Meatballs with Sun-dried Tomatoes and Tzatziki Sauce

It has been quite a while since I have posted a new recipe to my blog. It’s not like I haven’t been cooking, it’s just that I haven’t had the time to take pictures and write the recipes out. The result is that my poor blog is dying a slow death. Also, contributing to this slow death is the fact that facebook has changed all its algorithms and that in order to make some money out of poor food bloggers, it’s started to restrict the views our posts get. The problem with this is that even though I post new stuff, very few people actually get to see the post and I have been feeling quite dejected by this. Of course, since I don’t make any money from my blog, I think it is very unfair of facebook to ask for money to get more views for my recipes. I know I am not alone in this boat – all food bloggers (and other bloggers) have been affected by these changed policies of facebook. Several of my friends who used to run food blogs have folded up and stopped blogging entirely. I too have toyed with this idea but I have made so many friends across the globe through my blog that I would feel awful if I were to lose this channel of getting across to them. So my labor of love continues, at least for the time being.
Today’s experiment is a Meatball recipe. My son is coming home from college this afternoon and I wanted to cook him a good home-made meal but he is a bit of a picky eater and I had to devise a recipe that could incorporate all his preferences and still come out delicious. Also, being a 19 year old athletic boy, he is very fond of anything that contains a ton of meat, so making meatballs was a good idea but I didn’t feel like making the same-ol’-same-ol’ meatballs, so I switched up the recipe a bit and added Sundried Tomatoes and Harissa spice. It gives the meatballs quite a Mediterranean flavor and so I made some Tzatziki Sauce to go with it. I plan to serve it with a Greek Salad on the side and some pita chips. Yes, I confess, I ate a couple of the meatballs while I was taking pictures and they are absolutely yum!!!!

Ingredients:

1. 1 LB ground meat
2. ½ cup bread crumbs
3. 1 egg
4. 2 teaspoons of Harissa powder (I got mine from William Sonoma)
5. ½ teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
6. Salt to taste
7. A pinch of red pepper flakes
8. 3 teaspoons of freshly ground coriander seeds
9. 3-4 small shallots
10. 2 cloves of garlic
11. 3 tablespoons of sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil (got mine from Trader Joe’s)
12. 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

Directions

1. Peel and grate the two cloves of garlic
2. Peel and thinly slice the shallots
3. Add the sundried tomatoes to a large mixing bowl.

4. Add the egg to the mixing bowl.

5. Also add the bread crumbs, minced garlic, salt, red and black pepper, harissa powder, coriander powder and the ground meat and mix everything well with your hands.
6. In a large sauce pan, pour a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and heat on low to medium heat.
7. Using your hands make balls of about 2 inches diameter with the ground meat mixture.

8. Add the balls to the saucepan and slowly cook them. Gently turn them after every 2-3 minutes so that they get evenly browned on all the sides.
9. Make Tzatziki sauce by combining the following ingredients: 1.5 cups of low fat Greek yogurt, one grated cucumber, salt, one grated clove of garlic and ½ tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.
10. Serve the meatballs while they are still hot with the Tzatziki sauce on the side.

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