Polenta & Meatballs

Nope, not spaghetti and meatballs! I had never tackled polenta, but my grandma makes it often and Nick really likes it so I thought tonight I would give it a shot. My grandma serves hers a million different ways - with sauce, with bacon and sausage, cut and fried, etc. I decided for my first attempt I would go the easy route and just make it mushy with meatballs and sauce. It turned out great! I think next time I am going to try baking it with some sort of meat and vegetables... stay tuned!


To make the polenta, I followed the directions on the back of the Quaker Corn Meal canister:

4 cups water
1 cup corn meal
1 tsp. salt

Boil 3 cups of the water (I added chicken bouillon here to create a chicken broth). In a separate bowl mix 1 cup of water, corn meal and salt. Slowly add corn meal mixture to the boiling water, stirring constantly. Once the mixture begins to thicken, turn the heat to low, cover and let cook for 5 minutes.

Nick's Grade: A!

~Below are recipes for my meatballs and sauce~


Chelle's Meatball Recipe

1 lb. ground beef
1 egg
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup Italian breadcrumbs
1/2 cup grated Romano cheese
1/4 cup milk
1 slice bread
1 tsp. dried parsley
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. garlic powder

Soak the slice of bread in the milk until mushy and falling apart. Shred the bread and add milk and shredded bread to remaining ingredients. Mix thoroughly and form into balls. I usually get approximately 20 meatballs out of this recipe.

Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 40 minutes or until cooked through.

If I am also making sauce, I will slightly under cook them and then add them to my sauce to finish cooking in there.

My sauce recipe can be found here.