I went traditionally Italian for our meal last night, Spaghetti and Meatballs. I wanted something easy to do as I was having a bit of a rough day. We all have those days. I did want to make something interesting enough that I could get a recipe up and my husband wanted a regular Tomato Sauce instead of roasted vegetables. Italian was the best choice all around.After looking in the fridge, and pondering for a bit, I decided to make Stuffed Meatballs. I had Olives and Sun-dried Tomatoes available, and I could use them for a little surprise inside of the Meatball.
This is a quick dish, and it's something we haven't had in a while. We make our own Pasta from scratch. I have Pasta dough, ready made, and I pulled it from the freezer in the afternoon to make Spaghetti with. I chose the Roasted Red Bell Pepper Pasta and it turned out well enough for Spaghetti Noodles, but it was not as dense as a basic Pasta Dough. I have other recipes I'll be posting in time that work better as a Spaghetti Pasta or Formed Pasta Shapes. The Pasta dough I used last night is similar to others I've created but not all flavoured recipes work well for different Pasta forms.
Adding flavour and colour to your pasta is pretty easy. It took me a few tries to get the ingredients right I've included a link to the Pasta Dough Recipes below. The Spinach, Butternut Squash and the Red Bell Pepper Pasta recipes, all work out really well as Flat Noodles or Flat Sheets. They all have a bit too much moisture, or, the ingredients are too rough to be formed well into thin strands. They interfere with a perfectly long strand of Spaghetti.The additional ingredients added in, tend to interfere with the fine cutting required. I'm at 79 days now of posting, I still have a lot of recipes to get out. You will find all the basic recipes, which I've mentioned so far, in the following link. Please hang tight while I try to get everything written out.
Pasta from Scratch, things I learned.
Olive Stuffed Meatballs with Sun-dried Tomato
For the Meatballs, I used ground beef, but instead of frying them in a pan I baked them in the oven, on a wire rack, to let the fat drip off. The added bonus to this method, while the fat drains, it coats the meat and browns them up beautifully.
I'm stuffing each Meatball with bit of Sun-dried Tomato and a full Black Olive. It's fun to cut into something and find a little surprise inside.This recipe made 6 Meatballs. 2 each for dinner were enough for us, the extra 2, he used in his lunch.
Pre-heat your oven to 325 F
As a shortcut, I added a regular Tomato Sauce, then I added extra cut Vegetables and Sun-dried Tomatoes, into a baking dish and let it heat in the oven while the Meatballs were being cooked. One less step to worry about.Meatball Ingredients
350 Grams Lean Ground Beef
6 Large, Pitted, Black Olive
1 Sun-dried Tomato, sliced (6)
1 TSP Basil1/2 TSP Oregano
1/4 TSP Garlic
1/4 TSP Salt
Mix your spices together and add to the Ground Beef.
Mix thoroughly.
Pre-cut the Olives and add the Sun-dried Tomato Slices to their centres.Form 6 patties or balls with the meat.
You want an even coating of meat for best results.
The Olives were slick due to the oil from the Sun-dried Tomatoes, and pressing them into a Ball form wasn't working for me or my temper, so I made patties instead of fighting with the Olives.
Olives sliding around and refusing to stay together when you are stuffing an ingredient is funny the first and second trial, but by the third attempt, no. I had a wee bit of a "mood" going yesterday, I wasn't up to fighting with Olives.
I flattened the meat and firmly pressed the Olives and Sun-dried Tomatoes in place and worked the meat up over them. I won.
I'm posting both techniques below, for you to try it out if one or the other way doesn't work for you.
Once the meat was evenly coating the Olives, I placed them on a wire rack and put them in the oven.
After 15 minutes, they were brown, I turned them, to get an even cook from the bottoms to the tops, and let them cook 10 minutes more, and so more fat would drip off.
While they were cooking, I had the Spaghetti cut and ready to go and the water brought to temperature.
It was a quick 3 minutes for the Spaghetti to cook.
Plating was pretty quick as I didn't do anything fancy, I just coated it all with Sauce and Cheese.
The Stuffed Meatballs were a delight and the finished product did improve my mood.
I need a little pick-me-up on occasion too. If I can't easily talk myself out of it, getting something "right" usually does the trick to perk me up.
In case you prefer to learn via Video.
Link included.
Cheese Stuffed Sliders or Meatballs - Technique
Scotch Eggs - Recipe
My next few meals are either pre-made from previous posts I have done, or a variation of something I have made and written out for this blog. I have some cleaning up and editing to do too. My run-on sentences are running away from me, so I will likely focus on that for a few days.
The next "new" recipe, idea or technique I use, I shall update later in the week. In the mean time, I hope you will have some fun experimenting in your kitchen too!
0 Response to "Olive Stuffed Meatballs with Sun-dried Tomato"
Post a Comment