Sometimes, You Just Need a Quickie

I posted a chicken sausage meatball recipe a few weeks ago (a few months ago?), and I've now made it so many times I have really perfected it. I've changed some things, and it's even easier and more delicious now.

Two tips - get good chicken sausage that has been well ground. I got a great chicken sausage from Fresh Market this past week that had fabulous flavor, but was only coarsely ground, so it was less meatball, more meatchunk. Not exactly what I was going for.

Here it is, new and improved:
1 pound chicken sausage, casings removed
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
1 egg, lightly beaten

Combine all ingredients with your fingers until well blended. Shape into meatballs (I generally get about 16 meatballs). Bake at 425 degrees for 25 minutes, drop into pasta sauce and simmer for another 15 minutes. So easy and so good!!!

Eggs-tra

I opened the fridge this afternoon to take stock and start thinking about dinner tonight. Whereupon I discovered we had 4 dozen eggs in there, tucked away in the back. This confused me for a bit. I love eggs, and I can be a bit impulsive at the grocery store, but even I don't usually buy that many. Then I remembered - we spent Easter Sunday running around like maniacs trying to save front teeth instead of dying eggs in the backyard. Good times.

The upside was that the discovery inspired an incredibly easy but yummy dinner - ham biscuits, deviled eggs, and salad. Which, incidentally, goes perfectly with a G&T. Who knew.

On Top Of Spaghetti

The freezer and closet clean out continues. It is a perpetual failure of mine that I seem compelled to buy entirely random items at the grocery store and pop them in the freezer. Why do I do this? Why? Can't I just make a plan and stick to it? Apparently not. The latest discovery, way at the back and buried under a pound cake loaf and that damn shrimp etoufee that keeps mocking me, was a package of mild chicken sausage (1 pound). So tonight I made meatballs out of them, and served them up with homemade marina sauce and pasta. Yum, yum.

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Meatballs, like meatloaf, are one of those things you don't really need a recipe for, but tonight I actually took notes while I was making them so I could blog about them if they turned out good. As luck would have it, these were actually really, really good. Here's what to do:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove casings from sausage, put in large mixing bowl. Add a generous pinch of kosher salt, several strong turns on the pepper mill, 1 cup fresh breadcrumbs (grind up 3 pieces of white bread, crusts removed), 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano (if I had sage I would have added it since it goes so beautifully with chicken), 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese, and 1 beaten egg. Mix well, shape into balls. Place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 40 minutes. Here's what they'll look like - good luck not eating one right away.

While the meatballs are baking, saute 1 onion in 2 teaspoons olive oil over medium heat. Add 2 minced garlic cloves, cook an additional minute or so. Add 28 ounce can of San Marzano crushed tomatoes, 3 tablespoons tomato paste, a good pinch of kosher salt, a little fresh ground pepper, and a couple strong shakes of Italien seasoning. Stir well and simmer while the meatballs finish cooking. When the meatballs come out of the oven add them to the sauce, and cook an additional 5 minutes. Serve over pasta and dive in. So delicious and easy...perhaps chicken sausage isn't such a bad buy after all.