Porcupine Meatballs
Although I grew up in a home with fresh, home-cooked meals most nights, my love for cooking did not start early. In my teenage years, I couldn’t have cared less where my food came from or how it came to be. I mostly lived on Mountain Dew at that time, if we’re being honest here.
My love for cooking began when the kids were little. At the time, we had very little money. In spite of that, we lived very well, but I just learned to be frugal about everything. Most Saturday mornings were spent garage sale-ing. Clothes, toys and most of our home decor was all second hand.
It started out as necessity. Everyone needs to eat, right? By the time Kellen was about two, we discovered some food allergies that gave us two options- buy expensive organic foods, or make it ourselves. (More on this later, but it would become a very long post if I dived into that with this.) We went with make it ourselves. This is really where it started. I began reading more about food. I began exploring different spices, different vegetables, different everything, and discovered I loved this. The kids loved it too. Tristan opted to bring home lunch to school for years, not because I convinced him to, but because he was used to the real food and not the typical kid friendly foods out of a box.
Porcupine Meatballs were a regular item on our menu in the early years. They fell off over time, but in honor of my budget meal planning this week, they came out of retirement.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs ground turkey
2 eggs
3 cups of undiluted tomato soup- my preference would be Pacific Foods brand, either traditional or roasted pepper and tomato. Trader Joe’s has a very similar option. If you’re not too picky, Campbell’s is fine.
2 eggs
1 onion- chopped
3 cloves of garlic- minced
1 tbsp fresh thyme- chopped very fine
1 tbsp fresh rosemary- chopped very fine
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 bay leaves- optional
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes- optional
1 cup oat meal- I put mine through the food processer to grind it down more fine than rolled oats
Olive oil
1 stick of butter
3 cups dry long grain rice- I prefer brown, but white would work too.
Parmesan cheese to garnish- I could be convinced to mix this in as well…
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Start your rice first. The ratio I tend to start with is 2 cups water per cup of dry rice. Add butter to the rice and water and bring to a boil. The rice will take roughly 30 minutes to fully cook, but you will remove 1/2 to 1 cup of rice when it is about half way cooked. I’ll explain this more in a second.
In a small pan, heat the olive oil. Add the garlic and onion and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, or until the onion is soft.
In a large bowl, mix together turkey, garlic and onions, eggs, oatmeal, herbs, salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and half a cup of the undiluted tomato soup. Mix well.
This is where you will remove 1/2 to 1 cup of the partially cooked rice and add it to your meat mixture. Stir until full combined.
The reason for partially cooking it is to avoid crunchy rice in your meatballs. You can also use minute rice, but to me, that has a strange taste and I just don’t think its that great… You can also cook your meatballs at a lower temp for longer to prevent the crunch.
Use your hands, or a cookie scoop, to form the meat into balls an place side by side in a greased pan.
Once all meat is in the pan, pour the remaining tomato soup on top.
Place the bay leaves in between the center meat balls.
Cover with foil and cook for 30 to 40 minutes depending on the size of the meat balls, stirring half halfway through.
Serve over remaining rice and garnish with parmesan.
I sprinkled these with pepper. I'm not sure why, it wasn't necessary, but you can too if you want.
Serves 8
Cost per serving: About $1.50.