Fun Meatballs!

Tonight Justin and I were watching the Food Network (shocking) and one of the shows was showing cheese stuffed meatballs (insert mouth watering here).  Cheese stuffed meatballs? I mean, is that even legal? So I decided that with the ingredients we had in the apartment, I was going to make my version of this dish. I was a little nervous because Justin usually HATES Italian food, but for some reason showed an interest in this particular episode and this particular dish...so I took the gamble and attempted my first cheese stuffed meatball with house-found ingredients.

Saz's Cheese Stuffed Meatballs

1 lb. 80% lean Ground Beef

1 small Onion

1 Celery Rib

5 Garlic Cloves

2 tbsp. Parmesan Cheese

1 handful Fresh Basil

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

4 Sun Dried Tomatoes 

1/2 tsp. Red Chili Flakes

1/2 tsp. Mustard

aprrox. 3/4 cup Smoked Gouda chopped in 1cm cubes

(*BBQ Sauce or Marinara Sauce for a dip)

>Roughly chop your onion, celery, garlic, sun dried tomatoes, and basil

>In a food processor, add in the above ingredients and process until everything is diced up.

>In a large bowl add your cumin seeds

>Then add in your mixture from the food processor

>Add in your chili flakes, mustard, Parmesan and ground beef & mix thoroughly

>Cube up your SMOKED Gouda....don't get regular Gouda, the smokiness of the Smoked Gouda makes a HUGE difference.

>With your bare hands, form small/medium sized meatballs with the beef mixture and make a small indent in the meatball with your thumb. German Shepherd may or may not be needed for this stage of the process.

>Insert a cube of the smoked Gouda in the meatball and then inclose the meat around the cheese, so that the cheese is located in the center of the meatball.

>Place meatballs on a broiling sheets (un-greased) and bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 15 minutes.  Take the meatballs out of the oven, and put the oven on HI BROIL.  Flip all the meatballs over to their opposite side and put directly back in the oven for 6 minutes or until a golden brown crust has formed on the outside.

>YUM!!!

 >Serve with warmed Marinara Sauce an/or BBQ sauce.

These are not like your typical Italian Meatballs. They aren't as juicy, they're more fall-apart because no egg was used as a binder.  It's more of a bite into meatball that gives you the surprise of a Gouda treasure when you bite in! These would be a gerat appetizer or if made in a bite sized form....however  in a medium sized formed meatball, this recipe makes about 15 meatballs. Happy Eating! :)

Happy cuties.