Thursday, June 21, 2012

BBQ Meatballs....Yum!

I have been in the mood for meatloaf for weeks.  Last night I was determined to finally make that meatloaf. Only problem was I was out of most of the key ingredients.....you know the recipe you find on the back of the Lipton Onion Soup Mix box? Yeah, I was out of nearly everything including the soup mix!  No eggs, no bread crumbs, no soup mix.  I suppose I was lucky I had the ground beef in the freezer!

Then I remembered that I had watched the Pioneer Woman make these yummy looking BBQ meatballs for her church potluck with oats and milk.  No eggs or bread crumbs required! Yay!

For those of you that follow Ree aka The Pioneer Woman, you know that her food is not for the faint of heart.  I'm willing to bet she could have a "Butter Throwdown" with Paula Deen and it would be a tie!

While I did end up making some slight modifications to the recipe, here is Ree's original recipe:

Pioneer Woman's BBQ Meatballs
Serves 6

Ingredients:
FOR MEATBALLS -
1 ½ pound Ground Beef
3/4 cups Oats
1 cup Milk
3 Tablespoons Very Finely Minced Onion
1 ½ teaspoon Salt
Plenty Of Ground Black Pepper, to taste

FOR COOKING MEATBALLS -
1 cup All-Purpose Flour (coating For Frozen Meatballs)
Canola Oil

FOR SAUCE -
1 cup Ketchup
2 Tablespoons Sugar
3 Tablespoons Vinegar
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire
4 Tablespoons (to 6 Tablespoons) Onion
1 dash Tabasco

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all meatball ingredients. Roll into medium-small balls and place on a cookie sheet. Place sheet in freezer for five minutes. After 5 minutes, remove meatballs from freezer and immediately dredge in unseasoned flour. Brown meatballs in canola oil until just brown. Place into a baking dish. Combine all sauce ingredients. Pour over meatballs and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Serve with egg noodles, mashed potatoes, or crusty French bread.

So of course I had to modify the recipe somehow to make it my own, right? Well, I didn't have an onion so I used that dried minced onion stuff in a jar.  Worked just fine.  And the step about rolling and freezing and dredging and frying? Yeah, I left that out too.  I just baked them in the oven with the sauce poured on top.  I figured that since I was already using 97% lean ground beef that what ever drippings there were wouldn't kill us.  I also had more like 1 3/4 pounds of ground beef so I just added oats and milk to make sure the consistency of the mixture was right.

Like Ree says in her original recipe these are more of a comfort food meatball not an Italian meatball so I chose to serve them over mashed potatoes.  Except I didn't make them from scratch or anything.....I used a box of potato granules!!!!! The horror!  

And in case any of you are wondering my kids actually prefer the potatoes from the box because they think I took the extra time to actually peel the potatoes and that must mean I love them a little extra that day.  :-)

It's been a while since I tried out a new meatball recipe and this one is definitely a keeper!  I might even double the sauce next time since we all seemed to wipe up the remaining sauce from our plates with our fake mashed potatoes! It was that good!  It didn't exactly cure my meatloaf craving but I'll work on that soon! LOL

Hope you enjoy this recipe too!

Deborah

2 comments:

  1. I love P-Dub's meatballs!!!
    You've flung a cravin' on me!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. These were sure yummy! I will definitely be making them again.

      Delete