{"id":3311,"date":"2021-04-25T17:08:58","date_gmt":"2021-04-25T17:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/?p=3311"},"modified":"2024-12-22T01:10:13","modified_gmt":"2024-12-22T01:10:13","slug":"making-meatballs-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/2021\/04\/25\/making-meatballs-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Meatballs — Photos"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This week’s cooking projects from my collection of recipes<\/a> included yet more zucchini with a tomato, onion, and bacon sauce<\/a> — mom was pleased to yet again eat a tasty dish and have some leftover sauce — and the subject of this post, my meatballs<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I normally keep cooked meatballs in the freezer for use with pasta dishes such as spaghetti, or eat them on their own along with other foods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have no recollection of why I chose to add peas, corn, or rice to the mix when I began making these meatballs many years ago, other than presumably at the time I thought that their addition was a good idea, and that incidentally doing so helped make more meatballs with the same amount of ground beef; as for the onions and egg, I have always liked onions with ground beef, and the egg acts as a binding agent to help keep the meatballs together, especially while cooking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making the meatballs:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A mixing bowl was placed on a kitchen scale, and the kitchen scale was set to zero:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Mixing bowl on a kitchen scale, which was set to zero<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Two pounds of ground beef were measured out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Two pounds of ground beef measured out<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The bowl of ground beef was put aside for a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An onion was taken out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Onion taken out<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The onion was cleaned and trimmed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Onion cleaned and trimmed<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The onion was sliced thinly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Onion sliced thinly<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The onion was then chopped somewhat finely:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Onion chopped somewhat finely<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The chopped onion was transferred to the mixing bowl with the ground beef:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chopped onion added to the mixing bowl with the ground beef<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Chopped onion added to the mixing bowl with the ground beef<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

An egg was taken out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Egg taken out.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The egg was cracked into the mixing bowl:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Egg cracked into the mixing bowl<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Egg cracked into the mixing bowl<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Frozen peas were measured out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Frozen peas measured out<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The frozen peas were added to the mixing bowl:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Frozen peas added to the mixing bowl<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Since I didn’t have any frozen corn kernels on hand, I separated out some corn kernels from a bag of frozen mixed vegetables:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Frozen kernel corn measured out<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The frozen kernel corn was added to the mixing bowl:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Frozen kernel corn added to mixing bowl<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Frozen kernel corn added to mixing bowl<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Rice was measured out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rice measured out<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The rice was added to the mixing bowl:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rice added to the mixing bowl<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Rice added to the mixing bowl<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Salt was measured out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Salt measured out<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

…. and the salt was added to the mixing bowl:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Salt added to the mixing bowl<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Salt added to the mixing bowl<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The ingredients were thoroughly mixed together by hand:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ingredients mixed by hand<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

An electric skillet was turned on (as well as a stove burner for my cast iron skillet for the meatballs that wouldn’t fit in the electric skillet):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Electric skillet turned on<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The meat mix was formed into balls from 1-1\/2″ to 2″ in diameter, which were placed in the electric skillet (as well as a cast iron skillet off camera), with enough spacing between them to allow for easier manipulation later when turning them over:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Balls of meat mix formed and placed in an electric skillet<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As each side of the meatballs were cooked, the meatballs were turned over to cook on another side …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Meatballs turned over to cook on another side<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

… and the meatballs were turned over again to cook yet on another side:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Meatballs tuned over yet again; note second skillet of cooking meatballs<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When the meatballs were fully cooked …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Fully cooked meatballs<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

… the meatballs were transferred to a cookie baking sheet, somewhat spread apart from each other to allow for quicker cooling in the freezer …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Cooked meatballs placed on cookie baking sheet<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

… and the cookie baking sheet with the meatballs was placed in the freezer to cool the meatballs and begin to freeze the meatballs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Cookie baking sheet of meatballs placed in freezer<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A clean, resealable freezer bag was re-labeled to reflect the new contents, meatballs of course:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Freezer bag re-labelled<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Once partly frozen, the meatballs were placed in the freezer bag:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Meatballs placed in freezer bag<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

… and the bag of yummy meatballs was placed in the freezer for future eating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s cooking projects from my collection of recipes included yet more zucchini with a tomato, onion, and bacon sauce — mom was pleased to yet again eat a tasty dish and have some leftover sauce — and the subject of this post, my meatballs. I normally keep cooked meatballs in the freezer for use … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Making Meatballs — Photos”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,43,312,45],"tags":[175],"class_list":["post-3311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooking","category-food","category-freezer-food","category-recipes","tag-meatballs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3311"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3371,"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3311\/revisions\/3371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}