Turkey Portobello Meatballs with Sundried Tomato Vodka Sauce

Let me start this post of by saying I’m going to overload you with recipes: 1. Creamy Dreamy Mashed Potatoes 2. Lean turkey Portobello meatballs and 3. Sun dried Tomato Vodka Sauce. I can’t share one without the other. .eh?

Exploring my freezer last night and decided it was time to bust out the rest of the ground turkey. We recently ate a new restaurant in town, Mimi Blue, a restaurant specializing in meatballs, which somewhat inspired tonight’s meal. I was originally just going to make a turkey burger for my post-workout meal, but it was so late in the afternoon that I decided to go ahead and make a full dinner. These meatballs took a little while to make, especially since I browned them in the skillet before baking them. However, they fed four people with plenty left over for high protein snacks for the week and even a few to freeze. (The batch made approximately 27 meatballs).

I decided to put the meatballs over veggie spaghetti to cut down on the carbs of the meal. . . but went ahead and made some garlic mashed potate-ahs for the boyfriend. I mean, you can’t expect the guy to eat low-fat meatballs with whole, good-for you veggies and that’s it, right? I topped these meatballs with an ultra tangy sun-dried tomato and vodka sauce, but you could of course use pre-made sauce or jarred sauce. Below I’ve listed the recipe for the meatballs, my AMAZING creamy mashed po-tates and the sun-dried tomato vodka sauce.

Let’s start with my veggie noodles. Ultra simple, but there is a bit of a learning curve with this Veggetti contraption. Looks simple, makes you feel like an idiot.  It works, but I feel like there’s some trick to it that I don’t know about? Maybe it just takes a little practice, but these 3 “noodle nests” in the photo took me about 30 minutes. Next time I might just eat the meatballs plain. That’s how impatient I am. If anyone has any good tips on how to better use the Veggetti, please share! If you’re interested in buying one, you can get one by clicking the following link (Veggetti on Amazon, $12.98).    I’d be willing to try another brand if anyone has suggestions or tips!

Behold the Veggetti:

I might want to add, while I’m pretty active in the gym, I don’t recommend doing wrist curls the same day as using your Veggetti. (Wait, who even does wrist curls?!?)

Veggie Noodle Nests

Spiral or shred your desired veggies. Make your veggie nests. I used one small squash, or one small zucchini for each noodle nest.  I found that the squash and zucchini spiraled much easier than the carrot, which I gave up on after the first noodle nest.

Lay out on a pan lined with aluminum foil, and lightly spray with cooking spray, I used olive oil. Season with desired spices, (I used garlic salt, pepper and Italian seasoning) Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. I suppose you could eat the carrots raw, or use them for a “carrot salad”, but I wanted to cook the squash and zucchini just enough cook out a tiny bit of the moisture and cook it just a bit- I like my veggies aldente!

Next, we’re gonna move on the the po-tates.

We all have a favorite mashed potato recipe, no? Growing up it was my favorite side dish at Grandma’s and it’s stuck with me. (If you don’t like mashed potatoes, we can’t even be friends.) So, while I’ve never really used a recipe for mashed potatoes, I always ended up making them the same, so tonight I wrote down my go-to recipe for a NO FAIL mashed po-tate. It wont disappoint-I promise. Here it is:

Creamy Dreamy Mashed Po-tates

• 2.5 lbs of boiled Red Potatoes, leave the skins on and cube ’em
• 1 stick salted butter
• 1 cup sour cream
• 3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 2 HEAPING tablespoons of minced garlic
• Lotsa salt ‘n  peppa

Directions: Plop all ingredients into your kitchen aid mixer and turn it out. Wait 3 minutes. Lick the spoon.  YOU DONE- BOOM!

It’s time for the MEAT-AH BOLLS!

Ingredients:

• 30 oz lean, ground turkey (1 1/2 packages)
• 4 oz baby Portobellos, diced (1/2 package)
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 1/4 c minced cilantro
• 1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
• 2 HEAPING Tbsp minced garlic
• 1 whole egg
• 2 egg whites
• 1 Tbsp dijon mustard
• 1 Tbsp Worcester
• 1  1/2 c bread crumbs OR Bob’s Redmill Textured Vegetable Protein (Link takes you to Amazon, but I got mine at Meijer). (ground fine in a food processor) if you wanna beast up and eat these meatball as a post workout! (I like to just add a little mustard and that’s it!) For today’s recipe, I used half bread crumbs and half TVP- no one could tell the difference and I didn’t tell them!)

Mix all ingredients.  Use a large ice cream scoop to scoop up the mixture- and divide each scoop into two portions. Roll into balls. Place in a hot skilled to brown with a teensy bit of EVOO. Do this with all meatballs, and once browned place on a foil lined pan. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Now to top your balls with the Sun dried tomato and vodka sauce:

This sauce is super tangy so if you want to tone it down, add some heavy cream)

• 2 oz, or about 1/2 a package sun dried tomatoes. Today I used “Bella Sun Luci”  brand from Mooney Farms, 3/$5 at Meijer.
• 2 Tbsp salted butter
• juice from 1 large lemon
• 1 cup water
• 3 tbsp vodka, plus 1 extra shot to drink right now. Hell- you’ve worked hard making this meal, you deserve it!
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic (I know, I know. . .I use a lot, so what?)

Saute them sun dried tomaters in the butter. Add garlic and vodka. Let it cook down just a bit. Add lemon and water. Let simmer. Blend in food processor and serve over yer balls.

As I mentioned earlier, this recipe makes about 27-30 balls depending on how big the cup of your hands is. (My friend Amanda would appreciate all my ball talk.) I packed my Papa lunch for tomorrow and even snuck the pooch one when they were hot out to oven. No complaints here- let me know what ya’ll think!

outie 5000. Kels.