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Marvelous Make-Ahead Meatballs (FP or S)

Stock your freezer with these babies and you’ll save yourself time in the future and, more important, save yourself from going off plan! Just a couple hours of your time per month will make quick meatball meals a cinch! This recipe is found in the "Oven-Baked Meats & Fish" section of Trim Healthy Table Cookbook. This recipe makes 140 meatballs, which is enough for four meals that feed 6 to 8 people (about 35 meatballs per meal). (If you don't have the freezer room for this many meatballs, halve or quarter the recipe.)

Cooking Method:
Courses: ,
Servings: 6
Description

Stock your freezer with these babies and you’ll save yourself time in the future and, more important, save yourself from going off plan! Just a couple hours of your time per month will make quick meatball meals a cinch! This recipe is found in the "Oven-Baked Meats & Fish" section of Trim Healthy Table Cookbook. This recipe makes 140 meatballs, which is enough for four meals that feed 6 to 8 people (about 35 meatballs per meal). (If you don't have the freezer room for this many meatballs, halve or quarter the recipe.)

140Meatballs or 4 Meals that Feed 6-8 People

Ingredients
  • coconut oil cooking spray
  • 4 cups frozen okra (4 level cups; diced frozen okra)
  • 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 6 oz tomato paste (one- 6 oz can)
  • 1 Tbs mineral salt (one rounded Tbsp plus one teaspoon)
  • 6 cloves fresh garlic (6-8 fresh garlic cloves, minced or 3 to 3.5 tsp garlic powder)
  • 1 Tbs onion powder (1 Tbsp plus 2 teaspoons)
  • 1 Tbs black pepper
  • 1 Tbs TH Just Gelatin (1 Tbsp plus 2 teaspoons)
  • 1/3 cup TH Baking Blend (or old fashioned rolled oats)
  • 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (the green can kind is fine)
  • 1/2 cup TH Nutritional Yeast
  • 1 tsp sage (1 rounded teaspoon rubbed sage for neutral meatballs; or 1 to 2 rounded teaspoons Italian seasoning for Italian style meatballs)
  • 3/4 cup egg whites (carton or fresh)
  • 8 lbs ground meat (beef for S; venison, 96% lean grass-fed beef, or 96% lean turkey for FP; thawed if frozen)
  • 1 bunch fresh parsley (stems removed, finely diced)
  • beef broth (water with a splash of soy sauce for extra flavor, or chicken broth for simmering meatballs)
Instructions
  1. 1
    Preheat the oven to 400°F. Spray 4 large rimmed baking sheets with coconut oil (or just use 2 pans if that is all you have, as you may have to cook a couple batches anyway if that is all your oven can hold).
  2. 2
    Place the okra in a food processor and process until it forms a powdered snow (or appears as broken down as possible). Stop the processor and push the okra back down into the blades with a spatula a couple times, then run it again to make sure to get it all processed. Add the vinegar, tomato paste, salt, garlic, onion powder, pepper, gelatin, Baking Blend (or oats), Parmesan, nutritional yeast, herb of your choice, and egg whites. Process well until it forms a paste.
  3. 3
    Put the ground meat in a large bowl and add the processed paste and parsley. Mix with your hands until well combined. Form the mixture into balls (just a tad smaller than golf balls) and place them on your baking sheets about ½ inch apart. Spray the tops of the balls with coconut oil spray.
  4. 4
    Bake for 10 minutes (doing this causes a faux sear), then pour about 1 cup of seasoned water or broth into each pan to cover about ¹⁄³ inch of the pan depth—this keeps the meatballs moist for the rest of the cooking time. Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F and finish baking them for another 20 to 25 minutes. You may have to do a couple batches of meatballs to get them all cooked.
  5. 5
    Once cooled, leave out how many meatballs you want to use for your week and place the rest into baggies and freeze. If making meatballs to use in any of the family-serve recipes in this book, portion them into 35 meatballs per gallon- size baggies.
Note

Introduction Continued...

Check out the Meatballs, Rice, and Gravy recipe (page 211), or try them in Meatball Casserole (page 128), in crockpot meals (see pages 107 and 115), or in a Trimmy Bisque (see page 188).

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From Trim Healthy Table, Page 208:
Frozen meatballs can be heated up for a quick breakfast, popped into your mouth for snacks (dipped into ketchup or sugar-free pizza sauce), and they can top a salad or fill a sandwich. This recipe makes 140 meatballs, which is enough for four meals that feed 6 to 8 people (about 35 meatballs per meal). You can store the meatballs in single-serve baggies for lots of quick meals or snacks.

These can be a succulent S made with beef, but they absolutely rock as Fuel Pulls. They stay marvelously moist due to the secret ingredient (okra) and cooking method. Just make sure to keep the secret veggie at the heart of this recipe hush-hush while your picky fam gobbles them down. Making them as FP enables them to work with any meal, whether an S or an E. Yes, you get to eat meatballs with your E meals! Usually when you think about protein choices for E meals you think whitefish and chicken breasts, right? Meatballs open up a whole new exciting world for E meals! Enjoy them over quinoa or brown rice . . . perfect meal partners!

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Complimentary Recipe:
Marvelous Moist Meatloaf

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NSI (Use a grocery store unflavored gelatin and oats instead of the TH Baking Blend.)
DF (Omit the Parmesan and use 2 to 3 additional tablespoons of TH Nutritional Yeast.)

Read it online: https://trimhealthymama.com/recipe/marvelous-make-ahead-meatballs-fp-or-s/