pan. Add tomato paste and ½ cup water to the pan. Add all of the diced tomatoes. (You can use canned tomatoes for this as well. I used Italian canned whole tomatoes; it gave me some extra sauce to work with in the pan. You can also use small cans of tomato sauce if you’re lazy. I suggest mixing one can of tomato sauce with one large can of diced tomatoes if you don’t want to go through the hassle of cooking it yourself.)
10. You may need to add more tomato. Trust your judgment, the meatballs should be about halfway covered in sauce while resting in the pan. Add herbs, garlic and olives to the mix. Stir and place on low heat to simmer. Cover the meatballs and let cook for about a half hour.
11. Remove from heat and serve with Ricotta Garlic Bread.

Posted by Utopia at July 3, 2006 07:38 AM

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