Baked Meatballs and Oven Woes

Oh hi, I couldn't stay away for long! I guess I like this little ol' blog!

Hope you all had a great New Year's Eve! I attended a fabulous fondue party. For my cheese fondue dip-ables, I brought roasted broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, whole button mushrooms, and fresh zucchini and cherry tomatoes.

Also, I brought teeny little turkey/stuffing meatballs - my mom's foolproof appetizer. It is a crowd pleaser and it's almost like a meal with carbs and protein all in one! And truly, not horribly bad for you - lean ground turkey, stuffing, and aromatic veggies baked together with heart healthy extra virgin olive oil. Kept warm in a crock pot...hard to go wrong! Honestly, I thought they ended up a tiny bit on the dry side, but still a nice accompaniment to a cold beer.

However, while I was making my roasted veggies and meatballs the night before New Year's Eve, tragedy struck. My beautiful, gorgeous, vintage oven - the sole reason I bought my tiny house in South Minneapolis - broke. The door made a horrible noise as I was opening it and it no longer would stay closed. I had to wedge a towel in the top to keep the door from flopping open. Clearly, the spring or some mechanism inside the 50-60 year old oven had broken. It's an Ultramatic Caloric for those of you who are interested.

I was SICK over this. I was literally willing to pay any amount of cash to repair my beloved oven. They really don't make them like this anymore! And, what is a young-ish single woman to do when in need of a repair person? It's overwhelming! So, this is the reason I'm going to do a little commercial right now...maybe one or more of you guys will someday need an appliance repair and this will help!

I made an appointment with some random local person I found via google and was not encouraged by our phone conversations. I was a little nervous and didn't trust him at all with my awesome oven. He showed up today for my appointment and started taking pieces off the front of the oven and I thought he was going to break it more. A few minutes later he asked for a vacuum cleaner. I got it for him and he kept working away. Less than 30 minutes later, he was DONE - oven cleaned and fixed. He even cleaned my vacuum cleaner. Total cost for parts and labor?????? $69.95!! No lie. I was amazed and elated.

Nobody else would even come to give me an estimate without charging me a $70 service fee.

So, bottom line...any readers out there who need ANY appliance repair in the Twin Cities (furnace, washer, dryer, dishwasher, oven, refrigerator, etc) please call this guy. He's CHEAP and TRUSTWORTHY!

Ed's Appliance Repair

(Eddie Nagle, Owner)

651-324-2451

Commercial over.

Baked Turkey/Stuffing Meatballs

1 package ground turkey

1/2 yellow onion, super finely diced

2 ribs celery, super finely diced

1 handful fresh parsley, chopped

1 cup (?) seasoned stuffing/dressing mix

1 egg

salt and pepper to taste

Saute onion and celery in some olive oil until softened. Add to a bowl with turkey, parsley, salt/pepper, and egg. Add dry stuffing mix 1/2 cup at a time and mix with clean hands until you get a good consistency (I didn't measure so I'm not sure how much stuffing mix I used). Let mixture sit for 5 minutes so croutons soften in turkey mixture.

Form into tiny meatballs, brush with olive oil, and bake for 10-12 minutes in a 375 degree oven, or until nicely browned. I lined my baking sheet with parchment first so they wouldn't stick.

Add to crock pot to keep warm. Some people like to add gravy or cream of something soup at this point but I find it unnecessary. I would maybe consider adding a tiny bit of vegetable or chicken broth to keep the meatballs from drying out in the covered crock pot.