Spaghetti With Turkey Meatballs
This is part of my quest to find great Ground Turkey Breast Recipes.
I am not a big meatball fan. But I know that if I can find a good recipe that the boys will like, then I would sacrifice making them. I admit, I don’t like touching raw meat, so besides me not liking meatballs, me making meatballs is a rarity!
But this next recipe caught my eye. It has some really good-for-you ingredients that I could sneak in a meatball and hopefully the guys would never know {insert evil mom laugh here}.
It comes from Dani Spies – Moist and Tender Extra-Lean Turkey Meatballs
Having healthy ingredients such as Flax seed, oat bran and spinach, I was excited to see how these would turn out. Because like most kids, the sight of spinach brings a plethora of grunts, groans and whines. So if I can mix them in without them actually “tasting” it, score one for mom!
After planning on making these, of course, I didn’t buy enough spaghetti sauce at the store. I thought I still had two jars of Meir Glen left (I have been making my own low sodium sauce since I was pregnant with Carter, but with summer, I have been too lazy to make it), but I thought wrong. And at 3:00 this afternoon when getting the ingredients together I realized I didn’t have enough sauce and both kids were sleeping. So I thought I would improvise and hit my stock pile. I had 1 jar of Ragu, 3 cans of diced tomatoes and a jar of plain sauce. So I threw it all together hoping that it wouldn’t be too much of a bomb.
I also didn’t have any worcestershire sauce and the boys ate all the eggs. But fortunately I did have some Egg Beaters so again I substituted the eggs and left out the worcestershire sauce, extra salt and pepper and nutmeg (just because I forgot). And yes, I rolled raw meat (and garlic which meant my hands smelled soooo good for the rest of the evening) – I guess a mom will do anything to get her kids to eat healthy.
I actually allowed it all to simmer, covered, on low for 2 1/2 hours – in Dani’s recipe she said about 40 minutes. But I wanted to fix it all before the kids woke up from their naps so I could run out and play with them until dinner time.
So the verdict! The boys LOVED these! Which makes my heart jump for joy since I can now replace sausage, which I usually use, with a MUCH healthier version. I asked Jeremy, since I am not a meatball eater, if the consistency was much different then normal meatballs. And he said if it wasn’t for the way they looked, you couldn’t tell the difference. And yes, I did try one, and I liked them too. Evan and Carter gobbled up one whole one each. And “yums” were heard from all!
And of course, with my hodge-podge of sauces, it turned out a little runnier than usual but after adding some fresh grated parmesan cheese on top, it was excellent!
The batch made too much for us to eat in one sitting so I froze the rest for another meal in the upcoming weeks!
YUMMY!
Mediterranean Turkey Burger Pitas
Found another great recipe on my recent quest to find family/kid friendly ground turkey breast recipes. This recipe caught my attention because I happened to have feta cheese (which is a rarity) and pitas and needed to use them up. This recipe is from Culinerapy (click HERE to see recipe). It called for Panko, which of course I needed to Google, because I had NO idea what it was. And if I needed to try to find them at a store, I would have given up on this recipe. Turns out, you can make them pretty easily with items I already had in stock (saltine crackers, dried thyme, dried basil and chili powder). Score! I found THIS recipe to try. And since they can be frozen, I made the whole recipe to keep for later. So next time, I won’t have to redo this step.
Here’s the finished product. We put the boys’ burgers on a Arnold Sandwich Thin – since *cough cough* someone used the pitas this week. There were only 2 pitas left. Which probably turned out for the best, since the pitas were hard to hold for little hands. Another recipe that the boys LOVED! This is another keeper! Jeremy said it was a great summer burger! And the boys finished theirs – which mean they must have liked them also 
!
Turkey Soft Tacos
Remember that boat load of ground skinless turkey breast I scored at a local turkey farm (Bowman & Landes). Once I got it home, I realized that I had to find some recipes to use all 8 pounds of it that my 3 males would eat! I wanted to find recipes that were actually meant for ground turkey breast, since I got the leanest type and I didn’t want too dry of results – you know what I mean? I threw it all in the freezer until I found some recipes I wanted to try.
This one we had tonight and let me just tell you that it was soooo good. So good, that Evan ate his first taco. He refuses to eat tacos and I make them often. He usually takes some of the filling out and eats a little bit of it. But every time he asks “what’s for dinner?” and I say “tacos”, he moans and groans and says, “but I don’t lllliiiiikkkkkeeee tacos.”
And this evening was no different. He wasn’t very happy about taco night.
But he was very pleasantly surprised and I was too. He ate all of his dinner! WOOT!
What’s the recipe you ask? Tonight’s recipe is from Gina’s Weight Watchers Recipes: Turkey Taco Lettuce Wraps. Not that I was necessarily looking for “diet” recipe but I do subscribe to her website because she has some overall GREAT recipes – especially desserts. I don’t feel as guilty indulging in dessert, right? And this recipe seemed pretty simple and I like SIMPLE. Believe me, if there are too many steps or too many ingredients, I will not even attempt it, EVER.
Instead of making them lettuce wraps, I used Whole Wheat tortillas and made soft tacos. And I even noticed that after I started adding some of the seasonings, that the original recipe called for 1.3 pounds of turkey and I was only using a pound. But the flavor was excellent and not too spicy for the kiddos!!
I added a side of homemade guacamole (you know since I am a little obsessed lately!), Trader Joe’s Soy and Flaxseed Tortilla Chips and some fresh veggies and dip. Yum to the Yummy!!
