Meatloaf Balls

When I called my grandma on Christmas evening, and told her what I'd served my family for dinner (beef brisket and pulled pork, incidentally) she asked me,

"And how did you know how to cook all that?"

The picture below, tells the story:

Forget cookbooks, folks! I copy step-by-step what other food bloggers do, and feast on the delicious results. You can, too. For beautiful step-by-step instructions on this meatball recipe - go to BBQ Meatballs: Comfort Food to the Max at The Pioneer Woman Cooks!

For those of you who have never read Ree Drummond's blog... it has been nice having you as readers. Please stop back by out of pity once in a while. ;) Seriously, this gal is my blogging idol. She is witty, and her pictures are to die for. Not only that, but the recipes are SO tasty. I'm not sure why you're still reading - go take a look!

Meanwhile, I will amuse myself with a quick blow-by-blow of the meatballs mentioned previously.

Chop the onion up really small. You don't want them to be in recognizable chunks.

Add it to the ground beef and oatmeal. The amounts are specified here in the official printable recipe.

Stir it up.


And then she has this great idea for how to simply form your meatballs into, well, balls.

Use your cookie dough scoop:

You plop out the ball into your hand, squish it just a bit, and - ta-da! - you'll have uniformly shaped meatballs.

I'm noticing in this close up that I put pepper and salt in them too. Another good reason to check out the recipe.

Can you tell I was pretty stoked about those perfectly shaped meat spheres? I took a picture of them from every angle. This next shot may have been after I cooled them in the freezer for five minutes, but I'm not sure.

Next we're going to "dredge" them in flour. Have fun!

About this time the battery went out on my new camera.

If this happens to you, just switch to the old camera, and keep cooking. Wait, you're probably not taking snapshots every three minutes, are you? In that case, just think how much sooner you will be enjoying these meatballs!

Now they are all covered with flour, and ready to brown. Notice the oil they are sitting in? This picture was taken when they were already on the stove.

Brown all the sides.

And then place them in an oven-safe dish.

Make up some sauce for them

like so
and spread it all over them. Then they go in the oven, until, "your house smells so good you want to marry it." About 45 minutes.

This picture was taken after I had already eaten about three meatballs.

And so was this one.
See?

They were so good I just couldn't wait!

My husband didn't think much of them because they taste like little meatloaves. And, apparently, meatloaf isn't his favorite thing. But you should have seen him dig into those real mashed potatoes.

I think my resolution for the new year (from a food stand-point anyway) is that instant mashed potatoes (like Minute rice) is to be reserved only for emergencies.

Despite my husband's take-it-or-leave-it ambivalence towards these BBQy treats - I thought they were delicious! I happily ate left-overs day after day until they were gone. I'm saving the recipe to make up again just for myself, and maybe to serve at parties.

Enjoy!