Recipe: Turkey Meatballs/Meatloaf

As many of you know, I have a 14 month old daughter.  She's a sweet little thing...see???

She started out being a very good eater--would eat pretty much any food we put on a spoon.  Once she started with finger foods and developed a mind of her own, however, she decided she only wanted to eat what she thinks she likes and won't put anything else in her mouth (even if it's something we know she likes).

One of the few go-to protein items that she'll usually eat without complaint is meatballs and meatloaf.  I typically make it from ground turkey because it's relatively inexpensive and the flavor is milder and texture tends to be softer, though she'll eat beef also.  We were sending mini meatballs and slices of meatloaf into daycare with her and the teachers started asking me for the recipe.  Since I typically wing it, I had to actually measure things out and write-down a real recipe.  Here it is to share with all of you as well.

Turkey Meatballs/Meatloaf

Dark meat ground turkey is made from turkey thigh meat.  It tends to have a little more fat content and will result in a moister, meatier meatball.  This recipe makes fairly soft meatballs.

2 pounds Dark Meat Ground Turkey
3 pieces white bread, day-old is okay
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely minced
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon kosher salt

1) Heat the oven to 375 degrees.

2) Warm the milk slightly in the microwave.  Tear or crumble the bread into small pieces and soak in the warm milk until soft.  Once soft, break it up further with a fork or a whisk.

3) Add the salt, oregano, garlic, and egg to the bread mixture.  Mix well with a fork or your fingers.

4) Add the meat to the bread mixture.  Using your hands, mix all the ingredients together well without working the meat too much or it will make the meatballs tough.

For Meatballs:

1) This recipe makes very soft meatballs.  If you plan to add your meatballs to an all-day cooked tomato sauce, you may wish to add 1/2 cup or more of plain breadcrumbs to the mixture to firm it up.  Some store-bought breadcrumbs have added salt, so you may wish to omit the salt in the recipe.

2) Form each meatball no more than golf-ball size.  Place meatballs sides-touching in a baking dish.  If the mixture is soft, you won't be able to make perfectly round balls.  This is okay.  Rinse your hands with water if the meat starts to stick.

3) Bake meatballs 15-20 minutes until cooked through and starting to brown on top.  Pour off any excess liquid or grease and allow to cool slightly.  Meatballs may be frozen in a large zip-top.

For Meatloaf:

1) Pack meat gently into the bottom of a standard loaf pan.  Smooth out the top.

2) Invert the loaf pan onto a sheet-pan lined with parchment or aluminum foil.  Tap slightly to dislodge the meat if necessary.  Remove the loaf pan to reveal a perfectly-formed loaf.

3) Place the meatloaf on the sheet pan into the oven and bake until cooked through and browned.  An instant read thermometer should read 160-180 degrees.  If you like, smear the top and sides of the loaf with ketchup or red sauce partway through cooking.  This will give it a sweet crust.

All The Chicken You Can Eat

I'm always fascinated by local food traditions. Sometimes, we don't even realize something is a local tradition until we move away. Each geographical location has its own history, its own culture, and often, food traditions develop as a result of the melting of multiple cultures together.

One food tradition in Rhode Island is Chicken dinner served family style. While that may not sound all that special, "Chicken Family Style," as its known, comprises of a series of very special dishes and is served at many Rhode Island restaurants--particularly those with banquet halls. In fact, it's very common, almost expected, to be served Chicken Family Style at weddings and other family celebrations.

Here's how the meal generally goes. First, you're served a simple salad with house Italian dressing along with dinner rolls or bread and butter. Typically, the salad comes in a large bowl and is passed around the table so you can serve yourself (i.e. "Family Style"). Then, they bring out large platters of split roasted whole chicken, piping-hot french fries, and pasta with marinara sauce (shells, penne, or ziti). Again, the platters are passed and you can eat as much as you like. They'll bring more!

Some establishments, in an effort to add their personal touch to the meal, offer additional items. For example, some offer a house chicken soup during the first course. One restaurant is known for adding freshly baked cinnamon rolls to the bread basket, while another is known for offering oven-roasted rosemary potatoes as alongside the fries. In the end, it's all delicious.

It's not entirely clear where the tradition came from, but it's likely that it had to do with one particular restaurant, Wright's Farm, that even today, only serves this signature meal. The restaurant was originally a working chicken farm and the owner built a small restaurant alongside it that slowly grew to the enormous place it is today. In fact, it's even a tourist destination.

