Balls of Meat

Growing up, I always associated meatballs with spaghetti. It was something I craved if we ate out at an Italian restaurant because we never had that at home. So when I started to cook for myself, I googled my way into a pretty bomb meatball recipe. The thing is, I still associated meatballs with spaghetti. But a couple of weekends ago, I visited my friend and her fam bam in Malibu and we had a fabulous dinner that consisted of lamb meatballs, lemon rice and Greek salad. Looks like you can have meatballs sans the spaghetti!

I decided to mimic this dish, except with beef meatballs and Greek salad without feta cheese (lactose intolerance totally kicking in).

Meatballs ingredients:

• 1 lb lean ground beef
• a couple cloves of crushed garlic
• 1/4 of a grated red onion
  
• handful of chopped parsley
• handful of Italian bread crumbs
• handful of chopped basil
• an egg
• tsp or so of worchestershire sauce
• salt and pepper

Mix all the ingredients thoroughly and then roll one inch or so in diameter meatballs. I cooked these on a flat grill pan to try to get all the meatballs cooked in one schwoop.















Success! Browned balls to perfection!

For the lemon rice, my friend Bianca mentioned these ingredients:

• cup of white rice (you can probably use basmati rice)
• cup and a half of water
  
• lemon zest from one lemon
• 1/2 of that lemon juice
• tsp of olive oil
• salt to taste
• chopped parsley for plating

Can you see a bit of the lemon zest? I added a bit more for presentation after fluffing the rice with the chopped parsley. If you can't see the yellow zestiness, perhaps this brown girl needs an actual camera...ahem, little sister Kristine, Ate put this on her bday wish list. Thanks!

Finally, I created my Greek salad with these ingredients:

• romaine lettuce
• English cucumbers (this one is because it reminded me of Rachel when I was at the store)
• tomatoes
• a combo of different olives from the Vons olive section
• balsamic vinaigrette
• salt and pepper to taste

Pretty colors. Me likey.

And here's the combo package:















I only had what was on this plate. Definitely operation moderation. I mean, I snacked a few pieces of pita bread and tomato basil hummus while all this was cooking, so my belly was prepped to eat a well portioned dinner. =) But, I did slather on some of that hummus on top of the meatballs. I learned that from the hummus queen.

p.s. The best thing about this dish, leftovers for a work lunch. Sweet!