RECIPE: Italian Sausage Meatballs

Let me begin by telling you about someone I truly admire in the Paleo/Primal Blueprint world ... Mark Sisson of Mark's Daily Apple - The Primal Blueprint. He's been a huge source of inspiration to me and will continue to be throughout my Paleo/Primal journey. A while back I signed up to be on his email list. He has an app that I downloaded on my iPad - Mark's Daily Apple. LOTS of great information there!

Here's a link to his website: Mark's Daily Apple

Once I signed up for the daily email I was able to download several books (in pdf format) for free. I've been looking at them and there are a lot of amazing recipes in them! One is titled, "The Primal Blueprint Reader-Created Cookbook.'" It's 72 pages of wonderful recipes. Tonight, with a few of my own modifications, I gave one of them a shot tonight ... I will comment with *** [comment] where I made changes.

ITALIAN SAUSAGE MEATBALLS WITH FRESH HERBS

INGREDIENTS

▪ 1 lb ground beef (or bison) *** [I used organic ground beef from Trader Joe's] 

▪ 1 lb sweet Italian sausage 

▪ 2 cloves garlic, minced 

▪ 1 sprig fresh rosemary, minced 

▪ 3 sprigs fresh thyme, minced *** [I used dried since I didn't have access to fresh]

▪ 1 long sprig fresh oregano, minced *** [I used sage since I'm allergic to oregano]

▪ 1/4 cup roughly chopped flat leaf parsley 

▪ 1/2 small yellow onion, roughly chopped *** [I used 1/4 small onion since Conrad doesn't like onion]

▪ 1/2 cup almond meal 

▪ 2 eggs, whisked 

▪ tsp red pepper flakes 

▪ A few grinds black pepper 

▪ 1/4 cup cream (optional) *** [I added cream]

▪ 1/2 cup finely shredded parmesan (optional) *** [I added parmesan]

▪ 1/4 cup bacon fat

DIRECTIONS

Remove the Italian sausage from it casings. Mix all of the ingredients, except bacon fat, together until well combined. 

With lightly oiled hands, roll the meatballs into the desired size.

To cook, heat bacon fat in a saute pan over medium to medium-high heat. Once hot, add the meatballs. Fry 5–7 minutes, until bottom is browned.

*** [I made them about 1.5 inches in diameter and ended up with 30. As you can see, I used my wok from World Market again!]

Turn meatballs to opposite side and fry until that side is nicely browned, another 5–7 minutes. Cut one open to determine if it is fully cooked on the inside. If not quite done, turn heat to low and cover pan for a few more minutes or put meatballs in a warm oven while you fry another batch. 

***[I put them in a smaller wok and placed them in the oven until 16 were done. We ended up eating 6 each, so the image below is what we have left over. All in all this recipe made 30 meatballs.]

Makes 20 large or 30 medium meatballs.