Keftedes -- fun name for meat balls

So my husband and partner in dinner was talking longingly about meat balls -- which he does about twice a year. Mostly it's only an exercise because in this house, Italian sausage is the staple with spaghetti (due to the dictatorial power that I wield as cook).

But this is the year of cooking randomly, so why not indulge his craving, after all these years?


I turned to the cook book shelf and became intrigued with

WW's take on Greek meatballs (Keftede).

Yes, this book is on my shelf! It is a 2006 edition. How many recipes have I made from it? Come to think of it, this book is more frequently used than any others that have made it into the blog so far. There are good recipes for veggie risotto in here, and a good banana-date bread.

But Greet meatballs are new to me, and so we begin the adventure. 

First surprise: No garlic.

We all know when it comes to garlic, it's best to take matters into your own hands. Even so, I decided to stay true to the instructions and see where they would lead me.

Ground pork, onion+parsley, ground eggplant, and beef

2nd surprise: Eggplant. The recipe calls for about 1 cup, finely diced, which sent me straight to the food processor. In fact I doubled the recipe because the smallest egg plant I could find yielded 2 cups ground. (And because with two big guys in the house, I was fairly confident the meat dish would be a hit.)

I also employed the great eggplant tip that I learned from the ex-Frugal Gourmet:  If you salt eggplant and allow it to rest while you prepare your other ingredients (about 1/2 hour) it removes some bitterness. Not that I ever found it bitter but who wants to take a chance?

Next into the food processor went the onion, bread crumbs, parsley, oregano and --

3rd surprise: cinnamon, and allspice. (Instead of garlic.)

By this time I had lavished a lot of attention on the vegetables and I was a little bit in love with how they looked ground up, so they got a photo-op with the main event (ground pork and ground beef), along with egg to hold the meat balls together.

4th surprise: You can see in the above photo, there is as much vegetable in these meatballs as there is meat. That may be the influence of Weight Watchers.

Next, all those pretty ingredients go into the same bowl and you squish them together. Then you get to form them into little 2 inch balls or at least blobs.

<----fry them up



Add diced tomatoes
------------------------>









And you've got supper. 

I didn't miss the garlic. Everyone in the family liked the meatballs and nobody, not even the person who put in all the eggplant, could detect that it was there. But the recipe doesn't mention salt and pepper, and I advise you to add more than you think you need.  Scroll down for the recipe.