Ground Beef Meatballs

Meatballs are becoming a staple at my house for several reasons.  The kids will always eat something made with ground beef and we generally have a lot of it stored in the freezer since we purchase beef as part of a cow share about once a year.  It gives me another way to use all the delicious tomato sauce I make in the fall with the tomatoes from our garden.  And I like that the healthy fats released during cooking can be stirred into the tomato sauce and aren’t wasted.

I prefer to use leftover rice or quinoa as a filler rather than those highly processed bread crumbs that come in a can.  If I’m in a pinch and don’t have a whole grain to use, I will put a piece of bread in the blender to make my own bread crumbs.  If you are eating GAPS, Paleo, or are otherwise totally grain-free right now, you can skip the filler all together.

And while I would prefer to use real chopped onion in the meatballs, they can interfere with the texture of the meatball and the kids notice them, so I use the onion powder.  But I can get away with finely shredded carrots or zucchini going unnoticed by the kids, which I like because I’m always scheming to making our foods as nutrient dense as possible.