Seeing this always makes me want to eat meatballs and share a forkless bowl of spaghetti with a loved one. Sometimes I trick people into this situation by serving them a bowl of spaghetti with no fork. mwahahaha. it rarely works.
Moving on...I've always had the perception that meatballs were complicated and that you only made them if you were fortunate enough to have inherited a secret, family recipe. Since I have no Italian family members from which to acquire such a prized item, I figured trial and error would be quicker than waiting around to come into Italian family members and, subsequently, their secret recipes. Turns out I was right, the recipe I used was a regular, old find-it-in-a-book style recipe, and it took only about 15 minutes to mix up all the ingredients and then another 25 minutes to bake. Bringing new people into your family and trying to steal their recipes can sometimes take weeks. The meatballs were good, the right amount of garlicy and just a little spicy, just like Grandma used to make in the Old Country.
1 pound ground beef
1/2 cup bread crumbs (I used chopped up "everything" crackers from Trader Joe's, because bread crumbs were $3.99 - YOWZA!)
1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan
1/4 cup grated italian cheese mix
2 tablespoons chopped fresh or dried basil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup dry red wine
1 egg
In a large bowl, mix all ingredients by hand, using a light touch. Take a portion of meat in hand, and roll between palms to form a ball that is firmly packed but not compressed. Repeat, making each meatball about 2 inches in diameter. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Fill a baking dish with one layer of meatballs. Try not to crowd. Bake for 15 minutes until browned well on the bottoms and turn them over. Continue cooking until browned all over and cooked through. Remove meatballs to a plate as each batch is finished. Let meatballs cool slightly; cover and refrigerate until needed.
Yield: About 30 meatballs.
Serve with spaghetti and your favorite marinara or meat sauce.
