Meatballs are just meatballs, but these meatballs are filled with Parmesan cheese, too! Everything is better with cheese, right? The cheese oozes out of the meatballs when you bake them, and again when you reheat them after freezing them! They're not low in calories, but boy are they ever tasty!
Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground Italian sausage
4 medium eggs
1/2 cup bread crumbs *
1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp oregano
1 1/2 tsp chopped garlic
* I usually use Italian style bread crumbs, but regular bread crumbs are fine
Before you get started, turn on the oven and set it at 325°F. This will allow the oven to heat up while you're mixing the ingredients and making the meatballs. It'll probably be ready right about the time you'll need it.
Place the ground beef and the Italian sausage into a large mixing bowl. Using your hands, knead the meat to mix it together. (I use disposable plastic gloves that I bought at a restaurant supply store, so I don't end up with meat sticking to my hands.). Work the meat so that you get an even mix of the two meats throughout the mixture.
Crack the eggs and add them to the meat mixture along with all of the remaining ingredients (the bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, salt, oregano, and garlic). Knead the mixture again to ensure that all of these ingredients are thoroughly spread throughout. You wouldn't want all of the garlic to be in only one or two meatballs!
Once the mixture is mixed to your satisfaction, it's time to make the meatballs...
Tear off some of the meat mixture and begin rolling it between your palms. (Again, I use disposable plastic gloves.) The objective is to end up with a meatball which is about the size of a golf ball. If you grabbed too much meat mixture, throw some back into the bowl; if you didn't grab enough, get some more! As you make more of these, you'll get better at grabbing the correct amount of meat on the first try. If you have a good kitchen scale, you can weigh out 50g (which is about 1 3/4 ounces), but I usually don't weight them.
Place each of the completed golf ball-sized meatballs on to a baking tray. You can use a flat cookie sheet, but it's better to have a tray with edges because some grease will cook out of the meatballs and you don't want that grease to drip all over your oven.
You should have about 24-28 meatballs when you've finished.
Place the tray into your pre-heated oven and cook for about 25-27 minutes. Watch them carefully as the end of time approaches - you don't want to end up with dry meatballs!
After cooking is completed, allow them to cool and then divide them into meal-sized portions for freezing. I use quart-sized freezer bags and place five meatballs in each bag. You can freeze whatever quantity you'll need for a single meal. Whatever odd number of meatballs remains after dividing into fives does not get frozen: it's a chef's sample for immediate consumption for purposes of quality control!
