Recipe #26 - Florentine Meatballs

I had planned to make the sequel to Salsa Stoup, but when I went to get ground beef, the dates were bad (that day) plus the meat just didn’t look right. So that’s on the backburner for now.

The Florentine Meatballs were very ordinary...but that’s what made them so good, in the way that meatloaf is scrumptious. They tasted very simple, without some of the over-the-top seasonings that some of these recipes have.

I put together the meatballs earlier in the afternoon, it took about 20 minutes. I made them smaller because we don’t like gargantuan meatballs, and also I wanted to make sure they were cooked all the way through. I used a package of ground turkey, which is just over a pound. That’s half the recipe. And I ended up with 28 slightly-smaller-than-golfball sized meatballs. I think that would be enough to feed 4 people.

When I got around to baking them, the rest of the meal took about half an hour (time to preheat the oven, plus 20 minutes to bake). Even though the meatballs were smaller I cooked them just as long, that’s how long it took to get a little brown anyway. I put them on non-stick foil for easy cleanup. That helped because some of the cheese oozed out of them while they were cooking.

The recipe in the cookbook doesn’t call for noodles but in Rachael’s "Every Day" magazine, it does.
I really liked this dinner. Don thought the sauce was just OK. I read on Foodnetwork.com that some people used marinara instead. I think that would be good but it might overpower the flavor of the meatballs. The spinach made them very moist. I think if I make meatballs of any kind again, I’ll put some spinach in them. You don’t really taste it but it gives them a nice texture and color.

Someone was kind enough to comment on this blog, the suggestion of going out of sequence to use up ingredients. For example, if one recipe uses gouda cheese, find another one that also uses it. I’ll probably do that for the Taco-Chili-Mac, cook that one and use the other half pound of ground beef to make burgers.

My one gripe about how the cookbook is organized is that there is no "Main Index" of recipes. There is the grouping by category (Perfect Pasta, Burger, Bonanza, etc.) but no list of just plain 1 through 366.

Anyway, here’s my "shameless plug of the week" - most of you know that I know Debbie because of Barry Manilow. His new album, "Greatest Songs of the Fifties," was released this week. The fan club is trying to get it to go to #1 by asking his fans to buy multiple copies. We are already buying multiple copies because it comes in multiple formats (regular and Dual Disc). So, my idea is to get multiple people to buy just one copy…what a novel concept, eh? I’ve been listening to it all week. I’m not all that familiar with the songs of the fifties so some of them are "new" to me. Just the perfect kind of music to cook to!!!!!