Italian Potluck

It's 5pm and I'm behind schedule. No shock there but I've got 2 hours to prepare some kind of "italian dish" for a postponed company party. Strolling the aisle in the supermarket I call my homegirl and fellow blogger, Kay. Inspiration hits: Meatballs! Fast, affordable and perhaps a little boring. Time and cost is crucial but what can I do to spice them up. Kay suggests stuffing them with mozzarella, PERFECT! Standing in front of the ground meats I do her one better, three-meat meatballs made with ground chicken, turkey and pork sausage stuffed with mozzarella and mixture of sauteed onions, mushrooms and spinach. By the time I get into my car, I've spent $18 and consumed 35 minutes of my two hour window.

A five minute car ride and ten minutes of unpacking and I'm standing my favorite place in the whole house - in front of stove with all my ingredients laid out in front of me.

- 1 1/2 pounds of ground chicken

- 1 1/2 pounds of ground turkey

- 1 1 1/2 pounds of mild Italian sausage

- 1/2 pound of diced mozzarella (part skim)

- 1 cup of spinach

- 1/2 medium sweet yellow onion

- 3 medium mushrooms

- 2 tbsp italian breadcrumbs

- 2 tbsp minced garlic (store bought)

I wash my hands, don a pair of disposable gloves and dig right in mixing the meats together with the breadcrumbs, garlic along with freshly ground sea salt and mixed peppercorns.


Setting it aside, I mince the onion, mushrooms and spinach and saute in about 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, adding pepper flakes, hot chili powder and McCormick grilled vegetable seasoning. I cut the mozzarella into little squares: 2 pieces per meatball. Because of the stuffing the meatballs have to be a good size. My "method" is to grab a table spoon of meat and use the tip of a teaspoon to dig a hole in the center of the meat and put perhaps 1/4 teaspoon of the vegetable mixture into the center of the meatball, top with two diced squares of mozzarella and fold the meatball into a ball. It got a little tricky with the oil from the sauteed vegetables but for stuffed meatballs patience is a virtue.

I always fry my meatballs before putting them into sauce. I probably learned my lesson about the importance of firm meatballs back when I was 16 or 17. Typically I fry on all sides (perhaps 4 or 5) until the meat is brown and clearly holding together well. Once the meatballs were done I put the remaining 3-4 tablespoons of sauteed vegetables into a Le Cruset 4 quart pot and slowly added a 28 ounce can of fire roasted crushed tomatoes and a jar of basil garlic tomato sauce. Once the sauce comes to a slow simmer, I add the meatballs one at a time, stir them into the sauce and cover the pot for about 30 minutes. Right before I take the pot off the stove, I add a few pieces of diced mozzarella, stir and cover the pot. When it's time to serve the melted cheese peaking through the sauce makes for a pretty presentation.

Lessons Learned:

• Don't ever put hot spinach on a glass cutting board, or at least not the glass cutting board I purchased at Bed, Bath & Beyond for $6 a month ago. I was in love with it, but I was decidedly not in love with the millions of pieces of glass which sprayed all over my kitchen when I attempted to chop the hot spinach. By ruining all my vegetables and requiring careful cleanup this "minor" kitchen disaster set me back about 30 minutes.
• When making 35-40 meatballs a 4-quart pot of sauce is not enough. I ended up put 10 meatballs aside cause they couldn't fit in my pot.
• This process is kind of painstaking and not in any way a quick meal. Don't make this if you are in a rushed to panicked state of mine :-) I finished around 8:15pm, thankfully arriving at the party just as the other guests were pulling in.