Jill's "Only Balls I Want in My Mouth Unless I'm Really Trashed or Maybe Want a New Dining Room Table from the Dump" Meatballs

This recipe is adapted from one I got from the Whole Foods website. Now, I know you are all saying, "wait a minute here, Jill claims she is not rich, yet she's been to Whole Foods, which is one of the richest places on earth." Slow down friends, I just printed a free recipe off the internets, then changed it all up to make it more delicious and less healthy. Sweet D loves this, and it is a good way to sneak some veggies into your kids. And by kids I mean husband.

I have to credit my dad for help with the title of this recipe. As you all know, my man is both dirty and shady, so of course when I said meatballs, you know where he took it.



Ingredients

1 lb ground beef - this is originally a Whole Foods recipe, so you know it calls for grass-fed, no hormone, no-antibiotic super beef. Since the bank turned me down for that all-important healthy beef loan I applied for, I used some 90/10 from the giant log I got at Sam's Club. Yes, you too can take care of all your fall fashion needs and buy jacked up hamburger meat in a giant log at Sam's Club. Membership has its privileges.

3/4 cup cooked quinoa - I know, it's so fancy! It is even pronounced kinda Frenchy-like "keen - wah." It is really just couscous that looks like tiny (somewhat creepy) little curls. I hear that it is super duper healthy and maybe was revered for its godlike properties by the ancient Mayans. Those Mayans!!

1/4 cup shredded carrot - I shredded this up really tiny and SD still was able to pull out a piece, wince, and scream, "what is this in my meatball??" My advice, maybe shred it, then chop it.

1/4 cup shredded zucchini - I shredded this into the most beautiful and perfectly thin circles of zucchini. See SD's reaction above. Again, shred then chop to trick those who would refuse to eat a meatball that is full of veggies.

2 T ketchup - loves. This is so my mother, I can hardly stand it. She always glazed her meatloaf with ketchup. Clearly, I learned classy from a master.

1 egg

2 T chopped fresh garlic - I like the kind that is already chopped up and is in a little jar that you keep in your fridge. I know I am sounding more and more rich as this recipe goes on. Don't hate.

1 T soy sauce - gotta keep it on the Asian tip at least a little in honor of our 1/2 Asian Bird that flew off to Singapore. Don't go chasing waterfalls, my friend.

1/2 t pepper - I didn't measure this, just grinded a whole bunch into the bowl.

1/2 t salt - I use coarse kosher. Shalom.

1/4 t dried oregano - I used fresh. Just kidding, who has fresh oregano?

1/4 t dried thyme


Directions

Preheat the oven to five hundo. So I am already loving this recipe when I read that because if I learned anything from my mother (besides how to act like an escaped lunatic from an insane asylum) it is that anything worth cooking is worth cooking fast, and at an extremely high temperature.

Line a large cookie sheet with foil, then spray it down with Pam. I know it is rich to waste foil like that, but it cuts down on dishes and I do it real sneaky-like when my dad is busy working on his fantasy football draft.

Dump all the ingredients in a big bowl and mix them all up. You gotta use your hands to do this and it is pretty sick, so just get ready. Next, form the mixture into small balls (heh heh). The geniuses over at Whole Foods say 16 balls but I made like 36, and they were still plenty big. Put them all on the cookie sheet and roast them until they are "golden brown" and cooked through for like 12-15 minutes. Mine came out just plain brown and not so much "golden brown" but I am okay with that. They are meatballs after all.

Serve hot. I tried to give them to SD without any pasta (b/c they are already full of starchy quinoa wonder food) but he was not having that. So I put them on a bed of whole wheat penne with some jar spaghetti sauce. They were delish!