Meatballs @MaddieDayAuthor

MADDIE DAY here. The recipe I bring you here isn't springlike. It isn't for Easter, and it's not for vegetarians, although non-beef eaters could substitute ground turkey. But after a half month of travel, I needed something easy and nurturing. 

A friend and member of my spiritual community, Amesbury Friends Meeting (Quaker), was ill with COVID and complex pneumonia. His wife, another dear friend, had requested assistance with meals from our small congregation, since all her energy was going toward taking care of him. Ted is a tall man, already slender before illness struck. He had lost a lot of weight from being sick and was craving meat. 

I raised my virtual hand on the meals app and signed up to drop off several meals, including a pasta and meatball casserole (plus salad and dessert). Part of it would go to nurture Hugh and me, too. And since he's trying to avoid things like flour and gluten, I found a recipe for meatballs that uses oatmeal instead of bread crumbs or Panko.

Meatballs without Bread Crumbs

Recipe adapted from MangiawithMichele.com

Ingredients

2 eggs

½ cup milk

½ cup rolled oats (not all oats are certified gluten-free, but you can find them if you need a gluten-free recipe)

½ cup grated Parmesan or Romano

1 clove garlic, minced or pressed

1 tablespoon basil pesto

1 teaspoon black pepper

2 teaspoons salt

1 pound good ground beef

Directions

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Whisk eggs with milk. 

Stir in oats and let sit for five minutes.

With a fork, mix in cheese, garlic, pesto, salt, and pepper. 

Gently mix in raw ground beef. Don’t over-mix. Cover and refrigerate at least fifteen minute or overnight.

Preheat oven to 375º. Form the meat mixture into balls, whatever size you like. Dip your hand in cold water to prevent mixture from sticking.

Bake 15 minutes.

Simmer in tomato sauce to go over pasta, serve with toothpicks as an appetizer, or stuff a crusty roll and add ketchup for a meatball sandwich.

Note: the original recipe called for a quarter cup of chopped fresh basil, which I didn't have, so I substituted the pesto. If you have fresh herbs, feel free to sub that back in and omit the pesto.

Readers: How do you like your meatballs?

🥩🍅🍝

Scone Cold Dead is out and available wherever books are sold.

My most recent releases are Deadly Crush, 

 Murder at the Rusty Anchor, and

 A Case for the Ladies.

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Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau and sweet cat Martin north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.