Easy Cheesy Meat Balls and Garlic Herb Bread (Machine)

Yum, meat balls! At our house a favorite meal is meatball subs on crusty toasted french bread, topped with cheese. To save money I started making them at home and found they tasted even better when you can add exactly what you like.

We love cheese, especially Parmesan so one day I experimented to see if I could put the cheese inside the meatballs, and this recipe is the result.

Easy Cheesy Meatballs

INGREDIENTS:

1.5 pounds ground meat
2 cups bread crumbs
1 cup Parmesan cheese
1 onion, chopped fine
3 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup tomato paste
1 dash Worcestershire sauce
1 T garlic powder (or more!)
Oregano and Marjoram to taste

INSTRUCTIONS:

Pre heat oven to 350. Combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly. Form into small balls and bake for 20 minutes or until thoroughly done.

TIPS:

Note: These meatballs tend to be soft, and are most suitable for use in sandwiches and atop pasta, rather than boiling in soups or sauces. They will not hold up to rough handling or boiling.

They are also soft and moist enough that you don't need to use sauce unless you want to. Experiment with different types of meat (ground turkey is a good substitute).

We like to serve them on our home made garlic bread (recipe below)

INSPIRATION:

I admit it, we're obsessed with garlic. One of the best flavors you can add to food, we created this Garlic Herb bread to celebrate the raw earthy goodness of fresh bread.

This bread is very herb-ful and inspired by some of the amazing European bread we've tried on our travels. Imagine the crusty bread you may have tried at an Italian restaurant, dipped in herb laced olive oil. Only in this bread the herbs are on the inside.

Garlic Herb Bread (Machine)

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup water

3 tablespoons oil

2 teaspoons white sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon basil

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 1/2 cups bread flour

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

INSTRUCTIONS:
Place ingredients in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select white bread cycle; press Start.

TIPS:
If you're not used to speckled bread with a rich herb flavor, we suggest that you reduce the amount of herbs until you've found a blend you like. But beware! This bread disappears so fast that we had to buy a second bread machine just to make sure we had enough for supper!