Meatballs!

This came in my Christmas stocking from "Santa":

Actually there were two of them... the other one was bigger. Know what it is? It's a meatball scoop! (It could also be used for melon balls, etc.) Anybody out there love making meatballs with your hands? Y'know... scooping up that sticky mixture and shaping all those little balls? Not me. That's why I didn't make meatballs very often. That's why I was happy to find these tools in my stocking!

I gave them a try last week. Forgive me for the not-so-great photos. I was in a hurry... running late with supper, as usual. Anyway, here's my mixture, all ready to be made into balls:

Below are the first couple of balls:

They came out nicely, although I did have to scrape excess meat off the seam and the hole where the extra squished out. I started using a spatula for that, but being in a hurry, I ended up using my other hand instead. BUT, I still had only one hand sticky (or rather, just my fingers)! And using the tool was MUCH faster than shaping all those balls by hand!

Not a very pretty pan, is it? But if you consider it's been used for a bzillion things over the last 40 years, it's not so bad, is it? It's dark Teflon to begin with, so not quite as burnt as it may appear.

Yes, I baked them. I don't like frying meatballs. Actually, I don't like frying much of anything. Or maybe it's more the fact that I don't like cleaning up the grease splatters afterwards. Yeah, that's it. I DO like eating fried stuff, though. :-)

Here they are, all done:

I'd added a little Italian seasoning to my regular recipe, and then put them into spaghetti sauce. We had yummy spaghetti and meatballs, which Grandpa (and I) heartily approved. I will definitely be doing this again! Bigger meatballs will be fun, too.

Thanks, "Santa"! You know who you are.