While Wright's is likely the the establishment that established Chicken Family Style as a part of Rhode Island Culture, it's likely the heavy influence of the Italians in the area that influenced the meal itself. Italians are known for being family-centric and serving their meals "family style," and it's obvious that the dishes in the meal itself are of Italian influence.

What kinds of food traditions are in your area?

Knowing Your Thanksgiving Turkey

I just had the pleasure of ordering my very first all-natural, humanly treated turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner. Instead of a frozen supermarket "self-basting" bird this year, I'll be roasting and serving two fresh birds from Whole Foods Market. The best part is that Whole Foods actually publishes the name of the farm and I can do a little research to make sure I'm getting what I'm paying for.

I've always been one of those wishy-washy cooks, bordering on "earthy crunchy" but not really ready to fork-over the money to make the big switch to all-natural, humanely treated, organic, and all that jazz. I visit my local farmer's markets and buy when I can. And I've read a lot recently about such topics, specifically Mark Bittman's Food Matters. Mark makes a great case for knowing where your food comes from and eating less meat not because it's more humane but because it's outright healthier for you (and he backs-up his arguments). Nonetheless, up until now, I still wasn't ready to make the jump. It's just too pricey.

Recently, my wife and I sat-down to watch Food, Inc. While we're still not financially prepared to go 100% organic/local/all-natural/humane/etc, that movie really lit a fire under me to start making little changes where I can. Specifically, I'm frustrated by all of the mechanization, industrialization, waste, and general all-around R&D and manufacturing processes that are involved in producing basic everyday "grown" ingredients like veggies, meat, and grains. I'd always blamed the problem on the highly-processed stuff like boxed treats, cereal, 100-calorie packs, and cookies (which I admittedly love). However, even chicken, beef, fish, pork, and plain old carrots and celery are produced in a way where we're just not eating what we think we are anymore. Everything's a manufactured and patented product. It's sad and it's sick.

Knowing we were close to Thanksgiving and that I was cooking dinner this year really got me thinking about the Turkey. I honestly couldn't bear to know that I was contributing to the breeding conditions our poultry goes through in this country:

• Something I'm going to eat spent the bulk of its short life wading knee-deep in its own poop, standing so close to its neighbor that it couldn't go anywhere.
• The birds are kept in 100% darkness for their entire lives. Fresh air is piped in.
  
• Hundreds of birds die every day just because they can't hold-up their own body weight and keel-over and get trampled by their peers.
  
• They're fed all kinds of crap their bodies just weren't made to eat (other animal parts, and human manufactured "feed") and have to be given antibiotics because they're standing around in said poop all day.
• Some poor farmer in the middle of America's heartland is breaking his own moral code, losing money, and following "big business's" nasty farming practices because he really has nobody else to buy his product.
• Our tax dollars pay to heavily subsidize our food because it costs more to grow it than we're willing to pay for it. Talk about silly, wasteful, circular logic.
  

All of PETA's cruelty arguments aside, that's just not right. Actually, it's outright gross and disgusting. Who wants to eat anything produced under these conditions?

That's when I started exploring other options. Honestly, I'd prefer to purchase my bird locally, but it'd take a ton of phone calls to track-down a local producer that: a) Still has bird reservations this late in the season; b) Uses "free-range" growing practices; and c) Has a price I can afford. Unfortunately, there's just no central place for that info and I don't have the time or energy to call around, then drive across the state on Wednesday to pick-up my bird on some farm. I'd love to, but it's just not practical.

The option I turned to is Whole Foods. Granted, Whole Foods is a giant of its own and my food's going to travel far to get to me (from Pennsylvania, to be exact), but at least I know where it came from and know how it was *not* treated. And, because they carry the buying power of the "big guys," Whole Foods can bring such a bird to me at a cost that's 50-60% more than the mega-mart instead of quadruple the price. Being unemployed, that's a big thing for me right now.

I highly recommend everyone see Food, Inc. and take just one step to make a change. Get yourself a local or humanely treated natural bird this holiday season. One step may not seem like it's helping much, but it does. In the end, when sales drop, 'ole Butterball will get the message and start taking better care of its gobblers and we'll be all the happier for it while snoozing away in that tryptophan-induced nap after Thanksgiving dinner.