Recipe: Meatballs with Sneaky Veggies

I made this as part of my massive freezer cooking excursion, but they were so delicious and such a good idea that I made them again over the weekend.  Please excuse the poor picture quality...anyone want to buy me an iPhone 5? :)

STEP 1: Ingredients
You will need:

I made a double recipe, so the items pictured are twice what you will need

• 1 lb ground beef, thawed (the leaner the better)
• cauliflower
• carrot
• celery (or cell-er-ee, for Lindsey :)
• for these veggies, you want approx. 1/2 c of each when blended, so eyeball it
• 1 slice whole wheat bread
• 2 egg whites
• fresh parsley

STEP 2: Mix, mix, mix!
Place the veggies and bread in a food processor.  You can really use any veggies you want.  You can see from the picture here that I used green pepper.  I didn't have any celery on hand, so I just used what I had on hand.  You could also use frozen veggies, but if you do, be sure to thaw completely before mixing.

And blend until fine and well-mixed.

Add ground beef and mix by hand...if you can bear to touch it.  I made myself, even though every grain of myself squirmed.  I suppose I could have put it in my Kitchen-aid and used the paddle attachment, but I didn't think of that until now.  And even if I had, you have to touch it in the next step anyway, so I don't know that it really matters...

Add parsley and egg whites and continue to mix until everything looks evenly distributed and there aren't big pockets of veggies or meat.

STEP THREE: Roll
Roll the mixture into balls.  If needed, put some olive oil on your fingers to help shape. Place in a muffin tin or on a cookie sheet THAT HAS AN EDGE!  (The first time I made these I put some on a edge-less pan and then had to find a pan big enough to place under it in case grease dripped down onto the heating unit, which would have caused a fire.  So...don't do that.)

STEP FOUR: Bake
Place in an oven heated to 400 degrees.  Bake for 20 minutes or so, or until meatballs are browned.  Remove from pan and cool on wire racks to get rid of any extra grease.  (Though the leaner your meat, the less grease you should have.)

I didn't take a picture of these with the veggie or whole-wheat pasta and sauce I would serve because they went straight into a bag and to the freezer.  But the first time I made them I fed them to my children.  My 1-year-old will eat anything you give her, so she gobbled these up.  The real test was going to be my uber-picky almost-4-year-old.  I chopped them up and mixed them in with his pasta and sauce...and he ate almost half of it.

Success, in my book.