5-Ingredient Meatballs

Wednesday night I sent a text to a friend, “Tomorrow is Friday!!!” completely unaware that it was definitely not Friday the next day until I was gently reminded. That’s a true friend.

We biked to dinner, taking advantage of the long daylight hours and the much more reasonable temperatures (80°F/26°C). The burger place we wanted to eat at was closed [again] so we went down to Bar Bar. They have mediocre burgers, decent beers, and a nice patio. The need for a burger was desperate, so there we sat on the patio. Long story short, they managed to mess up our order. Again. We won’t be back. We biked to Voodoo Doughnut to soothe the frustration. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting with coconut because I certainly didn’t need an Old Dirty Bastard. They threw in a blueberry cake for free. Delicious.

The past two days I’ve had steamed sweet potato, kidney beans, and avocado covered in lime juice for lunch. While it was good, I’m definitely looking forward to Food Cart Friday with Andrew.

I spatchcocked my first chicken [more on that another day].

I’m joining the gym again. I’ve been going over the pro/con list for awhile now [thanks to those of you who had to endure my yammering about it], and it just makes sense. Costco makes it super cheap for me to hit up the 24 Hour Fitness a block away from my office. If I can spend $15 on a night out, I can spend $15 a month on the gym for some variety. Plus I’ll get 45-60 minutes more sleep. It’s starting to get darker in the mornings, which is a whole lot less motivation to go do burpees in the other room half asleep. I’ll have something to do at lunch again, that isn’t shopping, now that I don’t have homework to do. That doesn’t count evenings and weekends either. It’s safe to say working out is my hobby. Definitely going to try out this Level Up Workout. 

I made more meatballs. We haven’t had meatballs since February. What happened to me? Did I lose my talent? Will I ever be good again [five points if you know what movie that's from]? Having extra hot dog buns inspired this whole endeavor. That and Stonesoup’s easy five-ingredient recipe. I love the ones I made before, but they take way longer. This version about as easy as it can get without going to buy a sandwich. The only thing I regret is that I didn’t pulse the oats into a flour. I used whole ones. They were just fine, but it would have yielded a slightly better consistency with them pulsed. There is no frying involved. Mix your ingredients together. Put tomato on the base of the dish. Put the meatballs on top. Bake away. See? Easy.

Inspiration: Stonesoup

Ingredients

  • 1 onion, minced
  • 1/2lb ground beef
  • 1/2lb ground pork
  • 24oz can crushed tomatoes
  • 1 cup rolled oats, ground into flour
  • 2 tablespoons butter

Preparation

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F and get out an 11×7″ baking dish.
  2. Pour some olive oil into a large pan and heat the pan to medium-high.
  3. Saute the onion until it’s soft and golden, 5-7 minutes.
  4. Pour the tomatoes into the bottom of the baking dish.
  5. In a bowl, mix the ground meats, onion, and rolled oats. I used my hands.
  6. Form into ping pong sized meat balls.
  7. Place the finished balls into the tomato sauce, evenly spaced.
  8. Top each ball with a chunk of butter.
  9. Bake for 30-45 minutes until the sauce is bubbly and the meatballs are golden brown on top.
  • RRA

    I always serve sauteed zucchini with my meatball sandwiches!

    • http://thehooteats.wordpress.com Michelle

      It’s such an easy, tasty, and colorful addition to the plate!

  • http://forgottenbeast.wordpress.com forgottenbeast

    Five ingredient anything is just my style. And YES for gym memberships, I’m glad you went for it! I have a Costco membership, but no 24 hour fitness. I wish, that would be a HUGE savings over my current membership.

    • http://thehooteats.wordpress.com Michelle

      All the Costcos should have that 24 Hour membership, and if not, you can order it online. The key is actually having the right gyms to utilize. They’re getting sneaky since the last time I bought it [I had one from 2009-2010]. They’ve increased the price about $50 [still so cheap], and it doesn’t work with “Super Sport” and “Ultra Sport” clubs. They’re slowly remodeling a lot of the regular “Sport” clubs to “Super Sport” to exclude people from the deal, mostly by including towel service. Thankfully, the one by my office has no shot in hell of upgrading. It’s too small. Technically I have two options as there is another one about two miles from my office. So. Excited. I’m picking up the membership this weekend! Seriously, though ,thank you for your gym advice. It helped me to figure out what I already knew I wanted. Besides, that $350 didn’t need to go to buying house stuff or a trip somewhere anyway. ;)

      • http://forgottenbeast.wordpress.com forgottenbeast

        Ohh, I love those sneaky clauses and exceptions. And yeah, I think there are a few of those gyms around town, but nothing nearby, so even though it would be a huge $$ savings, it’s no gym 5 min from my house. So did you go this weekend?? And just think, that $350 means when you DO go on vacay, you just get to eat more. That’s how it works, right? :D

        • http://thehooteats.wordpress.com Michelle

          I didn’t go over the weekend. I didn’t get my hands on the voucher until mid-day Sunday [...and I was mildly hungover], so I went today at lunch. I slept in a glorious 45 minutes, went at lunch, and killed myself with 20 minutes of HIIT on the stairmill, some abs, and some stretching. I was dying. Dying in a good way, of course. It’s hard to believe it had been a year since I was last in there. It felt like no time had passed.

  • http://blog.shareitfitness.com Matt @ Share It Fitness

    Noticed you’re going give our Level Up Workout a shot. Feel free to shoot us any questions as they come up via the blog or our website (www.shareitfitness.com). I’ve used this style of workout while doing customized plans for some of our readers and I can tell you, the ones who fully immerse themselves in the challenges and use them as motivation are making the best results. Looking forward to seeing/reading about your results!

    • http://thehooteats.wordpress.com Michelle

      Thanks, Matt! I’ve totally been lurking your blog for about a month now after finding a workout of yours on Pinterest [surprise, surprise!]. I’ve been incorporating a few of them into what I was already doing [mostly HIIT via Bodyrock, Amanda Russell, ZWOWs, etc]. I’m psyched to get back into the gym, not that I can’t work out just fine at home, but there is something I love about checking out for awhile and doing my own thing. The challenges seem like a great motivator. I get a little ADD with my workouts and need variety, and this plan brings it. Thanks for stopping by!

  • http://hampiesandwiches.blogspot.com Eileen

    MEATBALLS! That’s a very good point. I usually make a huge batch of teeny tinies and keep them in the freezer for instant dinner later. But I’ve been out of them for months? Now I know what project I should take on one of these weekends. :)

    • http://thehooteats.wordpress.com Michelle

      You’re so smart freezing some up. I’m have this illogical aversion to things in my freezer unless it’s something already frozen when I buy it. I never claimed to be sane.