30 Minute Meals

Growing up, my mom was my Paula Deen, Rachel Ray, and Emeril. She could whip up a delicious meal in 30 minutes. We always had a nutritious dinner together every night. However, she did have this crazy/obnoxious rule about us not being allowed to drink anything until we were finished with dinner.

When I got married, I made it my mission to learn quick, (sometimes) healthy, delicious recipes that I could prepare for dinner. In high school and college, I used to be a terrible cook - too much oil, too much salt, too bland, too overcooked, etc. Now I think I'm at least proficient in the basics.

I love baking savory foods - potatoes, carrots, meats, pastas. One of my favorite things to make is of the meatloafy variety. After work today, I was suddenly inspired to make mozzarella-stuffed meatballs. Delicious? Check! Healthy? Um... sure!

After I Googling some inspiration, I got to work. Here's the line up...

• 1.5 lbs of lean ground beef


• salt, basil, garlic salt, paprika


• Worcestershire sauce


• brown spicy mustard


• fat-free mozzarella cheese


• two eggs


• a bunch of stale Italian bread, sliced

I decided to add two eggs instead of one and two meatloaf ingredients that I've never used in meatballs before - Worcestershire sauce and spicy brown mustard. I haven't made a knockout meatball before so I figured some modifications couldn't hurt.

I popped some stale bread into the blender to make bread crumbs. Saving stale bread = wasting less food + spending less. Woohoo!



Chop, food processor, purée... ét viola!



I unceremoniously dumped everything in...



...and mashed it all together.



Then, I cubed my cheese. We bought fat-free mozzarella cheese because it was on sale. Fat free cheese tastes funny - it's harder and drier.



I grabbed a chunk of meat, pressed in a cube or two of cheese, and made a ball. Plunk down in the baking dish and repeat. I made twelve large meatballs.





I've tried making meatballs by baking and frying. I prefer baking because I can make them all at once. My biggest problem was that the meatballs would be too dry. So I shortened the baking time by 10 minutes and baked them at 350 for 25 minutes. they came out perfectly :-D

I assumed the blogging position while I waited...



Hello my pretties :-) Side note: It's not necessary to grease the pan with olive oil. I don't usually but this website suggested it. There was so much grease in the pan, yuck! This was AFTER I drained them:



This little guy looked like he was sticking his tongue out at me:



Mmm...



I'm not sure if it was the weird fat-free cheese, but I think I'll nix the cheese in the future. The cheese hardened somewhat, which I didn't like. Fat-free cheese notwithstanding, this recipe's a winner!